Minnesota State Colleges and Universities

Annual Work Plan for 2005-2006

Actions for Third Quarter: January 2006 to March 2006

April 19, 2006

Good afternoon Board of Trustees, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system colleagues and friends.

I hope you have seen some of the art work that now is exhibited in the system office. The display areas have been enhanced immeasurably, thanks to the rich talent of some of our own faculty and students. The art is on loan for a year and will be rotated annually.

It is always important to acknowledge the work of our faculty and staff. Among them is a group of athletic coaches who guide our student athletes. This year, the Winona State University men's basketball team with mentor/coach Mike Leaf captured the NCAA Division II championship. Congratulations to the Winona State Warriors, Coach Leaf and his staff, and President Judith Ramaley.

With Winona in mind, the university community also is congratulated for a fine inaugural event on April 7. Private resources supported the events that recognized President Ramaley in this traditionally academic way. The inauguration was a wonderful tribute to the relationship that the university has with the community, as well. Trustee Cheryl Dickson delivered the oath of office on behalf of this board.

Today, the staff and I bring you the third quarterly review for the system's current work plan. It reflects our attention to the plan from the beginning of the calendar year through March.

Focus Area 1: Revenue

Develop a sustainable financial model that will allow the system to meet the educational needs of the state, maintain quality and accessibility and advance the system's strategic directions.
A final presentation was made to the Board of Trustees in January 2006. At that time, the work group conveyed its finding that there was no new revenue source that met the evaluative criteria established at the beginning of the project and presented itself as a viable alternative to the funding method currently used to finance Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. While the Board accepted that conclusion, it did not foreclose future examination of other potential funding sources that may be identified. Consequently, at this time, there is no policy recommendation on an alternative revenue model for incorporation into the FY 2008-2009 budget request.
Begin to implement strategies to expand support from the Legislature, corporations and business, foundations and citizen groups.
In support of the current Minnesota State Colleges and Universities work plan, several goals were identified to develop more fully a system-level major gifts and grants program. At least 20 visits were planned to corporate and foundation leaders seeking input into the system's strategic plan. All 20 visits have been completed or scheduled, and the results are quite promising. Each visit has resulted in extended opportunities to work together on projects and/or possible future grant opportunities. We are working with six colleges/universities to create solicitation strategies for $100,000-plus individual donor prospects in partnership with the institution, using the chancellor and campus president where appropriate.

We continue to build relationships with the assistance of foundation board members, Trustees and others. To date, the most active work continues with BlueCross BlueShield, Grotto Foundation and Blandin Foundation. We have initiated a corporate and foundation relations program and hired Maria McLemore Sklar as director of corporate and foundation relations. Our goal was to develop and submit eight grant proposals to support system level, college and university initiatives. To date, two proposals have been submitted, two are in progress, and others are pending.

The establishment of standard accounting principles and practices for use by all foundations in counting private donations and pledges must still be done. However, we have made the move from a system-generated means for the Gifts and Grants report to a national measurement tool for FY2006 reporting. We also have created a Web presence for the Foundation that includes information on how to make a gift, links to campus foundations and information on available funds. The initial roll-out was completed in December 2005, and will be live this month.

In addition, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Foundation has been active in its work to add value to the campuses. Along with campus visits, 13 to date, to promote joint investment opportunities, we have been working with campus development officers to design a board development opportunity for their foundation boards.

Finally, at this time last year, the Foundation had raised $52,989. This year, we have reached $245,432, an increase of $192,443.

We continue to tell our story and be vigorous advocates with external audiences:

A number of new or updated publications and Web sites promoting system products and services are available, including a Web site for the system's new Teacher Center and a post card promoting it; a bookmark for the Career and Technical Education program; notecards featuring a pen-and-ink drawing of the system's Wells Fargo Place entrance; and a new brochure promoting transfer.
Representing the system, the chancellor spoke to a number of audiences that included business and opinion leaders and legislators, among them, The Collaborative's Changemakers' event as a panelist, the Phi Theta Kappa awards luncheon, to which a number of area legislators were invited, and the Woodbury Lions Club.
The Public Affairs area conducted its annual consultation with high school and workforce center counselors on the "Go Places" publication, seeking input on how it can be improved and understanding how counselors use it. A two-week photo shoot is in progress to update photographs for "Go Places" and other system publications.
We began production of a new television advertisement series to enhance visibility and awareness of the system's contributions to the state of Minnesota among business and opinion leaders. The "Amazing Facts" print ad alumni series has been continued in Minnesota Monthly and Twin Cities Business Journal, and a new bioscience ad was created for Twin Cities Business Monthly in February. A new round of radio sponsorships on Minnesota Public Radio has begun, building on the success of last year's sponsorships. The ads run on stations 89.3 and 91.1 in the Twin Cities and on affiliate stations throughout the state and on the station's streaming video.
This year's legislative session continues to be very demanding. Last month, we reported on the bonding presentations for our request of $280.4 million, and we learned that the Senate recommended $223 million in funding. Since then, the House bill has come out, and it includes $187.7 million for our system's bonding projects. These figures are well above the Governor's recommendation of $142.6 million. The legislature returned to work this week, and we expect conference committee members to be announced soon. We are confident that our bonding requests are well positioned.
Our supplemental request had originally received support for technology infrastructure and global education in the Senate Higher Education Omnibus Bill, but the funds never made it into the full supplemental bill voted out of the Senate Finance Committee last night. The House bill, which does not include funding for the supplemental request, will be heard in Ways and Means today.
Several issues have arisen during session to which we have been responsive. Dr. Susanne Williams from Minnesota State University Moorhead offered compelling testimony related to alcohol abuse. Dr. Steve Frantz of the office's student affairs area provided commendable information on his work promoting educational services for our returning veterans.

Of considerable concern at this time is an amendment that passed on the House floor last week and was subsequently included in the House State Government Finance bill that was tabled yesterday. This amendment would limit the number of persons employed on the staff in the Office of the Chancellor to the number in place on the effective date, should this provision be included in the conference committee report. Our government relations team will, of course, work to educate our legislative members as to how such a provision would restrict the Board of Trustees' ability to drive change, especially as we build our technology infrastructure and capacity. This proposed limitation demonstrates that while we have come a long way in the ten-year history of our merger, we still have work to do to inform the Minnesota legislature about how our colleges and universities work together as a system to serve Minnesota.

On the federal level, Congressional members were contacted to mitigate some of the language in the House reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Issues remain, including the single-definition for higher education institutions, but it is uncertain whether or not this reauthorization will be completed this year.

We have engaged in several activities to advance our state and federal budget requests:

The "HEAPRman" video was broadcast on Twin Cities Public Television promoting the system's bonding request and its top priority, $110 million for repair and replacement projects throughout the system.
A one-page handout summarizing the system's supplemental budget request for distribution to legislators and legislative staff members was prepared.
One-page handouts on each of the system's 22 federal appropriation requests were used by Trustees and Office of the Chancellor staff for visits to members of the Minnesota congressional delegation and their staff.
Two op-ed pieces, one on the need for math and science education in the Business Journal and the other supporting the findings of the "Mind the Gap" report and urging business to support higher education were placed in the Pioneer Press.
An update of the Economic Impact Study of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system will be used in preparing and planning for the 2007 biennial budget session and in a new publication highlighting state universities.
Several stories were promoted to news media that ran as news or feature stories in the Pioneer Press, Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio and Business Journal. These included a profile in the Star Tribune of a Normandale Community College student who had four jobs while attending school full-time and maintaining a 4- point GPA; a feature on Minnesota Public Radio on the Dakota County Technical College railroad conductor program; and a story in the Pioneer Press about Post- Secondary Enrollment Options courses offered in high schools.

Focus Area 2: Productivity

Examine goals, objectives and strategies to assure better management of expenses and increased productivity
The Human Resources Committee of the Leadership Council will provide its final report on the goal as information in the May board materials. The report will note productivity tools already in place before the Board articulated this focus area; cite those new steps taken to address areas of concern which the Board identified at its study session in February 2005; and will recommend future actions for incorporating productivity efforts into the system's performance evaluation processes and sharing best practices in this area.
Make significant progress to create a system in which students can easily move from one institution to another without encountering financial or organizational barriers
The Information Technology Services (ITS) division has continued a number of efforts to build the technology base for improvement of seamless delivery.

During this quarter, hardware migrations to new platforms were completed to provide both D2L and ISRS users with improved capacity. Growth in numbers of users and functions in both systems resulted in significant contention for available resources in the fall semester. Following the implementation of the new systems, both ISRS and D2L had ample capacity to support a spring start.

The movement of the Central Region institutions to the new hardware platform in February also was the culmination of a six-month process to consolidate regional centers. Four regional computer systems were consolidated into one, resulting in a more efficient and standardized operation. The new consolidated center is located at the University of Minnesota in the West Bank Office Building.

We are engaged in a process to leverage cooperative purchasing of hardware, including personal and laptop computers, a convertible tablet and monitors. The negotiated savings will be between 6 percent and 44 percent off existing contract prices. Through the setting of statewide standards and aggregation-based pricing, Minnesota will see immediate and significant dollar savings in purchasing activity, as well as savings in the state's total cost of ownership through simplified technical support and purchasing processes. This accomplishment follows an effort in which teams from state agencies, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and K-12 educational entities worked together to develop and negotiate enterprise-class technical specifications and service requirements in creation of the Minnesota standards. The team conducted research across the Minnesota public sector to understand buying patterns and then negotiated with current IT commodity vendors and value-added resellers for new lower pricing and higher performance capabilities based on volume discounts.

Working with a Project Advisory Committee composed of campus leadership and vice chancellors, a recommended Enterprise Information Technology Investment Strategic Plan has been presented to the Technology Committee of the board. Development of the recommendations was assisted by the In-Sight Consulting firm with Leadership Council involvement. The process included extensive campus input via five regional open forums facilitated by campus administrators serving on the IT System Development Steering Committee.

Strategic goals identified as the starting point in the planning follow:

"Best in class" educational support services;
Integrated, seamless core administrative services;
Strong, flexible statewide technology backbone;
High levels of system availability, data security and user support;
Accelerate enhancement, expansion and integration of enterprise systems; and

Improve ITS and system-wide efficiency in the use of available IT resources.

To achieve these goals, resources needed to stabilize the enterprise, improve the organization, and support innovation were defined. Comparative data from other systems was assessed as a part of the analysis, and the process culminated in a set of recommended work plan goals. The report and recommendations were presented to the Board of Trustees in March. Discussion continued this month and resulted in making a recommendation to the board today for the plan's adoption.

The Student/Faculty/Administrator Survey process is nearly complete. Culminating a full year effort, ITS is completing the analysis and distribution of the results of a systemwide technology assessment. The assessment began last spring with release of customized online survey instruments to students, and continued through the fall with online surveys for academic and administrative staff. The release and administration of the survey process was done with support from the Organizational Effectiveness Research Group at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Over 50,000 surveys were released, resulting in responses from nearly 9,000 students and employees as follows:

Survey Component	Surveys Released	Respondents
Student	40,471	5,074
Faculty	8,556	1,644
Leadership	378	202
Campus CIOs	45	30
IT Employees	562	314
Academic and Administrative Staff	6,419	1,714

(The student survey was conducted between April 19 and May 18, 2005; the faculty survey took place between January 19 and February 17, 2006; and the four other surveys took place in December 2005.)

Although analysis and presentation work continue, the results show an overall systemwide information technology satisfaction rate in excess of 75 percent, with only an overall 6 percent dissatisfaction rate. System-wide reports have been created for the six survey components. Local reports are being sent to colleges and universities for all components where responses were received in sufficient number to prevent identification of the respondents. The series of surveys was sponsored by the System Technology Strategy Council and the Vice Chancellor for Information Technology. The results were presented to the System Technology Strategy Council in March. They will be used for technology planning and college and university planning purposes.

After an intensive, nationwide search, we have brought Alfred Essa to serve as an Associate Vice Chancellor in Information Technology. He replaces Dr. John O'Brien, who left the office in June to serve at Century College as Vice President for Academic Affairs. Prior to accepting the position, Mr. Essa was the Executive Director of LRN, a national open source collaborative. He comes to the office with extensive experience in administrative positions at MIT and Yale University, among others. He also has been on the faculty at Yale and Austin College and is an active national speaker and contributor to the higher education technology environment.

Focus Area 3: Centers of Excellence

We continue to work with and shape the four Centers of Excellence selected by the Board of Trustees in October 2005:

Minnesota Consortium for Manufacturing and Applied Engineering Lead University: Bemidji State University
Center for Strategic Information Systems and Security Lead University: Metropolitan State University
Minnesota Center for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence Lead University: Minnesota State University, Mankato
Center for Integrated Health Science Education and Practice Lead University: Winona State University
The centers have made significant headway since the second quarter report. Each is in the midst of hiring an executive director and other positions to address marketing, administration, K-12 connections and faculty support. They are taking varying approaches to governance based upon the unique strengths and goals present.

In all cases, industry and institutional leaders have been convened to provide overall direction. However, inter-institutional teams have varied in the structure and use of faculty councils, focused project teams, staff design teams, and program discipline groups.

The Centers of Excellence have created innovative ways of connecting the multiple institutions, K-12 and industry organizations to advance operational issues. This includes the use of collaborative work spaces and other technology to connect project teams and advisory groups. Some of the centers have invested in equipment needs at partnering institutions through formal requests for proposals and other allocation strategies. The centers also have taken part in activities to enhance sustainability and leverage resources. The Centers of Excellence also have varying recruitment and program strategies based on student readiness and interest in the respective areas. Strategies have focused on everything from program expansion efforts to respond to capacity issues in health education programs, to recruitment needs aimed at attracting students into science and engineering. With regard to the later, both centers in engineering and manufacturing are strongly promoting "Project Lead the Way" among K-12 schools. All four centers are in some way expanding on the pipeline of students, including the expansion or development of new 2+2 programs and seeking new opportunities with K-12 and Postsecondary Enrollment Options.

The Office of the Chancellor has been working with representatives of each center to develop a common look and other guidelines for marketing materials. This will allow them to be recognized for individual partners and designated names while recognizing the Centers of Excellence as a larger system initiative.

Finally, on-going program evaluation of the centers is very important and is being coordinated by the Office of the Chancellor. Two percent of the Centers of Excellence appropriation was set aside for an external evaluation to meet legislative reporting requirements and inform the Board of Trustees, Office of the Chancellor, and institutions about the centers' implementation and achievements. In January, Wilder Research was selected to design and carry out the program evaluation during the next three years. The team has visited each of the centers and kicked off development of the evaluation design with a stakeholders' meeting in April.

Focus Area 4: Development of the 2006-10 Strategic Plan

The new Strategic Plan, Designing the Future, 2006-2010, was approved by the Board of Trustees in mid-January. The Public Affairs office designed and produced an attractive printed version of the plan, as well as a one-page summary. Both are being distributed widely and have been posted on the system's Web site.

Immediately following approval of the plan, staff in the Office of the Chancellor began to work with various stakeholders on developing the companion Action Plan that will drive actions and results. During this quarter, visits took place with each of the trustees and 32 presidents to engage in conversations about priorities and strategies for the Action Plan. Everyone was generous with time and thoughts. While we heard ideas about nearly every one of the goals, all agreed that we must focus on a few key goals in the first year of the action plan. Strategic Directions One and Four elicited the most responses and passion. Almost to a person, the need to improve the high school to college pipeline for students was voiced, along with a special concern about the growing numbers of underserved students and the wide achievement gap. Using and sustaining the capacity for innovation was the other clear focus of many conversations. There is a growing recognition that the ways that served us well in the past simply will not be adequate for the future.

Among the themes presented time and again are the following:

Improved, systematic linkages to high school students, parents, teachers and administrators to promote planning and readiness for college;
Better retention programs for underserved students; several successful models exist, but we need to support and promote those who can show improve outcomes;
More development and support for leadership focused on change and continuous improvement;
Institutionalized innovative practices by understanding the change process and finding ways to encourage and reward excellence and innovation; and
Need to do the best for today's students while keeping an eye on the trends and needs of the future.

Focus Area 5: Serving the Underrepresented

Affirmative action officers representing the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system's institutions attended a professional development program at the Office of the Chancellor in March. Training was given for the preparation of the 2007-2009 required affirmative action plans. These plans are due in July 2006. The plans assess the progress and establish goals for increasing the diversity of the system's workforce. The participants were encouraged to begin developing systematic means of evaluating the effectiveness of current search processes.

Two significant events were hosted as part of the American Indian initiative. At our request, Dr. Lee Antell, executive director of the American Indian Opportunities Industrialization Center, convened a meeting of urban American Indian leaders with representatives of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. Trustees Will Antell and Ivan Dusek joined Presidents Donald Day and Phil Davis and office staff at the meeting. Approximately 30 leaders took part; several presented oral and written testimony. The information is being used to develop a comprehensive initiative designed to enhance the access and success of American Indians in Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system's institutions.

A meeting of American Indian students also was convened. The students emphasized several interests and concerns: 1) American Indian advisors and counselors for each campus; 2) increase of the number of American Indian faculty and staff; 3) more financial assistance for American Indian students; 4) more instruction on the concept of American Indian sovereignty; and 5) the desire to see a person of American Indian descent in the Office of the Chancellor.

We are reaching out to underrepresented groups and potential new students in several ways, including a new and improved site for the Diversity and Multiculturalism division on the system's public Web site; an ad in the program materials for an upcoming TRIO conference; and promoting College Goal Sunday, a statewide event organized to help underrepresented students understand and complete financial aid forms.

Final Note

Our work plan and seeing to the mandated and operational needs of our system have captured your staff's attention throughout this last quarter. We look forward to filling you in on other projects next month and as we work our way toward the last quarter of the year. Thank you for your attention.