“Charting the Future’s success depends on our ability to work together and talk to each other.”

The presidents and chancellor of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities included that simple sentence in a mass letter written to students April 10 as part of an update on “Charting the Future,” Chancellor Steven Rosenstone’s multi-year effort to reshape MnSCU to meet students’ needs for the foreseeable future.

Of course, even casual followers of MnSCU know that by the end of 2014, working together and talking to each other stood as huge obstacles in implementing this plan. That’s why what happens next with “Charting the Future” stands as one of the biggest challenges for Minnesota higher education in 2015.

At last count, faculty associations at six MnSCU universities issued no-confidence votes on Rosenstone, including St. Cloud State University. Others are faculty at Winona, Moorhead, Bemidji, Mankato and Marshall. The Inter-Faculty Organization also withdrew from Charting the Future, as did the two-year college faculty union. A couple of student government groups took similar steps.

Virtually all those groups say “Charting the Future” has not been transparent and is working toward predetermined outcomes.

Rosenstone’s offer of mediation with the IFO was rebuffed, and other than that he has said implementing “Charting the Future” will proceed.

Realistically, though, it will be hard to make credible progress without faculty involved.

The plan’s main goals are reducing the cost of attending MnSCU schools, speeding up the time it takes students to graduate, and making sure those graduates are prepared to succeed in the working world. The chancellor seeks to accomplish those largely through more systemwide collaboration, which he says will improve efficiencies and better control costs.

Those are much-needed objectives, especially for a system with 430,000 students, 54 campuses and a large administrative network. (Not to mention the debt level of most Minnesota college graduates.)

However, because MnSCU is so spread out, it’s easy to see how each campus might be leery of losing anything from programs to people as “Charting the Future” takes hold. The reality, though, is without massive changes, it’s fair to ask if MnSCU — as a system — can continue to exist without seeking even more funds from both taxpayers and students.

For now, the first step must be for Rosenstone and faculty and student groups to resume talking to each other.

—The St. Cloud Times