Universities

ACADEMIC & STUDENT AFFAIRS NEWSLETTER

An Electronic Communication

FEBRUARY 2005

http://www.academicaffairs.mnscu.edu/

GOVERNOR ANNOUNCES BUDGET PROPOSAL FOR SYSTEM

Governor Tim Pawlenty recommended an increase of $107.5 million for the state colleges and universities in his budget message to lawmakers on January 25, 2005. Pawlenty did not recommend funding of $130.8 million for enrollment growth in the system over the last three years. Instead, he recommended giving the colleges and universities $50 million to be distributed in the allocation formula, and he supported four other requests of the Board of Trustees. They included $14 million for online courses, $10 million for nursing programs, $5.5 million to create an innovations fund and $3 million for farm and small business programs. Details of the Governor’s budget may be found at: http://www.budget.state.mn.us/budget/index.shtml Source: http://www.chronicle.mnscu.edu/2005/january05.html#1

BIANNUAL WORK PLAN 2004-2005

The Biannual Work Plan 2004-2005 progress report that Chancellor McCormick presented to the Board of Trustees, at their meeting on January 20, has been posted and may now be accessed at: http://www.mnscu.edu/about/workplan.html

ALEXANDRIA TECHNICAL COLLEGE INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE REQUEST

Congratulations to Alexandria Technical College for a successful Institutional Change Request application to Minnesota Online. Sr. Vice Chancellor Linda Baer approved Alexandria Technical College’s request to offer the Associate of Science (A.S.) and Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) degrees through online delivery.

The college has presented patterns of evidence that indicate that support of online development is evident. Examination of the institution’s written and web-based materials and discussions with faculty, students, and staff indicate a deliberate move toward the offering of online degrees.

Minnesota Online is comprised of all 32 Minnesota State Colleges and Universities which provides a collaborative framework to advance and facilitate the delivery of online courses, programs, and services for its member institutions.

IN THIS ISSUE Governor’s Budget Request * Biannual Workplan * Alexandria Technical College Institutional Change Request * Project Lead the Way Minnesota * Pima Community College Visits Minnesota * eFolio * Merlot * Upcoming Conferences * Accounting Transfer Project * What’s New with Transfer

PROJECT LEAD THE WAY MINNESOTA

The Minnesota Department of Education and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities are partnering in establishing a high school to college and university program transition in Engineering and Engineering Technology. The partnership is being implemented through Project Lead the Way© (PLTW). PLTW is a national alliance for pre-engineering programs which involves middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities in partnership with industry and professional organizations. PLTW has developed a four-year sequence of technology education courses which, when combined with college preparatory mathematics and science courses in high school, introduces students to the scope, rigor, and discipline of engineering and engineering technology prior to entering a college or university program. The PLTW courses do not supplant any existing courses; instead they augment the math and science courses now offered in our high schools. For further information, contact Jerry Johnson at jerry.johnson@so.mnscu.edu

PIMA COMMUNITY COLLEGE VISITS MINNESOTA

On January 28, 2005, eFolio Minnesota hosted leadership from Pima Community College, (Sarah Dempsey, David Padgett, Shelley Maxfield, and Geneva Escobedo) in Arizona. Pima staff visited with Century College faculty and staff along with David Bartholomay - Avenet, Inc. and Paul Wasko, Minnesota State College and Universities, Minnesota Online/eFolio Minnesota. A special thanks to Brenda Lyseng, Dean of Behavioral & Social Sciences, Mathematics, and Science, Century College for hosting this event at Century College. Pima University members were very pleased with their visit and learned a great deal. They are in the process of sharing their reports and moving forward with eFolio in Tucson, Arizona. For more information about eFolio Minnesota, contact paul.wasko@so.mnscu.edu

EFOLIO

eFolio Minnesota continues to be well received with 1.8 million hits in the month of February with over 26,967 registered users. If you have general questions, please contact Paul Wasko at paul.wasko@so.mnscu.edu.

MERLOT

On February 10, 2005, Dr. Flora McMartin and Glenda Morgan, MERLOT - (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) visited with Minnesota State College and Universities, Academic Innovations, for an informal "Meet MERLOT Staff Session" and presented information on Minnesota State College and Universities Freshman Partner Status. Dr. McMartin is the Director of MERLOT Member Services and Evaluation is responsible for directing the development, implementation, and evaluation of MERLOT services, such as Peer Review. Dr. Morgan is the Academic Technology Support Director for California State University, Long Beach.

The Office of the Chancellor’s Minnesota Online is participating in the MERLOT Freshman Year Program 2004 through 2005. MERLOT is an organization with resources that will facilitate building a shared repository of learning objects in our system and will assist faculty and academic technology staff in

* Exploring and developing potential relationships with national exemplars in collaborative learning, technology, and effectiveness initiatives.

* Creating communities of Peer Reviewers for learning objects through its relationship with the MERLOT Peer Review Editorial community.

* Contributing to and use of open source learning objects from a recognized exemplar community of scholarship.

* Promoting an easy and recognized source of online learning objects to allow faculty to integrate high quality online instructional technology resources into their courses effectively, easily, and enjoyably.

* Integrating up to ten (10) RSS feeds into system resources for faculty and academic technology staff in system web sites such as, ITEACH Online Faculty and Professional Development Center, e-Resources, Information Technology Services, and D2L.

Minnesota State Colleges and Universities joins other state system partners such as, including Louisiana State Board of Regents, South Dakota Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin System, State University of New York and others. See http://taste.merlot.org/participating/partner/all_list.htm for full listing of partners, affiliates and corporate sponsors associated with MERLOT.

Check out the tasting room at http://taste.merlot.org/ For further information, contact Deborah Proctor, eCurriculum Director at deborah.proctor@so.mnscu.edu

IMPROVING THE PARTICIPATION AND COMPLETION OF STUDENTS IN NONTRADITIONAL CAREER AND TECHNICAL PROGRAMS

The Perkins Grant Unit at the Office of the Chancellor will be hosting a one-day conference on improving the participation and completion of students in nontraditional [gender-dominated] career and technical programs. This conference will include forums with campuses on successful practices and/or programs that support student recruitment and retention efforts. The event will be held at St. Cloud State University on March 1, 2005 in the Atwood Center from 8:30 to 3 p.m.

REALIZING STUDENT POTENTIAL CONFERENCE

Faculty and administrators from across Minnesota campuses and the Office of the Chancellor will gather to explore the challenges and rewards of teaching today's students. An expected 1200 participants will enjoy the Realizing Student Potential Conference on March 4 at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). RSP serves as a wonderful opportunity to meet with faculty colleagues statewide in a day of learning from and networking with one-another. The program is in the final stages of development with a list of impressive presentations and discipline workshops. Dr. David V. Taylor, Dean of General College, University of Minnesota will provide the keynote address. CTL encourages participants to register early for the conference and make lodging reservations through the Web site while space is still available.

For further information about this day of professional development:

http://www.ctl.mnscu.edu/events/winterconf/2005/index.html

ACCOUNTING TRANSFER PROJECT

The Program Collaboration and Transfer Office is sponsoring a session on the Accounting Transfer Project at the Realizing Student Potential Conference on March 4, 2005, 11:15 a.m. The primary focus of this project is to clarify expectations for first-year accounting courses acceptable for transfer to state universities. The new transfer guidelines will be reviewed and the procedures for gaining state university transfer approval will be explained. Participants will be able to discuss how they can collectively prepare course review materials and they will have an opportunity to have their questions answered. Details on the Accounting Transfer Project can be found on the web at http://www.mntransfer.org/facdisc/summaries.html#accounting For further information, contact Jerry Johnson at jerry.johnson@so.mnscu.

2005 NATIONAL TECH PREP CONFERENCE

The 2005 National Tech Prep Conference in Orlando, Florida is scheduled for September 28 (preconference) to October 1, 2005.

Please consider submitting a presentation proposal. This year a new theme of interest to postsecondary has been added entitled Postsecondary Transition. If your presentation is accepted, Tech Prep will contribute $500 per presentation topic to your local consortium to help defray expenses.

For our college and university partners, please contact Mary Messimer at mary.messimer@so.mnscu.edu if you plan to submit a presentation proposal.

All presenters are required to register for the conference and pay the registration fee. Key presenters registration fee is $125. Additional presenter's registration fee is $325. Presenter registration deadline is August 19

To access the online form, criteria and description of themes go to: http://www.cordonline.net/NTPN/presenter/

Presentation themes include:

1. Academic Achievement and Testing in Math, Science, and Communication

2. Career Counseling, Development, and Advising

3. Developing and Administering Partnerships

4. Postsecondary Transitions

5. Workforce/Economic Development

6. Career Pathways Strategic Improvement Coalition (CPSIC)

Other information about the conference will be available at www.cord.org. Click on conference. If you have questions, please call or e-mail me or Jim Mecklenburg.

mary.messimer@so.mnscu.edu 651-296-9590 or jim.mecklenburg@state.mn.us 651-582-8682

WHAT’S NEW WITH TRANSFER

MNCAS: A button to MNCAS (Minnesota Course Applicability System) has been added to the MnTransfer homepage. The button links to an explanation of MNCAS and then redirects to www.minnesotacas.org.

Winona State University: Winona State University is no longer going to do transfer equivalency guides as done with Word documents in the past. They are going with MNCAS (www.mncas.org). Information will be set up on the Winona State University’s homepage in the coming weeks.

Minnesota State University, Mankato:

New Tools for Transfer

Course Applicability System (CAS) is now available for transfer students

as of November 2004 to determine how their courses would transfer to

MSU, Mankato!! Please visit MSU's Office of the Registrar homepage at:

http://mn.transfer.org:8080/cas/index.jsp in order to login.

DARS is also available for current MSU student's to use in order to run

degree audit reports. This handy tool may be accessed by visiting:

http://krypton.mnsu.edu/Registrars/info/DARS/DARS.html

Centennial Union at MSU, Mankato Opens Doors!

Part of the new Centennial Union opened its doors to students and

faculty in early January. Many new restaurants are available for everyone

to select from and a nice lounge area for studying and socialization!

Please visit http://csu.mnsu.edu/ to see what more is to come and

additional building to take place!

Memorandums:

Memorandums regarding Intermediate Level World Languages, Awarding of Credit for Prior Learning, and Two-Year Certificates, Diplomas, Degrees, and Transfer from Linda Baer, Senior Vice Chancellor for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities have been added under "Transfer Resources" section, "Minnesota Transfer Curriculum (MnTC)."

http://www.mntransfer.org/MnTC/MnTC.html

NEW FAQs

http://www.mntransfer.org/TSInfo/faqs_ts.html

New questions regarding the following topics have been added to FAQs for Transfer Specialists as follows: “Hour Based Courses,” “Time Limit on IT Course Transferability,” “International Deadlines”, “Crossroads College,” and “Revising Transfer Credit Awards.”

Articulation Agreements Updated on MnTransfer.org

Rochester Community and Technical College

Updated agreements with: College of St. Scholastica: Health Information Technology AAS to Health Information Management BA.
University of Minnesota, Crookston: Equine Science AS to Equine Industries Management BS.

Course Equivalency Tables

http://www.mntransfer.org/Tables/CourseEquivalency.html

Institutions are updating their course equivalency tables through MNCAS. Visit MNCAS at www.mncas.org to see Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and the University of Minnesota’s dynamic course equivalency tables.

Central Lakes College (credits from Bemidji SU, Concordia University, Normandale CC, University of Minnesota - Crookston, University of Minnesota - Duluth, University of Minnesota - Morris, and University of Minnesota - Twin Cities).

Dakota County Technical College (credits from Century College, Hennepin TC, Inver Hills CC, Normandale CC, and Saint Paul College).

Minnesota State University Moorhead (credits from Bismarck State College, North Dakota SU, and North Dakota State College of Science).

Normandale Community College (credits from Alexandria TC, Anoka-Ramsey CC, Anoka TC, Augsburg College, Bemidji SU, Century College, College of St. Catherine, Dakota County TC, Hennepin TC, MSC - Southeast TC, Saint Paul College, Southwest Minnesota SU, St. Cloud SU, St. Cloud TC, University of Minnesota Duluth, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, University of North Dakota, University of St. Thomas, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire, University of Wisconsin - LaCrosse, University of Wisconsin - River Falls, University of Wisconsin - Stout and Winona SU)

North Hennepin Community College (credits from University of Minnesota)