In October, David Olson will take a road trip through Minnesota. The president of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and (since July) chairman of the board of trustees for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MNSCU) will be asking business owners and executives during his travels: “What are your employment needs? What is your relationship with MNSCU? Are there things that MNSCU could be doing, as far you can tell, that they’re not but should be?”

Olson says that while many employers are happy with the education and training their workers receive from the system, others aren’t. And with companies expecting to have an increasingly difficult time finding qualified workers, Olson believes that “MNSCU has to step up and play a stronger role.”

 

{Q} What could the MNSCU board do better?

{A} I want the board to spend more time on the larger policy issues for the system and less time on what I would call day-to-day organization management and campus management. It’s the chancellor’s job to run the system, and it’s the presidents’ job to manage their campuses. I think it’s the board’s job to provide the overall policies that would help them do that.

 

{Q} What policies should the board focus on?

{A} First, we want to make sure that what I call the underserved population is being served. We used to call [this kind of effort] a ‘diversity initiative,’ but it’s not just about diversity—it’s about people who are hard to educate, people who don’t have access readily to education . . . . It’s not about race or ethnicity anymore.

This means a couple of things, from my perspective. Number one, we do have to keep our eye on tuition, and make sure that a MNSCU education is affordable. And number two, we also have to look at the state’s grant programs—that might be a place to invest additional state money.

The second policy: I think MNSCU has to do a better job of really measuring how we do. One of the initiatives we’re talking about doing this year is to begin a benchmarking process . . . . Not only what are the grad rates, but are students coming out job ready? Can they find employment? We’ve measured test scores and some of those other things, but I’m not sure we’ve measured how we do overall.

 

{Q} How would you measure this?

{A} I’m not a statistician, but we know who the graduates are. I don’t think it would be impossible to at least have a sampling of, ‘Okay, you’ve graduated, it’s been six months. Where are you? What are you doing? Are you in your field of choice? Are you working in an area where your degree is making a difference?’