More than 20 years ago, the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system was born of the merger of three public systems: the technical colleges aligned with our K-12 districts, the state college system, and the state university system.
I have had the privilege to serve on the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Board of Trustees and as the chair on multiple occasions. During my tenure I have watched Minnesota State become a network of 37 vibrant institutions educating nearly 375,000 people who dream of becoming our state’s next generation of professionals and leaders.
We have much to celebrate in the system, but as a board we have the critical responsibility to keep our eyes on the horizon and set a strategic agenda for the future. In our current environment of disruptive and accelerating change, this challenges us to imagine and prepare for a future that looks very different from the present.
Why did we engage in this process? Everyone reading this knows that disruption is increasingly the norm. Any institution that believes it can continue to operate using methods of today in this dynamic future risks extinction or increasing irrelevance. Complicating things further is a recognition that for all our good work, we are still falling short on the educational outcomes that matter most. In particular, we are grappling with a stubborn opportunity gap that endangers the strength and vitality of our state and the economic and social mobility of our students. Our responsibility for the long-range sustainability of Minnesota State inspired me to ask a fundamental question: How does the Minnesota State Board of Trustees enable a large, complex, risk- and change-averse organization to transition itself into a more nimble, responsive, and dynamic enterprise centered on enhancing student success?
Our response to this question has been a transformational project we call Reimagining Minnesota State, a board-driven effort to rethink the role of governance and the central office as we position our system and institutions for an uncertain future. It is easily the most important process undertaken during my tenure on the board.
Ironically, while a majority of students in Minnesota and across the country are enrolled within systems—with a few notable exceptions—little work has been done at this level to reposition higher education for the future. We studied the various attempts across the country and discovered two approaches. One limits discussions to within the academy and gives modest consideration to input from outside leaders. At the other extreme are external attempts by commissions, policy makers, and industry leaders to restructure public higher education. The first suffers from excessive commitment to legacy practices; the second, from a lack of knowledge of the unique role of public higher education.
Reimagining Minnesota State attempts to capture the best of both approaches by engaging faculty, staff, students, and leaders in statewide conversations centered on both the disruptions and the possibilities of innovation. The project also engaged an external advisory group composed of leaders from throughout Minnesota and members of our board.
We are combining external viewpoints with internal knowledge to challenge our-selves with reimagining the way we serve students in the coming decade and how we foster a systemwide culture of innovation, collaboration, and partnership to achieve our strategic goals.
Will Reimaging Minnesota State lead to change? We are only part way through the process but informed by our discovery and discussion the board will engage in the strategic conversations and agenda setting in June that will provide a path forward. This work will provide a platform for the board, the chancellor, and our stakeholder groups to engage in the practical side of implementing the ideas that emerge from our collective conversations. We look forward to robust, candid, and pragmatic discussions that will indeed lead to a reimagined system that sustains the best of our legacy and enables us to evolve to meet the changing needs of our students and communities in the future.
Michael Vekich is the chair of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities Board of Trustees.
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