Goal 1: Academic Accountability
To provide academic accountability to the people we serve by measuring student achievement in all areas of learning.
Rationale:
MnSCU needs to ensure that students, employers and taxpayers are fully informed of the academic effectiveness of each MnSCU institution by regularly measuring and reporting how well its students are learning. Taxpayers invest about $450 million a year in MnSCU. They deserve information about the academic effectiveness of the colleges and universities. MnSCU needs to measure the gains in learning college students are expected to make and report the results in systematic fashion.
Measures of Success:
MnSCU will know it has established a system for academic accountability when it has assessment instruments to measure student learning, when it has an integrated student and program information system and when it can report to students, employers and taxpayers about a positive impact on learning.
Goal 2: Skill-based Transfer
To ease student mobility between institutions and among educational programs through skill-based transfer.
Rationale:
MnSCU wants to make sure that students can transfer between its institutions through the confirmation of their skills and competencies as well as the acceptance of their academic credits. What Minnesotans wanted most from the merger of institutions that formed MnSCU was greater ease for students to transfer between and among colleges and universities. MnSCU will work hard to make that happen by increasing the flexibility of the system.
MnSCU also will work to change the basis for how students transfer in response to what employers want to see in college graduates. No longer is it sufficient to allow transfer to occur solely on the basis of completing the appropriate courses with a passing grade. MnSCU wants to ensure that students have the skills and competencies they need for success in their chosen fields.
Thus, MnSCU may be looking at various measures (tests, portfolios) in the academic programs that demonstrate how well students can integrate and apply what they have learned in their courses and programs. This will enable MnSCU to certify to the institutions they transfer to and to future employers that graduates are certifiably competent in the essential skills of their chosen careers.
Measures of Success:
MnSCU will know it has a skill-based transfer system in place when it has successfully implemented and evaluated a systemwide transfer program driven as much by skills as by credits.
Goal 3: Career Education
To rethink career education to ensure that students get the general education and technical skills and competencies they need for a lifetime of careers--not just a first job.
Rationale:
MnSCU is determined to strengthen occupational education, which is at the heart of the system. MnSCU has more than 1,200 educational programs, and the majority of the system's 145,000 students are pursuing career and technical degrees.
MnSCU wants to strengthen student skills in their chosen technical or career fields. But the system must go beyond that to do justice to the graduates. MnSCU also has to provide them with strong technology skills, especially in the use of computers and information technology. And the system needs to make sure they have the transferable skills that are prized in any career field -- the ability to think analytically, express oneself clearly and work with diverse individuals in a team setting.
Measures of Success:
MnSCU will know it has successfully revised career education when it has completed, incorporated and publicized career program skill inventories and employer expectation surveys for general education and technical skills for all MnSCU programs, and when it has seen an increase in graduates' employment rates and a closer link to Minnesota's workforce and economic development needs.
Goal 4: Electronic Education
To ensure that electronic education becomes a core element of MnSCU to enhance teaching and learning while connecting students, schools, colleges and universities, business and communities.
Rationale:
MnSCU needs to guarantee to the people of Minnesota that its colleges and universities are on the cutting edge of information technology and the rapidly increasing electronic capacity to restructure and deliver teaching and learning. In short, the system must gain the understanding needed to expertly apply technology in all relevant facets of the statewide learning community.
This commitment speaks directly to the concerns Minnesotans express about access, choice, quality and affordability. The information technology revolution promises to change all aspects of higher education dramatically, especially in the ways teachers teach and students learn.
Fortunately, MnSCU has gained an early advantage through its Electronic Academy initiative, which is enabling the system to create a wealth of exciting classroom opportunities that electronically connect faculty with students all over the state.
Measures of Success:
MnSCU will know it is excelling in electronic education when students benefit from more courses using technology, when students and faculty are immersed in an electronic environment and have specialized information technology training, when employers have a workforce prepared for the information age and expanded educational opportunities for their employees and when Minnesota sees greater higher education productivity and a positive impact on economic development.
Goal 5: Program and Service Alignment
To align MnSCU's programs and services with the needs of communities and businesses.
Rationale:
This goal is a commitment to monitor continuously the dynamics of our state in regard to population, demographic, geographic, social and economic issues and to ensure that, in the 46 communities where MnSCU campuses are located, the institutions' programs and services are consistent with the needs of citizens, businesses and communities.
In an era of financial constraint, this will require MnSCU to become more efficient and productive. MnSCU institutions continually must assess the needs of the people and institutions they serve and reallocate resources to align programs and services accordingly.
Measures of Success:
MnSCU will know it has instituted a successful system of program and service alignment when it sees a closer link between MnSCU programs and the needs of employers and communities, a rise in student satisfaction with program access, higher employer satisfaction with the available supply of trained workers, improvements in MnSCU's operational efficiency and stronger communities where MnSCU institutions are located.
Goal 6: MnSCU/K-12 Partnership
To strengthen the partnership between MnSCU and K-12 education by pursuing a systemwide effort to improve outreach to K-12, to enhance teacher education and to ensure successful student transitions from high school to college.
Rationale:
Participants in the MnSCU town meetings emphasized the need for the system to reduce the number of students who need developmental education; to work together with K-12 educators to ensure a logical relationship between high school graduation assessments and MnSCU college readiness standards; and to reach out to K-12 students, teachers and administrators to enhance communication and develop partnerships at all levels.
MnSCU has addressed this concern by incorporating it as a new strategic goal. MnSCU will pursue a systemwide effort to strengthen its partnership with K-12 education. As the state's largest provider of K-12 teachers, the system will focus on preparing teachers to use the new technologies to full advantage, to work with students of increasingly diverse backgrounds and to effectively teach general skills such as writing, reading and math. MnSCU will ensure that field-based career education at the colleges and universities is linked closely with K-12 career education goals. And the system will work with K-12 educators to ensure successful student transitions from high school to college.
Measures of Success:
MnSCU will know it has strengthened the MnSCU/K-12 partnership when it has a systemwide K-12 outreach program, when all MnSCU students entering the teaching profession are technologically proficient and able to work with students from diverse backgrounds, when field-based MnSCU education is linked with K-12 goals and when high school graduation requirements are linked to MnSCU college readiness requirements.
