Carleton Virtual Breakfast Club
“I work overnights at the Mankato Mayo Clinic.
I took today’s exam right after finishing last night’s shift.”
a discussion with Keenan Hartert ’13
Thursday, August 14, 2025
10 a.m. Central Time
via Zoom
Keenan Hartert ’13 is a biology professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Inspired to teach after Carleton, he noticed that despite their best efforts, some of his students were not meeting their goals. A cancer bioinformatics researcher, Hartert began collecting data on his students with the aim of uncovering factors predictive of success and failure. One factor stood out in particular: the number of hours they were working.
As the Star Tribune recently noted, Hartert’s work highlighted that “just get a job” wouldn’t help the 39% of his students who were already working more than 20 hours per week.
Join Keenan as he describes his journey from Hulings Hall to MSU and how he is repurposing his research training to explore the link between too much work and failing grades. He will also discuss how the sands are shifting in education and what we can do next.