{"id":592,"date":"2013-09-26T10:57:55","date_gmt":"2013-09-26T15:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/Insights\/?p=592"},"modified":"2013-09-27T08:53:55","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T13:53:55","slug":"charting-our-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/charting-our-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Charting Our Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"_DX34819\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the last few weeks, we have had extensive conversations across campus and in the community about a draft document called \u201cCharting the Future\u201d that was developed in response to questions posed by MNSCU Chancellor Steven Rosenstone. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s encouraging to see how engaged our faculty, staff, and students have been with the draft. In addition to three open forums, I visited the Student Senate and will visit the Faculty Senate to discuss the document, and there have been many other conversations both formal and informal. My impression is that Winona State University offered more opportunities for campus-wide conversation and feedback than other MNSCU institutions, and I\u2019m proud of the serious, thoughtful, and insightful response. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a sampling of what I heard at the forums. There are too many ideas to list them all, but this should give you a flavor of the feedback. <\/p>\n

There was considerable concern about the first priority, which relates to coordinated academic planning. The chief concern is that this will lead to more centralization, more bureaucratization, and a loss of campus control. While the draft document does not call for a larger system office, it is easy to see how it could be interpreted as calling for a centralized solution to planning given its ambiguity on this point. A second draft will need to clarify this. <\/p>\n

Other concerns with the first priority included worries about:
\n\u2022\tStudents with different learning needs being served appropriately;
\n\u2022\tThe mandated closure of programs;
\n\u2022\tThe loss of control over our own academic programming and therefore losing our distinctiveness;
\n\u2022\tThe loss of local support if we lose local control;
\n\u2022\tReadiness for college; and
\n\u2022\t\u201cMetrocentric\u201d thinking, among other concerns.<\/p>\n

Another comment that came out in the context of Priority 1 was that \u201cCharting the Future\u201d does not differentiate its recommendations by the type or mission of each institution. The needs of universities are different from the needs of colleges, for example, and the needs of the metropolitan area are different from the needs of outstate Minnesota. This criticism is not limited to Priority 1, but it especially comes across there.<\/p>\n

Priority 2 relates to competency-based education, and probably required the greatest explanation before a discussion could ensue. This priority was an attempt to respond to the needs of veterans whose military experience is not properly credited and other non-traditional students who may have learned things along the way. It was also an attempt to respond to the very real threat our workgroup perceived at the time regarding the quality of MOOCs. Concerns I heard at WSU include:
\n\u2022\tThe dangers of standardization;
\n\u2022\tThe risk of losing social skills and other serendipities that come from being in a classroom;
\n\u2022\tThe need to avoid a \u201cNo Child Left Behind\u201d approach;
\n\u2022\tThe lack of employer representation on the workgroups;
\n\u2022\tThe variability of support for things like credit for prior learning;
\n\u2022\tThe possible loss of revenue to WSU if credit is awarded for things other than course-taking; and
\n\u2022\tThe need for ensuring that the competencies are linked to learning and to the needs of graduate schools and employers.<\/p>\n

While there is generally support for the notion of access and diversity (Priority 3), there is concern that affordability is not addressed more specifically, and many feel that access and affordability should be the top priority. Yesterday, the WSU Student Senate passed a resolution calling for affordability to be the top priority. The use of the word \u201caccelerate\u201d in this priority should not be seen as diluting or diminishing academic quality. Many folks indicated that WSU needs to take this seriously and diversify our own faculty, staff, and student body. Some expressed the need for benchmarks and goals. There was concern that while flexible scheduling may help students, it also affects the lives of employees, including a \u201csecond shift\u201d faculty, meaning that some members of the faculty fear that they will be compelled to teach evenings and weekends. Some felt that the focus on access needed to be broadened to all students, and others felt that the term \u201cdiversity\u201d needs to be better-defined. <\/p>\n

Having an e-education strategy is the gist of Priority 4. Among the concerns I heard are:
\n\u2022\tWhether more emphasis on online learning could negatively affect persistence, retention, and completion;
\n\u2022\tWhether online learning is effective;
\n\u2022\tWhether flexible scheduling is counter-productive;
\n\u2022\tWhether we would need to have the right IT staff and infrastructure to do this; and
\n\u2022\tWhether online privacy, security, and identity can be assured, among other concerns.<\/p>\n

The fifth priority relates to continuing education and customized training, a category of work far more significant at community and technical colleges than at universities, but still something we participate in through OCED. Many WSU employees see value in professional development and CEUs for those working in professions we teach, but I heard questions about how or why this would need to be coordinated across campuses, and whether this priority even applied to universities. <\/p>\n

Priority 6 proved to be extremely controversial because it relates to how the system is organized. There was considerable concern that this priority was intended to limit the power of the bargaining units, compel sharing of services, force us away from using local vendors, consolidate and merge campuses, and disrupt how the allocations are given to the campuses. There was concern about disrupting the financial model and whether WSU might lose distinctiveness in a realigned model. As with some of the other priorities, there was concern that these issues were more applicable or more beneficial to the two-year colleges. <\/p>\n

At the open forums I also posed the question: \u201cwhat\u2019s missing here that should be included?\u201d Several ideas came forward. I already mentioned affordability, but other ideas that forum participants found missing included:
\n1.\tImproving transfer;
\n2.\tStrengthening graduate education;
\n3.\tMore focus on the liberal arts;
\n4.\tMore focus on professional programs;
\n5.\tMore focus on quality;
\n6.\tThe need for more input from external constituents such as community and business leaders;
\n7.\tWhether the work groups included the right folks to answer the questions that were posed;
\n8.\tAddressing the recent drop in enrollment system-wide; and
\n9.\tWhether there was enough focus (or any focus) on student learning.<\/p>\n

One more great idea I heard is that this document needs to connect these ideas to what is actually planned on each campus. Our vision at WSU includes, for example, maintaining the highest quality educational experience while adding an Education Village, a new neuroscience lab, enhanced campus beauty, and being a national leader in technology, sustainability, and engagement in the community. Shouldn\u2019t the document reflect these priorities and how they relate to system priorities? <\/p>\n

I will ensure that all these comments and concerns are communicated to the workgroups and to the Chancellor. In fact, I have already begun sharing them. I cannot guarantee that every idea mentioned here will appear in the final document, but I promise that all these ideas will be heard. If you did not have a chance to participate in these conversations, it\u2019s not too late to have your voice heard through your bargaining unit or through this website: http:\/\/www.minnstate.edu\/strategicworkgroups\/feedback.html <\/p>\n

For me, the ultimate test of \u201cCharting the Future\u201d is whether it supports Winona State University\u2019s excellence, distinctiveness, and affordability. To the extent that any initiative within it supports WSU, then I\u2019m for it; to the extent that any initiative within it limits or interferes with WSU, then I\u2019m against it. Charting Winona State\u2019s future comes first, and we will chart it together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last few weeks, we have had extensive conversations across campus and in the community about a draft document called \u201cCharting the Future\u201d that was developed in response to questions posed by MNSCU Chancellor Steven Rosenstone. It\u2019s encouraging to see how engaged our faculty, staff, and students have been with the draft. In addition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insights"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.winona.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}