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Strategic Planning and Budgeting University Reaccreditation 2007 MSU Moorhead |
January 2004 Campus Update January 12, 2004 To: The Campus Community
From: President Barden Re: Campus Update Welcome back! Happy New Year! I hope each one of you was able to take some time during the holidays to rejuvenate. We are now ready to begin the Spring semester with renewed energy and enthusiasm. December Commencement: Thanks to all of you who participated in or assisted with the Winter Commencement! The event was a great success. I appreciate your involvement as we celebrate our graduates and their accomplishments. Open University Forum Featuring District 9 Legislators: On Friday, Jan. 23, 2004, we will hold our annual open-university forum with Senator Keith Langseth and Representatives Paul Marquart and Morrie Lanning. The event begins at 3:00 p.m. and will conclude at 4:30 p.m. in the CMU Ballroom. All faculty, students, staff, and administrators are invited to attend. The forum is designed to allow you the opportunity to bring your questions and comments to the attention of our district’s representatives, prior to the 2004 legislative session. 2004 Legislative Session: The session in St. Paul begins February 2. To prepare, I recently visited most state legislators for District 9, 10, and 1 in Northwest Minnesota individually, to remind them of the significance of public higher education, and to review the capital bonding projects requested by Minnesota State University Moorhead. Our conversations went very well and all indicated that they strongly support our university. Also in November and December, we hosted several members of the House Higher Education Finance Committee on campus. They were here to see the projects and facilities we included in our bonding request. MSUM’s Hagen Hall renovation, the next phase of our science construction project, is third on the Board’s final system-wide list of bonding requests for this legislative session. As you may have already seen in the news, on Friday, January 9, Governor Pawlenty came to MSUM to hold a press conference in 110 Hagen. There, he announced that he would include $9.6 million in his bonding proposal for the renovation of Hagen Hall. In his remarks, he praised the thorough planning process we used to create our bonding proposal and gave MSUM accolades for our excellent academic programs. It was a great day to be a Dragon! Athletic Director: On January 7, we formally announced the completion of our search for Athletic Director with the great news that Alfonso Scandrett, Jr. accepted our offer to join the MSUM Dragons as the new AD. He’ll begin his appointment no later than July 1, once he and his family move from North Carolina. In the meantime, Vice President David Crockett will continue as the Interim AD for remainder of the fiscal year. Director of Human Resources: Ben Blair, Director of Human Resources, has retired. During the spring semester, our Interim HR Director is Stephanie Miller, from the Office of the Chancellor’s HR Department. We expect her to be on campus every other week and her schedule will be finalized very soon. The formal search process should begin later this spring. Update on Other Searches: Our search for Registrar is moving along on schedule. And, the MSUM Alumni Foundation Board hopes to conclude its search for an Executive Director very soon. MSCTC/MSUM Admissions Coordination: Vice President Bette Midgarden and Associate Vice President Judy Strong have been meeting with Provost Jerry Migler, Associate Provost Dan Goehring, and Dean Trish Schrom from Minnesota State Community and Technical College (formerly Northwest Technical and Community College) in an effort to develop a strategy to coordinate admissions processes for first year students. In the foreseeable future, the Gateway Program is expected to continue here at MSUM. Moreover, MSCTC will soon admit students to an evening AA degree program, an initiative that MSUM has never been able to realize. We expect that a final agreement will be reached very soon. Best wishes for a successful spring semester! |
