The next president of St. Paul-based Metropolitan State University wants to grow enrollment by adding more transfer pathways for students at two-year colleges in the Twin Cities.
Ginny Arthur, 62, said in an interview Tuesday that she’s been forging those relationships as provost and wants to continue doing so as president. Such partnerships, she said, have the potential for raising college graduation rates by getting students to think long-term.
Metro State and two-year schools already have agreements for nursing and dental hygiene. Arthur wants to add more programs to the list as she looks to meet the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system’s goal of growing the number of bachelor’s degree holders in the metro area.
Metro State’s last permanent president retired at 66. How long do you think you will want to do this job?
I’m not ready to be done working anytime soon. I’m hoping to be around for a few terms.
You’ve been Metro State’s provost for almost four years. Will you be ready to be president on July 1?
Obviously, the role of president is very different, but I know people at the university, I know people we’ve partnered with, so I think it does make it easier to maintain the momentum on plans that we’ve gotten underway.
MnSCU is looking for ways to cut a lot of expenses soon. What can you contribute to that discussion?
I think probably all the universities can stand to take a look at ways we can do things more efficiently.
For Metropolitan State, we really need to grow. The plan is to substantially increase the number of people in the Twin Cities with baccalaureate degrees, and we’re here, we’re in Minneapolis, Brooklyn Park, Midway. We’re here to serve that need.
How have you been involved with that as provost?
I’ve worked very closely with the 10 community and technical colleges in the Twin Cities area, which are referred to as the Metro Alliance, and I’ve worked with our faculty and deans to be able to bring high-demand baccalaureate degree programs to the various campuses.
We have a unique nursing program which is a dual admission-dual enrollment program with seven community colleges in the system. We’re approaching a similar kind of opportunity around dental hygiene.
What more can Metro State do to grow enrollment?
I think the partnerships with our 10 neighbor community colleges are very important because already two-thirds of our students transfer to us from those institutions. They lose a lot of students. Their graduation rates are not as high as I know they would like to see. It really would be to help those students succeed and stay on that pathway for a four-year degree. I think that’s going to grow our enrollment naturally.
What we want to do for students at two-year institutions is to give them that sense of a seamless transfer to Metro State so they can have as close an experience to a four-year education pathway as anybody going to a traditional four-year institution.
Are there other barriers to people enrolling at Metro State that you think you can help with?
One is raising the visibility of Metro State. Oftentimes people don’t know we exist. I think being active in the community in a lot of ways will help to raise our profile.
There’s talk of a common course catalog and new labor agreements for metro-area MnSCU faculty. How much are you aware of those talks, and are you involved in any way?
I’m not part of the financial sustainability work group. I’ve been on the task force that’s looking at our allocation model. What I’ve heard doesn’t sound like a lot of new ideas that haven’t already been talked about, but I also understand that that group has not even formalized recommendations at this point.
Do you feel Metro State needs to develop more relationships with employers? There’s always a concern among faculty about getting too close.
I think all the faculty in the system understand that the main reason students come to college is because they’re thinking about their economic security and their future.
They oftentimes get the opportunity to broaden their horizons and think differently, and of course all of the great business executives will say what they need are people who are trained to solve problems and think creatively.
I do think we need to work with business, and Metro State can be the type of institution to work with business leaders, many of whom do things like tuition reimburse because they want their workforce to get more education. We are flexible, we know how to serve adult learners, we’ve been doing it for 45 years.
Is there something you’ve been waiting for the power to fix?
I don’t know if presidents have that much power. What I’m looking forward to is continuing to really build on the solid relationships. I enjoy working with all of our employee groups, and I think anytime you have an interim — and President (Devinder) Malhotra has done a fantastic job — but there’s always other people who hang back a bit on things. I’ve been getting emails since 10 a.m. (when my appointment was announced) from people who are excited to move forward. So I think we’re really poised to go and grow and serve more students and serve them well.
Has Chancellor Rosenstone given you direction on where he wants you to take the university?
I’ve been on the Charting the Future academic planning committee, I’m active in our policy committee for the system allocation redesign, so I have a good sense of what the direction is for the system as a whole, and I have a really strong sense of Metro’s place in that.
We haven’t had a chance to sit down and put together a specific work plan, but I think we agree on what the direction should be.