Student research is booming where you might not expect it – Minnesota’s two-year community colleges. Once known as places that taught only introductory science courses, they’re conducting research with a level of sophistication that faculty members say wasn’t seen as recently as five years ago. The surge is part of a national movement that faculty Read more →
Last week I posted the response of a Metropolitan State University professor, who said the Star Tribune‘s editorial board was portraying faculty as “obstructionist” toward MnSCU’s Charting the Future plan for more coordination among campuses. Looks like the Rochester Post-Bulletin also had little patience for uppity faculty: An early draft of the report was criticized Read more →
University of Minnesota President Eric Kaler says he will form an outside panel to review how the U treats human subjects in clinical trials. His announcement followed a faculty resolution today requesting a review of the U’s practices. (See Item No. 10 on the second-to-last page above.) The panel is a response to the 2004 Read more →
I’ve been told that faculty and administration have just finished meeting over cuts proposed for the campus to solve a $5 million budget deficit. I’ll be on the horn with the president in a few minutes, but for now, here’s the announcement: Administrative proposal would eliminate projected deficit Posted on December 05, 2013 A plan Read more →
Last month, the Star Tribune editorial board praised the new direction taken by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system in its Charting the Future plan. It liked the system’s idea of having colleges stop competing so much and instead coordinate curricula and administrative functions to a degree not seen before, saying that by Read more →
Minnesota Agriculture Education Leadership Council chief Sarah Dornink tells the Star Tribune that one of the big things making it hard to recruit and retain agriculture teachers — a declining resource in this state — is that agribusiness keeps luring them away: “When you graduate from college with debt, it’s hard to say no to a $55,000 salary, Read more →
A couple of updates to the structural racism debate at Minneapolis Community and Technical College: First, instructor Shannon Gibney has filed an appeal of the administrative reprimand she received over how she handled a heated discussion with three white male students. You may recall that a top campus official wrote Gibney that she’d created a Read more →
Daniel Luzer of Washington Monthly writes that although he has sympathy for Shannon Gibney, the Minneapolis Community and Technical College instructor reprimanded for how she handled a class discussion on structural racism, there’s a point to consider: Structural racism is a very difficult concept to teach to students, and professors have to be very careful about Read more →
I have Herzing’s reaction below: This announcement just in from the Minnesota Attorney General’s office: MINNESOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL AND HERZING UNIVERSITY REACH SETTLEMENT OVER LACK OF ACCREDITATION OF MEDICAL ASSISTANT ASSOCIATE DEGREE PROGRAM Attorney General Lori Swanson and Herzing University, a for-profit college based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, entered into a settlement today arising out Read more →
Got this late yesterday from Minneapolis Community and Technical College. It’s in response to news-media attention over a confrontation during a class discussion of structural racism. The gist: At MCTC, we believe it is essential for our faculty to actively engage students in respectful discussions in the classroom regardless of topic and to create an Read more →
Alex Friedrich