Steven Rosenstone, a vice president at the University of Minnesota, has been named the next chancellor of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. Mr. Rosenstone will leave his post, as vice president for scholarly and cultural affairs and as a professor of political science, to head a system of 32 colleges and universities. The system’s board voted, 14 to 1, today in favor of his appointment to succeed James H. McCormick, who is retiring. William Sederburg, commissioner of the Utah System of Higher Education, was also a finalist for the post.
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13 Responses to U. of Minnesota Official Is Picked to Lead State-College System
jabberwocky12 - March 8, 2011 at 8:28 am
Finally, f2f universities with distance education components are prepared to have the staff work at a distance. It’s been interesting to see so many institutions advocating distance education, but simultaneously insisting that the staff interact with each other f2f. It’s been amazing that almost none of them see the incongruity of that.
Of course, part of the problem is that the employment policies, rules regarding things like FTEs, working hours, etc, are decided by people who have little idea about education in the 21st century, and those policies simply struggle to cope with the concept of full-time employees not coming onto campus.
Lonnie_Fuller - March 8, 2011 at 9:07 am
In a previous job, I found that I needed some core amount of face time to build and maintain relationships before being able to excel from a distance. He may also need some established time to “check in” and stay abreast of local issues that he won’t hear about from afar. It should be a good experiment.
Steve Foerster - March 8, 2011 at 10:53 am
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that they’ll consider an arrangement, but the fact that this is so amazing just highlights how backwards traditional higher education still is.
drob00 - March 8, 2011 at 10:56 am
I’m a graduate of the University of Kentucky. This is a great idea for all of the stakeholders involved in the community and at UK. Education and technology are partners in this knowledge economy. Universities should lead the way in improving this vital relationship.
goxewu - March 8, 2011 at 12:13 pm
When I went to college, a long time ago, I had lots of remote professors.
chronic_reader - March 8, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Trust me, Scott really knows how to work remotely, he used to do that even at Iowa State! Like, he was never there! So what the big deal? UK have fun with this hire, remotely, that is. LMAO.
eelalien - March 8, 2011 at 12:39 pm
I really like this trend, I am hoping it continues. I traveled overseas last year and was away for five months on a Fulbright Scholarship, experiencing what it was like – it is all quite doable. I attended a student’s committee meeting, advised graduate students, and even received my annual evaluation from my dept. chair via Skype. Many technologies available today are free and easy to use, and communications, even across continents and eight hour time zone differences, are relatively simple to arrange. Let’s encourage higher education to join the 21st century workforce!
11272784 - March 8, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Only one word can sum this up: DUH.
I do a great deal of tech support and almost all is done by phone or email; I could easily add desktop conferencing.
etmiller - March 8, 2011 at 1:23 pm
My word to sum it up is “meh.” It’s about the same distance between the UC Regents in San Francisco and the UC San Diego campus.
Scott McLeod - March 8, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Thanks for the write-up. Everyone involved with this recognizes that it’s unusual, at least for academe. We have committed ourselves to ongoing evaluation of the arrangement and will make changes as need be. For those who are interested, here’s my blog post about the move:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/30848
and here are a few paragraphs from my proposal to UK:
“Growing numbers of employees are working away from the office, either at home and/or from the road. These ‘remote workers’ now make up at least 10% of the American workforce, a percentage that’s tripled since 2000 (Mulki et al., 2009). Like corporations, nonprofits, and other institutions, colleges and universities will increasingly need to set aside some of their traditional place-bound and ‘on site’ notions of employment in order to 1) accommodate employees’ preferences regarding work-life balance, and 2) attract and retain top-line talent in a hypercompetitive global economy that allows knowledge work to occur anywhere.
…
Knowledge work typically isn’t place-bound. Postsecondary faculty members are prototypical knowledge workers; if they are willing and interested, they are able to do the vast majority of their work from any location on the globe, traveling when necessary to facilitate particularly critical face-to-face interactions.
…
Of course there are advantages to being physically present now and then. I think that this proposed plan takes that into account. I can be around for many (and, hopefully, most) College and department meetings, orientations, conferences, training institutes, learning seminars, and the like; I’ll just schedule my visits to campus to accommodate them (like I do now). I already do most of my work from home or from the road; the only difference in this scenario will be that – instead of my few days per month ‘in office’ being occasional and dispersed over the course of 28 to 31 days – my days on campus and/or in Kentucky will be more focused and compressed into one roughly-contiguous week per month.
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Although studies suggest that “telecommuters tend to be more productive than their office-bound counterparts” (Hakala, 2008), there are potential disadvantages to being a remote worker. Those include workplace isolation, lack of visibility, and other issues related to lack of face-to-face communication (Mulki et al., 2009). I will be particularly sensitive to the need to foster interpersonal relationships with department, college, and university faculty (as well as outside individuals and institutions) during my monthly times in Kentucky and will go out of my way to ensure that those happen. I recognize that some individuals at UK are going to be resentful of this setup, feel inconvenienced, and/or see this as special treatment; I am willing to address these concerns as I am able. I likely will miss a few faculty social get-togethers as well as a few professional meetings and will miss out on some of the culture and other benefits of being a resident UK faculty member.
…
Despite some of the inherent disadvantages of this proposed plan, I really do think that the benefits outweigh the burdens and that, on the whole, we can make this work. I know that this is an ‘out of the box’ proposal when it comes to typical university thinking about faculty members, but one of the things that is attractive to me about UK is its current proclivity for some unconventional thinking. If any traditional, flagship, land grant university can overcome long held notions regarding faculty ‘on site’ presence, I think it could be UK. If folks are willing to pick up a phone, turn on a webcam, or send an e-mail or instant message every once in a while instead of needing to physically meet with me (like they would if I lived in a Kentucky location distant from Lexington, for example), I believe this could go fairly smoothly. I will do my best to be a model employee, will not expect fewer service obligations just because of my residential distance, and will work diligently with the Educational Leadership faculty, the College of Education administration and professors, and other relevant individuals and institutions to resolve ongoing needs and concerns.”
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chronic_reader is correct when he/she says that I’m not on the hall much at ISU. Most of the Educational Leadership faculty at ISU are around much less than our colleagues because our classes are off-campus around the state and our work is with practicing administrators in the field. Additionally, my center, CASTLE, focuses heavily on direct, hands-on work with principals and superintendents. I’ve done nearly 200 workshops for school leaders over the past couple of years; most of those have been in-state. It is this combination of statewide and national work (and our concurrent impacts on schools and students) – along with our fairly high international visibility – that is of great interest to UK. Despite some concerns expressed – and, to be honest, a bit of uncertainty regarding some of the day-to-day details of this arrangement – on the whole we think we can make this work. I have strong support from my department and the Dean, Provost, and President; am looking forward to meeting the rest of the UK faculty; and am both honored and humbled to be given the chance to try and strike this work-home life balance.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have further thoughts! http://www.scottmcleod.net
edwoof - March 8, 2011 at 5:03 pm
How do we really know that you are The Scott Mcleod?
We don’t. And that’s the point.
Paul Dadosky - March 8, 2011 at 5:06 pm
My alma mater employs a professor from one of the first universities where computers were “born”.
bormand - March 8, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Duh, if he will be there periodically f2f, and virtually frequently, then why does he have to live there. Regarding the criticism of not being able to mentor other professors (do they not have anyone trained to use a telephone, skype/webconf, email, wiki work, etc.), not being able to do classroom observations (do they not have any online courses and/or have not heard about things like Quality Matters peer review process), and not being able to participate in departmental meetings (first reaction “thank God”, but seriouisly, if they cannot include remote participants in their meetings smoothly, then how good are they at supporting their DE students). As far as community, a virtual community can sometime be better than the f2f one. I have often found more collegial and engaging people who live in other places then some of the folks on my own campus. Virtual is great, F2F is great – hybrid working/learning is in our futures.
OK, so most people do like to interact “in person” occasionally…. He will be on campus several times a month (similar to how often some professors are seen around their offices). Did he get a dorm room with the job ;-). His job should be about competency and deliverables, not “seat time” (hey, haven’t we heard something like this related to educational reform).