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NEWS | November 2009 - all articles

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Gauging program excellence
Enrollment stable at Minnesota's Private Colleges
Tell us what you think
Briefs

Gauging program excellence

When students and families begin looking at colleges, the goal is to find a college that’s a good fit. One part of the decision about where to apply is often based on the perceived strength of programs in students’ areas of interest. But families may well be stumped on whether a department or program is strong.

The biggest clue is the access to professors, according to Twin Cities education consultant Vita Cohen. “Is it expected that professors will know and interact with students? Is there an atmosphere of friendliness, openness and welcome? These are the most important things to look at,” she said.

This kind of access is easy to find at Minnesota's Private Colleges. We share three examples — from the perspective of a student, an administrator and a professor — that illustrate what families can look for when hunting for program excellence.

A learning process

When Robert Carlton took an advanced microeconomics class last year at Carleton College, he recalls the problem sets that students had for assignments. One was to figure out a firm’s optimal behavior, given a particular production method or cost function. “My professor, Jenny Wahl, took time to sit there with me to talk about the problem and the best way to solve it; it was a real learning process,” he said.

Wahl sees her job as building on what students know, encouraging them to examine their assumptions carefully, and helping them use resources and tools to analyze issues in a critical, rigorous and objective fashion. “In a nutshell, my goal is to ‘eliminate fuzzy thinking!’” she said.

Carlton chose to major in economics and math because he especially enjoyed the classes in the subjects. He’s been impressed with how, when he walks down the hallways at Carleton, all the professors’ doors are open. “They put students first and are willing to discuss anything from problems in class to life in general,” he said.

As Carlton prepares to graduate in the spring, he’s focused on wrapping up a math project he’s working on for 3M. “They challenged us to come up with a model that beats their own for forecasting Post-it demand,” he said. He’s also completing his senior thesis — a 40-page academic paper that examines the relationship between drug and alcohol use. Both projects take the knowledge and skills he’s gained in his major programs. “I’ve experienced teaching at its finest; now I can display to the community what I’ve learned,” he said.

Strong interaction
According to Concordia College provost Mark Krejci, there are many ways to gauge the quality of teaching and programs at an institution, but students should look for strong faculty-student interaction. “When faculty actively engage and mentor students, it makes all the difference in the student experience,” he said.

That is one of the things private colleges offer, according to Krejci. “Students aren’t lost in huge lecture classes but they’re in small classes with direct faculty contact.” He lifts up Concordia’s Chemistry Department as one example of what happens when this is done right. “Our organic chemistry labs are very inquiry-based versus a canned science lab. All students are involved in scientific discovery when they create a new chemical — their “pet molecule. Faculty serve as guides for a process that results in students designing and executing the research,” he said.

Students come first
At the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), the same kind of focus on students occurs, although the coursework is vastly different. “Our classes are small, our student to faculty ratio is low and students really have a chance to immerse themselves in learning with our five-hour studio classes,” said Karen Wirth, chair of the Fine Arts Department. And once students declare a major, they get their own studio space (open 24/7) — unusual for undergraduates, she said.

Wirth believes the strength of programs at MCAD is evident from looking at the work on display throughout the building. “The entire school is an exhibition space; you can really see how students are thinking and learning,” she said. “Our operating model is ‘students first;’ prospective students feel it when they come here.”

As part of its mission, MCAD aims to connect students to the outside world. In the past year, three undergraduate photography students’ work appeared in the New York Times, a film student’s work was featured at the Cannes Film Festival and a freshman developed an online exhibit space mentioned in Wired and Glamour magazines. “Where student and alumni work shows up is telling,” she said.

Finding clues
When it comes to gauging excellence in a particular academic area, Cohen said that answers to the following questions will offer clues to the quality of a program:

• Is there a range of upper-level classes in the program versus mostly introductory or survey classes?
• Do professors or graduate students do most of the teaching?
• Do undergraduates do research and attend conferences?
• What is the access to professors outside of class?
• To what level do students have mentors, do internships, study abroad and do independent study?
• What are the facilities like?

Cohen also recommends that students or parents call that department and ask to talk to a student. “Students are very honest; they’ll tell you what excites them about their program — and what’s missing,” she said.

 

Enrollment stable at Minnesota's Private Colleges

Enrollment at Minnesota's Private Colleges increased 1% to 59,689 in fall 2009. Undergraduate enrollment accounted for 72% of students and increased 0.3%. Graduate enrollment increased by 2.8%.

Total enrollment at Minnesota's Private Colleges has increased 9.5% since 2004. Five-year trends show increases in every enrollment type with the exception of non-traditional undergraduate students (see table).

“Private colleges’ leaders are very aware of the difficulties facing our families in this sharp recession,” said Paul Pribbenow, president, Augsburg College and chair of the board of the Minnesota Private College Council. “We have worked to keep the doors to opportunity open wide, with many steps taken to increase institutional aid and control costs. This fall’s stable enrollment picture demonstrates that such efforts are working.”

Diversity among new entering students in fall 2009 continued to increase: 15.6% of new freshmen and 20.4% of transfer students were students of color. New students of color represented 16.6% of new students in fall 2009, excluding international students. A total of 1,742 non-white students enrolled — an increase of 101.4% from fall 1999.

View the Annual Enrollment Report: Fall 2009 (PDF) for more details about enrollment at Minnesota's Private Colleges.

 

Tell us what you think

Are there topics you’d like to see covered in this newsletter? Other changes to suggest? Please send us a note to share your thoughts.

 

Briefs

• Students at many of our private colleges share their musical talents in upcoming holiday concerts. Consider coming to one.
• More high school students leave Minnesota to attend college than come here. Previewed earlier this fall in the newsletter, our new Research Brief reports on student migration trends, examining the issue and the impact on Minnesota.
• The graduation rate (PDF) at Minnesota's Private Colleges continues to be the highest in the state. The Research Foundation analyzed the latest data, looking at full-time students who entered college for the first time in 2002.
• With a year until the 2010 election, a dozen gubernatorial hopefuls attended a Nov. 9 forum at Gustavus Adolphus College to make their pitch for why they should be Minnesota’s next governor. 
• As a result of high demand this year, the Minnesota State Grant Program — which provides aid for low- to middle-income families — faces a $12.9 million shortfall. The Minnesota Office of Higher Education will cover the shortfall with funds intended for use in the next fiscal year.
• According to the 2009 Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education, St. Olaf College moved to first place among U.S. baccalaureate institutions in the number of students who studied abroad last year (six of our other institutions also ranked in the top 40). Several Minnesota Private College Council (MPCC) members also ranked highly in the percentage of undergraduate participation (four from institutions that grant four-year degrees only and three from our master’s- and doctoral-granting institutions). View all MPCC results.