Volume 20, Number 37, May 16, 2001
Calendar
May 16
· Technology Integration Mini-Conference
· Greenhouse Sale
May 17
· WebCT Training Session
· Staff & Faculty Recognition Celebration! “Celebrate
Our New Image”
May 18
· WebCT Training Session
· Expanding Global Experiences for UMC Students
May 19
· Armed Forces Day
May 25
· Last day of Intersession instruction
· Final Exams
May 28
· Memorial Day Holiday
May 31
· Intersession grades due to Registrar
June 1
· Crookston High School Graduation Ceremony
June 4
· Summer Session 2001 classes begin
June 11
· Student Success Fair
· Academic Advisement and Registration
June 17
· Father’s Day
News Items
Commencement
2001
One of the largest groups
ever—148 graduates—took part in commencement ceremonies, held May 5.
The event was also notable because of the first ROTC
commissioning ceremony in UMC history. Colonel Clark P. Wigley, Commander of Air Force ROTC
Detachment 610, swore in cadet Lisa Marie Stanley as a Second
Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. Graduating
Crookston Student Association President Shane Roers was the student
speaker. Regent Neel was
guest speaker.
Photos
from the event are posted at <www.umcrookston.edu/newsevents/notices00-01/grad2001>.
We also hope to post Regent Neel's address and Shane Roers’
speech via sound files.
Summer
Voice Mail Messages
Faculty and staff who are on 9 and 10-month
contracts are reminded to create a new message for their voice mail
messaging system. If you
do not plan to be on campus often or do not plan to check your voice
mail messages from home, please leave a message that states so and
provide a forwarding phone number of a faculty or staff person who can
take incoming calls. You
may also want to leave your personal forwarding summer phone number.
A possible example of such a message would be:
“Hi
you’ve reached the voice mail of Jane Doe at UMC. During the summer I will not be checking my voice mail
messages on a regular basis. If
you need immediate assistance, please contact John Doe at extension
XXXX or dial 0 for the campus switchboard.
[Optional: If you
need to contact me personally, you can try my home number, 281-XXXX].
I will be back on campus full time on August XX.
Have a great summer.”
Student
Global Experience Meeting May 18
Dr. Eugene Allen,
Executive Director for the Office of International Programs on the
Twin Cities campus, will be on the UMC campus on Friday, May 18.
There will be an open session in Brown Dining from 11:30 a.m.
to 1:00 p.m. for all faculty and staff who have an interest in
enhancing and expanding the global experience of our students.
A complimentary lunch will be served.
Dr.
Allen will be discussing the Bush Foundation grant,
"Internationalizing the University:
Strengthening Study Abroad."
He will also be discussing study abroad opportunities that
currently exist within the University system and how the Bush grant
may impact those opportunities.
Please
feel free to join us during this luncheon discussion.
Contact me if you have any questions or specific information
that you would like Dr. Allen to address.
--Steve
Shirley
Professional
Development Opportunity:
Instructional Technology Certificate
The Instructional
Technology Center (ITC) and the Office of Academic Affairs invite you
to consider the following special development opportunity.
Dan Lim, ITC Director, and UMC’s Center for Adult Learning
have put together a non-credit certificate program in Instructional
Technology. This program
features an intensive training component that will run from May
21-June 22, 2001. After
the month-long component is completed, ongoing training and mentoring
in support of specific projects will occur for approximately one year.
The initial phase
will involve a cohort of faculty including six from Singapore.
At this time three of the courses in the certificate program
will also apply to a Master’s in Instructional Technology offered by
the University of St. Thomas. As
a result of this training, we hope that a small group of UMC faculty
will be available to mentor other faculty as we continue to infuse
technology in our teaching.
Immediate
Benefits
-
The $4475 fee for the five courses leading to the certificate will be waived for UMC faculty
-
$500 worth of software will be provided to each faculty participating
-
$500 stipend will be given to faculty members not on contract during the May-June session.
Please
contact Dan Lim in the Instructional Technology Center if you are
interested in gaining more information about this program.
You can view more
details at the program's website <www.umcrookston.edu/cal/itc>.
--Doug
Knowlton, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Regents
Approve Updated UMC Mission Statement
The
University of Minnesota Board of Regents approved the recommended
revisions in the UMC's mission statement at their meeting last Friday,
May 11. They were pleased
to see the revisions in both the mission and the purposes.
Our thanks to all of you for your input in this very important
document. The updated
mission statement is online at <www.umcrookston.edu/yourcareer/mission/umcmission.htm>.
--Don
Sargeant, Chancellor
New
Agreement Links UMC to Twin Cities Tech
Colleges
UMC’s bachelor of
manufacturing degree is now available to students at and graduates of
three Twin Cities technical colleges.
Students will be able to work on a UMC degree without ever
setting foot in Crookston. All
necessary courses for the degree will be offered in the Twin Cities
metro area as the result of a new partnership involving UMC, Anoka-Hennepin
Technical College, Hennepin Technical College (Brooklyn Park and Eden
Prairie), and Dakota County Technical College (Rosemount).
The collaborating institutions celebrated the signing of this
articulation agreement on May 11.
The
University of Minnesota degree combines technical training from the
technical colleges with management courses brought to the metro area
by faculty from the Crookston campus.
The degree is flexible and can be customized to focus on
machine trades, electronics, construction technology, and other
specialties. The program
is especially aimed at working adults who are currently employed in
manufacturing and production operations and who have in hand a
technical college degree or diploma but want to extend their education
to a bachelor’s degree. Current
students at the three Twin Cities tech colleges can co-enroll in the
UMC program as soon as they’ve earned 26 technical college credits.
Two
more new articulation agreements between Anoka-Hennepin Technical
College and UMC make horticulture and turf programs at AHTC a
springboard to bachelor’s degrees.
An associate’s degree in Landscape and Nursery Technology can
become part of a bachelor’s degree in Plant Industries Management at
UMC. Either an
associate’s degree or diploma in Golf Course Grounds Management at
Anoka-Hennepin will transfer into a bachelor’s program in Golf
Facilities and Turf Systems Management at UMC.
In these two cases, students complete their bachelor’s
degrees at the Crookston campus, rather than in the Twin Cities area.
Visit <www.umcrookston.edu/ce/mmc> for more information, or contact Shelley Diment, Twin Cities Coordinator for UMC, at 651-303-3897 or via e-mail <sdiment@cce.umn.edu>.
UMC
and HTC Work Together on Wireless Internet
Service
UMC and Halstad
Telephone Company (HTC) will work together on an initiative to bring
wireless broadband Internet service to businesses, industry, and
residents of Crookston and the surrounding rural area.
The target date for offering the new service, providing speeds
of up to two megabits per second and higher, is June-July, 2001.
UMC will serve as a
terminal point where HTC’s fiber optic cable will connect with one
of the serving antennas, which will be located on the campus along
with some of the supporting electronics.
Students and faculty at UMC will benefit from the placement of
the serving antenna, which will provide additional Internet
connectivity options.
The remainder of the
electronics will be housed in the Halstad Telephone Company office in
Halstad, Minn. Both locations will be served by a redundant fiber optic
cable route. Another
antenna will be located within the city limits of Crookston.
The service will be provided and maintained by HTC.
(from left) UMC Chancellor
Sargeant, Kay Hegge of the Northwest Regional Development Committee,
and Ron Laqua, General Manager of the HTC, holding a wireless
receiving unit
The high-speed
service is being developed, in part, with money from a $32,000 grant
from the Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development’s
Technology Catalyst Grant Program. The grant money, secured by Kay Hegge, an economic
development planner with the Northwest Regional Development
Commission, will help bring high-speed connectivity to the rural areas
around Crookston as far north as Euclid, Minn.
Such rural areas have traditionally been underserved by these
technologies.
Spring
Enrollment Info
Spring
2001 Enrollment by Program information has now been posted to the web
at:
UMC
INSTITUTIONAL INFORMATION
http://webhome.crk.umn.edu/~nelson/institutional_information.htm
--Bob
Nelson, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Health
Benefits
Several
months ago we wrote to provide you with information about the
University's process for reviewing health care options for employees.
Since
that time, we have worked closely with the Interim Health Benefits
Committee and a working group appointed by Pres. Mark Yudof to
consider the pros and cons of staying within the State Employees Group
Insurance Plan (SEGIP), administered by the state, and to review
options that may be available outside the state system. That process
included the issuance of a Request for Proposals and review of the
responses from a number of health care systems in the state.
In addition, we consulted with employees in a series of public
forums held earlier this year. Throughout this process we were guided
by several objectives: the need to have a greater role in promoting
the health of University employees and in determining health plan
design; the need to tailor benefits to better meet the needs of
University employees; and the need to hold down health care cost
increases.
On
Friday, May 11, we presented to the Board of Regents information on
our progress to date and described a timeline for decision-making.
The Board of Regents will hold a special meeting at 8:30 on
Wednesday, May 23, to consider a recommendation by the President on
health care for the coming biennium.
Prior to the meeting, information will be made available to
employees on the details of the recommendation and at that meeting,
representatives of employee groups, including the Interim Health
Benefits Committee, will be invited to provide initial reaction to the
proposal. In addition, a
series of Public Forums will be held to gather additional employee
response. A schedule for
those public forums is attached, and we invite and encourage your
participation.
On
June 8, at its regular meeting, the Board of Regents will be asked to
authorize the President to contract for employee health care benefits
for the coming biennium, either through SEGIP or directly with health
care providers who have responded to the RFP. In addition, it is
important to note that pending full collective bargaining with
representatives of our unionized employees, any decisions made by the
President and the Board of Regents pertain only to our non-union
employees. The University
fully recognizes its duty to engage in good faith bargaining over all
these matters before any decisions are made regarding health care for
the unionized workforce.
This
is an important decision for the University and we want all employees
to be fully informed. For
more information, please go to <www.healthbenefits.umn.edu>.
You will find a complete history of the decision-making process
and answers to frequently asked questions.
--Frank
Cerra, M.D, Senior Vice President, Academic Health Center
--Fred Morrison, Professor, Chair, Interim Health Benefits Committee
TRIO
Grant Renewed
We
received word May 10 that UMC's Student Support Services Program has
been fully funded for another four years.
As of this point we have not been informed of the exact amount
of the grant, however, our grant officer in Washington indicated that
the average program increase is 8.5%.
For
general info on Federal TRIO programs visit <www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/HEP/trio/>.
--Rand
Rasmussen, Director of Student Support Services
Food
and Clothing Drive Success
UMC
students donated 412 pounds of food and 20 bags of clothing to the
Care and Share center in Crookston.
This was as a result of the food and clothing drive sponsored
by the Service Learning office during the last two weeks of classes.
--Pam Holsinger-Fuchs,
Director of Student Activities and Service Learning
This
Week's Special Dates
Birthdays
May 22 – Stephanie Reck
May 23 – Vern Markey
May 23 – Jennifer Johnson
Reminder:
Faculty and staff are encouraged to share well wishes for
birthdays, anniversaries, births, etc. with the rest of the campus.
Please send items for this week’s special dates via e-mail to
Andrew Svec at asvec@mail.crk.umn.edu
and/or Sue Dwyer at sdwyer@mail.crk.umn.edu.
Thanks.
UMC
Insight
UMC
Insight will be aired Saturday, May 19, at 8:45 a.m. on KROX (AM
1260). Tune in to
hear an interview with UMC Chancellor Don Sargeant discussing this
past academic year. The
interview is hosted by Andrew Svec, UMC’s director of
communications.
UMC Insight files are
also available via the Web at <http://www.umcrookston.edu/newsevents/insight/00-01/index.htm>.
Bulletin
Schedule for Summer
This
is the last weekly edition of the UMC Weekly Bulletin for this
academic year. Over the
next three months there will be three “Summer News” issues.
Here is the scheduled release date with submission deadline
dates in parentheses.
-
June 6 (deadline, June 4)
-
July 6 (deadline, July 5)
-
August 1 (deadline, July 30)
Please
submit all items for Summer News to Andrew Svec at <asvec@mail.crk.umn.edu>.
If you would prefer to receive a printed version sent to your
home address for the summer, please let us know, otherwise the URL
will be sent to your current e-mail address as usual.
The
UMC Weekly Bulletin will resume weekly publication on August 22, 2001. Deadline for submission for that edition is noon on Tuesday,
August 21, 2001.
UMC
Bulletin
The UMC Bulletin is
posted at:
<http://www.umcrookston.edu/campusinfo/wkbulletin/bulletin.htm>
Attachments