{"id":1993,"date":"2013-09-30T18:54:58","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T23:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/?p=1993"},"modified":"2013-09-30T23:39:02","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T04:39:02","slug":"mild-mannered-professor-by-night-wild-eyed-organizer-by-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/2013\/09\/30\/mild-mannered-professor-by-night-wild-eyed-organizer-by-day\/","title":{"rendered":"mild-mannered professor by night, wild-eyed organizer by day . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"articleHeader\">\n<h2 style=\"visibility: visible;\"><\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"visibility: visible;\">Faculty blasts proposed \u2018Soviet-style\u2019 changes in MnSCU management<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"HeadingDetails\">\n<li class=\"first\">Article by: <a title=\"MAURA LERNER\" href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/bios\/10645281.html\">MAURA LERNER<\/a> , Star Tribune<\/li>\n<li class=\"updatedBy\">Updated: September 30, 2013 &#8211; 12:51 PM<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"headingIntro\"><strong>\u2018Charting the Future\u2019 plan would hurt quality, MnSCU faculty says. Administration said it would not centralize colleges and universities system<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"resizeFont\">\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">A faculty group is denouncing a proposal to reshape Minnesota\u2019s state colleges and universities, saying it would create \u201ca Soviet-style management structure\u201d that does little to benefit students.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">\u201cThis is going to lower the quality of their education, and not do anything significant to reduce student debt or make tuition more affordable,\u201d said Monte Bute, a sociology professor at Metro State University.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">The proposal, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnscu.edu\/strategicworkgroups\/\">\u201cCharting the Future,\u201d <\/a>which was released in June as a draft report, calls for sweeping changes at the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MnSCU), which has some 430,000 students at 54 campuses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">Among other things, the plan encourages more coordination among the campuses, and suggests that some campuses and programs may be merged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">On Monday, the Inter Faculty Organization, which represents 4,000 faculty members at seven Minnesota state universities, released a scathing critique of the proposal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">\u201cWe oppose moving toward a Soviet-style management structure with centrally controlled decisionmaking by bureaucrats who are far removed from the classroom,\u201d the faculty union said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">Administration officials dispute the criticism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">\u201cThe draft recommendations neither suggest nor should lead to more centralization or a larger system office,\u201d said Michael Dougherty, a vice chancellor at MnSCU.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">Nancy Black, the union president, said faculty members were caught off-guard when the draft report was released in June, after classes had ended. It wasn\u2019t until last week, she said, that the union\u2019s board was able to meet and hammer out its response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">The key criticisms: It could squeeze out \u201cinnovation\u201d at the various colleges and universities and allow the business community to dictate academic programs, possibly at the expense of the liberal arts. \u201cStudent program choices should not be limited to the programs supported by the business community,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">The proposal has yet to be approved by the board of trustees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">Administrators say they have been seeking feedback on the draft report, and that it won\u2019t be presented to the board until November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">Officials say the draft report was the result of months of discussions by three work groups involving 46 students, faculty members, administrators and others.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">But Black, who was one of three faculty members on the work groups, said the report took her by surprise. \u201cWe had, what I would term euphemistically, lively discussions,\u201d she said, but her group did not vote on any of the recommendations. She also said she did not see the final draft until it was made public June 19.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">Black said the reaction from faculty has been fairly intense. \u201cLet me put it this way: There were enough faculty around that were sufficiently enraged at me for being a part of it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">The faculty union also said the proposal would \u201chave the effect of union busting,\u201d because it suggests merging collective bargaining units.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Body\">Said Bute: \u201cWhat we\u2019re requesting is that the chancellor and the board of trustees look carefully at this, basically hit the delete button [and]\u00a0 go back to the drawing board.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Text_Endnote\">Maura Lerner \u2022 612-673-7384<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Faculty blasts proposed \u2018Soviet-style\u2019 changes in MnSCU management Article by: MAURA LERNER , Star Tribune Updated: September 30, 2013 &#8211; 12:51 PM \u2018Charting the Future\u2019 plan would hurt quality, MnSCU faculty says. Administration said it would not centralize colleges and universities system A faculty group is denouncing a proposal to reshape Minnesota\u2019s state colleges and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,144,11338],"class_list":["post-1993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-higher-education","tag-teaching","tag-unions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1993"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1999,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1993\/revisions\/1999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/monte\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}