Charting The Update

Last semester I wrote an article about Charting The Future. It is a fancy schmancy name for a much needed update on the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MnSCU). The plan is to make school easier for students to afford and to make college credits more universal from school to school. The process would include input and insight from student groups, faculty groups and MnSCU administration. Pretty straightforward stuff one would think.

This is how Charting The Future describes this: “Develop a collaborative and coordinated academic planning process that advances affordability, transferability, and access to our programs and services across the state.” -http://www.mnscu.edu/chartingthefuture/recommendations.html

Seriously.

The overly complicated process was given direction from an outside consulting firm that was hired by MnSCU’s Chancellor Rosenstone. This gave the revamp project the drama it was missing.

The consulting firm had been hired at a high cost and without the knowledge of the other groups involved. The faculty unions took offense to this. They also thought that their [faculty] involvement was for show and the administration was not taking them seriously. It seemed to them that the administration was pushing their own agenda, partially through the involvement of the consultants.

[big breath]

The story kept changing from week to week. I would barely have a draft ready and edited before it was out of date. I was getting frustrated.

I had done so much research into the process in order to understand what it was, only to find out that it can really be summed up simply as an update to the MnSCU system to make it more efficient and student friendly. [Grrrrrr]

I started my story.

The faculty unions walked out of the process due to what they called “transparency issues” with the administration.

I re-wrote my story as a quick breaking news piece. http://www.thecampuseye.com/2014/10/24/faculty-pulls-out-of-charting-the-future/

CTF was rolling forward without the faculty, student groups were still involved in the revamp with the consultants and the administration.

I ended up writing a quick editorial article about the Gallery Walks that Charting The Future has been hosting on college campuses across Minnesota in an attempt to get input from students, staff and faculty.

These Gallery Walks consisted of poster boards with complicated looking graphs and bullet points that were worded in the same style as the quote above. When I questioned students about the process after they had time to browse through the Gallery Walk information they were generally more confused about CTF after trying to read through all the information. My personal favorite response from a student was “I basically just came for the pizza”, in reference to the free pizza provided to lure students in.

I was over it. I chose to write an editorial about the process instead of a traditional news story for our print edition.

Spring semester the faculty groups and administration were still not able to come to an agreement in regards to CTF. Governor Dayton made a statement that he would not recommend any new funding for MnSCU schools unless the two feuding groups could reconcile.

This silly fight had the potential to raise tuition and cut programs for the same students that this process was supposed to be benefiting!

I was admittedly too opinionated about this to write a story, but… I was the only one that understood what the heck the whole thing was about so I set my feelings aside and scheduled interviews.

I spoke at length with a professor at Anoka Ramsey Community College that represents the school as part of the two year college faculty union, and then I spoke with the ARCC student body president about the situation. I had great perspectives from the faculty point of view and the student point of view. All I was missing was the administration.

I made an appointment to speak to the President of ARCC and Anoka Tech. Circumstances beyond my control forced me to re-schedule. Unfortunately I had mentioned in my cancelation email the subject I was intending to talk to him about. The assistant to the president asked me to send her a list of the questions I intended to ask. I politely refused. The assistant politely informed me that the president was a very busy man. I would not be able to get on his schedule for the next couple of weeks. I attempted to take advantage of his “open door” policy, but he was busy or off campus whenever I dropped by.

I was out of options. I felt I couldn't publish the story without something from administration. Eventually I sent questions to be answered via email. The email was forwarded to the vice president and then answered through the school’s PR department. I wasn’t sure how to go about quoting that. I didn’t know if they were the vice president of the school’s words or the PR departments.

I started putting the story together. I was working on the final edits when I got a notification email. The faculty groups and the administration had reached an agreement. My story was now irrelevant. [Grrrrrr - while pulling out hair]

I cut the story down to an update for our print edition.

Sooo done with it.

On a side note: Congratulations to President Kent Hanson for being named president of the year by the Minnesota State College Student Association. ;)