名古屋高等教育研究第１号（2001）

The Transformation of a University and It’s
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

John J. COGAN<Outline>
This paper gives a personal account of going through the process ofreform at a major comprehensive research university in the UnitedStates at the end of the 20th century. It focuses specifically upon theCollege of Education and Human Development (CEHD) at the
University of Minnesota in the United States. Discussed are key decisions and major change turning points in response to 17 years of budget cuts that led the CEHD to restructure and refocus its programs
through strategic planning and other efforts. Also addressed is how
these efforts fit into and in some areas even shaped educationalchange and reform across the entire university. Two of the majororganizational changes are also discussed: "incentive managed
growth", and a "compact planning process".

1. Introduction
This is the story of the fundamental restructuring of a facultyof education in a major U.S. comprehensive research university. It
took place over a period of three decades and was at times bothplanned and unplanned. It was driven by consistent and often sizeable cuts in the base budget of the institution and this college inparticular. It was a painful and difficult process but in the end, theProfessor, College of Education and Human Development,
University of Minnesota

123College of Education and Human Development at the University of
Minnesota has come through it stronger, healthier and more
focused in its mission.
This narrative is a personal one as this restructuring process
took place over exactly the same thirty year period as the author's
tenure in this faculty, 1969-2000. I arrived at Minnesota in theautumn of 1969, a new PhD out of a sister comprehensive research
university. I was enthusiastic and ready to begin what I hoped
would be a long and productive career. But no sooner had I
arrived than the College suffered its first of 22 budget cuts in thenext 30 years.

2. Background
The 1960's had been the so-called 'good years' in higher education. Federal monies were plentiful spawned by the launching of
the Soviet space probe, Sputnik, which served as a wake-up call to
the United States that it was falling behind its primary global rivalin science and technology. The blame for this was laid largely at
the feet of the educational establishment and billions of dollars
were pumped into both elementary and secondary as well as higher education to upgrade the knowledge base of teachers and todevelop new, inquiry-based curricula. However, this was shortlived.
At the end of this decade, federal support for education disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, due largely to the nation's
military involvement in Viet Nam. Overnight, the hiring of new
faculty in higher education ceased and would not appear again in
any large numbers for nearly three decades. Base budgets of theinstitution, and the College of Education in particular, were cut.
Older faculty were encouraged to take early retirement; others
who were top in their fields left for better positions at other major
research institutions. Academic content areas and degree programs were cut to balance the budget. The state support for high124

The Transformation of a University and It's
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

er education began a slow but steady decline that would, in time,
fundamentally alter the manner in which the institution operated.
Monies were shifted to elementary and secondary schooling where
politicians could more readily point to the impact. Little did wesuspect at the time that this process would continue for decades. It
was assumed that this was a temporary phenomenon and normalcy
would return quickly, normalcy being the 'good days' of the 1960's.
We soon realized that this was now normalcy and that the institution in which we worked was undergoing fundamental, lastingchange.
To do justice to the history of this process would require abook. What I propose to do in this limited space is to focus in themain on the last decade, the 1990's, of this restructuring in terms of
the planning process that took place in the College. This resulted
in final structural changes that put us on a much more thoughtful
course for the future. I shall briefly overview the history of thefirst two decades of this process noting key decisions and their longterm impact but will then move quickly to the 1990's where the latest and most significant changes took place.

3. Historical Overview
In the 1970's, the university began receiving less support fromthe legislature of the State of Minnesota, it's primary funding body.
The legislature began to channel more support into local elementary and secondary school districts where the impact was more visible and the legislators could use this in their next election campaign as an example of them bringing resources back to the local
area. Funding going to the university, or to the state colleges, wasmuch more difficult for the local legislator to point to how this had
aided the local community. Minnesota is a somewhat unique caseas well in that the University of Minnesota is the major researchand graduate degree granting institution in the state. The statecolleges, later to become state universities, are engaged primarily125

in undergraduate and some master's level degree granting work.
So while the case can be made that these institutions do contributesignificantly to the overall welfare and economy of the State of
Minnesota, it is much more difficult for a legislator to pinpoint
specifically how local tax monies have been utilized through these
institutions to benefit the local community. This is somethingwhich university officials have since recognized and now do amuch better job of highlighting how contributions of the institution
benefit all Minnesotans.
As a result, the state began a slow but steady long term decline
in the level of support for higher education in general but for the
University of Minnesota in particular. Legislators noted that theuniversity had at its disposal the possibility to attract outside funds
both from the federal government as well as from the private sector through foundations. While this was in fact true, the possibilities were not evenly available to all faculties. Medicine and science
had the most opportunities while those in the social sciences, thehumanities, including education, and the arts, were far fewer.

4. Shift in Legislative Composition
There was also a sociocultural change taking place in the statelegislature at this time which I believe is a further explanation forthe shift in funding. The Minnesota Legislature had, for its entire
history, been made up of people who were born and raised in thestate. They had a particular loyalty and allegiance to Minnesota,
including its institutions. The University of Minnesota was viewed
by everyone as 'their university' and they took great pride in the
many accomplishments of its faculty, its students, its sports teams
and most certainly its graduates who went on to make significant
contributions both in the state and elsewhere. But in the late1960's and early 1970's, demographic changes began taking place inthe state and a growing number of people moved into the statefrom other parts of the nation seeking jobs, going to school, work126

The Transformation of a University and It's
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

ing for multinational corporations, and the like. These people
became involved in politics at various levels and many were successful. But unlike their predecessors, they had not grown-up in
Minnesota. They were raised in other parts of the country, went
to universities spread across the land and did not have the allegiance to the University and other institutions in the state which
native sons and daughters did. They looked upon the University interms of how efficient it was and how could it be made more so.
So when it came time to pass legislation to support the University
they first asked to see evidence of productivity and impact. The
university was not used to these kinds of queries from legislatorsand reacted in a defensive posture initially which was a mistake as
it only caused skeptics to dig deeper and to ask more questions.
In the long term, these queries would serve to strengthen theuniversity as it got better at developing databases and means ofdemonstrating its impact both upon the State as well as the nation
and world at large. But this took time and in the interim, the university went through a very difficult period.
There also appeared to be, within the central administration of
the university, the view that the education faculty was notesteemed as highly as others. Some administrators, and legislators
as well, began openly suggesting that the College of Education was
mainly duplicating programs, such as initial and in-service teacher
education, which the state university system was already doing.
The question was raised as to whether the university really neededan education faculty. Why couldn't these responsibilities be transferred to the state system and thus save duplication of effort andmonies as well? As a result, the College Dean and faculty went
through a period of more than twenty years in which they had todemonstrate repeatedly that the College of Education at the university was indeed different from its counterparts in the state system.
They noted that it was responsible for research and knowledge
production, the development of models in the initial and in service
education of teachers, and for dissemination of research results and127

recommendations to the state, region, nation and the world.
Central administrators nodded 'yes' but the cuts in the base budgetof the college kept on coming.

5. Move to "All-Graduate" Teacher Preparation
Early in the decade of the 1980's, the then Dean of the College,
William Gardner, took a very bold move. In hindsight, his decision
may have saved the college, or at least the teacher education partof it. At this time there was a group of Faculty of Educationdeans meeting to respond to the critique of colleges of education
across the nation. These were primarily the academic deans of the
major comprehensive research universities. All were experiencing
to greater or lesser degrees the queries: "How are you any different
from the other institutions of higher education in your state withrespect to the conduct of the education of the teaching profession"?
It was a fair query and this group of deans met over a period tomonths to draft a response. They were termed the Holmes Group(Holmes Group, 1986).
What they decided was to change the process of the initial
preparation of teachers at these comprehensive research institutions to 'all graduate' programs. They believed, and they were correct, this would set them apart from other teacher preparation
institutions in their states and regions and allow them to engage in'model-building'. These models could then become part of a
research and development process with the results disseminatedto the others engaged in initial and in-service teacher education
throughout the nation. This would demonstrate uniqueness andhopefully persuade central administrators and legislators toincrease funding.
Dean Gardner seized this opportunity and took the Universityof Minnesota, College of Education, into the Holmes Group. Over a
period of several years the college went from a primarily undergraduate teacher preparation institution to one which accepted far
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The Transformation of a University and It's
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

fewer numbers for admission but at the postgraduate level. Thatis, these students had all achieved a BA or BS degree in some academic discipline. They were admitted to a 12-15 month intensive
program of pedagogical education to prepare to become classroom
teachers. These programs in the various academic subject areas,i.e., mathematics, science, social science, literacy, second languages
and cultures, and the arts, were a combination of theory and practice. Students took courses at the university in social and psychological foundations, pedagogy, assessment, at the same time they
were engaging in clinical experiences in local schools several days
per week. It was a field-based program designed to enable thesefuture teachers to implement and test theoretical models in classroom practice almost immediately. They then came back to thecollege classroom to discuss, critique and reflect upon their learning. It was designed to make them 'reflective practioners'.
Was it perfect? No, but it did exactly what the Holmes Groupand Gardner had intended; it set the College of Education at the
University of Minnesota apart from our counterparts in the state
university system. It cast us in a research and model building
mode, a feature that set us apart. This slowed the questions but
did not end them.
In retrospect, I believe this bold move saved the College. Make
no mistake, faculty did not go willingly into this new model. The
faculty put up all manner of objections to try and dissuade theDean but he was firm and resolute in his decision and in the end
forced us to restructure our teacher education programs. I now
believe that was our salvation. Without this change, our critics
would have continued to contend that we were in fact no different
than our counterparts in the state university system; that we were
duplicating effort and in a more costly manner, so why not simply
eliminate us. Sometimes democracy is not the best way to proceed
when academics are involved. There are times when strong leadership is called for and in this instance I believe we were wellserved by Dean Gardner's determined and forward looking stance.
129Throughout this period and before, College Deans had theunpleasant task of announcing to the faculty almost annually thatCentral Administration had handed down yet another budget cut
to the College. We were constantly in the position of having totrim our programs even further. We watched faculty retire or
leave to go elsewhere without being replaced, saw our college anddepartmental support services cut away, watched supply, resourceand professional travel funds reduced to a trickle, and witnessed
the morale of the faculty and support staff sink to new lows. Manyof us would have left had their been the opportunity to do so. But
this was not possible as rapidly our story became everyone's story
and there was simply nowhere to go.
Faculty retrenchment was becoming a very serious problem.
There were virtually no new faculty hires when people left or
retired. The faculty cohort declined from about 200 when I cameto the College in 1969 to about 125 in the 1999-2000 academic year,
up from 110 at the bottom of the curve in 1995. But the expectations of faculty remained the same in this period. The number ofdegree programs actually grew, courses got larger and larger, andfaculty were still expected to conduct research, publish and provide
service to the professional societies and communities of which they
were a part. It was a very depressing period.

6. Restructuring in the 1990's at the College and AllUniversity Levels
The 1990's brought a new dean to the College, Robert
Bruininks, who was from the Department of Educational
Psychology and a leading figure in the area of Special Education.
He had been highly successful in attracting federal monies to establish the Center for Community Integration. Special education is anarea where sizeable amounts of federal monies are still available.
He brought with him a new sense of urgency and set of priorities
for the College. He was well aware of the history of budget cuts
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The Transformation of a University and It's
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

and was determined to alter this course. His goal was to restructure the College along more of a private sector model and in theprocess convince the university central administration that this was
the way of the future, not only for the College but for the university as a whole. He saw the path to these goals as being through along term college-wide 'Strategic Planning' process.
Bruininks began this process immediately upon assuming thedeanship. The urgency of this task was brought on, per usual, by
the fact that the College was now facing the largest budget cut init's history, nearly $2 million in state base budget support. Thiswas staggering, especially given that the College already had thelowest level of state funding of any collegiate unit in the university.
There was simply no way to trim around the edges and cut a bit
here and there any longer. The only way a cut of this magnitude
could be managed was through a restructuring of college programs
and setting strategic goals for the future.
Simultaneous with Bruininks becoming Dean, the university
administration set itself upon a course to focus the priorities of theinstitution. The University of Minnesota is what we term a 'land
grant' institution in the United States. Under the Morrill Act of1862, every state was given an amount of federal land to sell, based
upon their congressional representation, and the proceeds fromthese sales were to be used in the development of institutions ofhigher learning geared toward agriculture and mechanics or engineering. These institutions were given a very broad-based mission
and were to be involved in research, teaching and service to the
local community, state, region and the nation. This mission stillholds today although the horizons have long since expanded to theworld.
However, this broad mission became problematic in the 1980's
in the eyes of the funding body for the university, the Minnesota
State Legislature. The state was in a situation where state budgets
were either stable or in slight decline with many more demands forsupport than in the past. So reductions in budget had to be made131

in a number of areas. Some legislators and policy makers felt thatthe university was trying to do too much. They believed thatmany programs were duplicated by state universities and private
sector colleges. They also felt that other major universities in theregion had programs that duplicated those at the university.
There was a call for 'accountability' and 'efficiency' as well as
demonstrating the impact of the state funds given to the university.
In response, the university administration and college deansbegan a process called U 2000. This was a strategic planning
process which was to (1) focus the mission and goals of the institution as a means to (2) becoming more cost efficient while raising thequality of its programs while (3) still maintaining its historic landgrant missions of research, teaching and service. They charged
college deans with the task of convening their faculties to,・ conduct a thorough review of programs,
・ eliminate those that were weak or redundant,
・ strengthen those that fell within the strategic priorities they set
for the future,・ reallocate resources and faculty to meet these challenges, and,・ find ways to generate significant amounts of external funding
for future programs.
The objective was that by the year 2000 the University of
Minnesota would
・ be focused,・ be playing to its strengths,
・ have a plan for generating substantial external monies,
・ raise its standards for admission and reduce its undergraduate
intake, and,・ eliminate weak or redundant programs.
At the millennium, the only one of these not accomplished fullyis the reduction of the undergraduate student body. In fact, it has
grown rather than declined as many of us predicted it would when
admission standards were raised. Students everywhere will seek
to get into the best universities and if you raise your criteria it sig132

The Transformation of a University and It's
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

nifies to your potential clients that you are getting better and theywant to be part of a better institution. So more rather than lessstudents applied for admission. They were also more highly qualified applicants. The only way to stem this increase is to set admission quotas which is not consistent with the land-grant mission of
the institution.
Concurrent with these developments at the all-university level,
Dean Bruininks brought together the College leadership for a
retreat in 1991 to spell out what was to be faced and to suggest a
process for resolving the budgetary and other problems the College
faced. Bruininks knew that the College could not survive if it continued to do things in the same way as in the past. A major review
and restructuring had to take place and it had to begin immediately. The major trends and issues facing the College were identified
and a set of planning assumptions developed to guide the futureplanning, development and management of the College. Keyamong them were:
1. fundamental restructuring of the college and redirection of its
resources toward strategic priorities,
2. reduction and consolidation of the College curriculum making it
more interdisciplinary in the process, i.e. , more cross departmental initiatives were sought,
3. developing the ability to respond quickly to changing market
forces as competition for both students and resources became
acute,
4. attracting external funding to offset the loss of state base budget support, especially with respect to improving research andprogram development capabilities,
5. strengthening and enhancing the diversity of both the faculty
and the student body,
6. developing focused programs that will enable the College tocompete with other institutions of higher education both within
and outside the State of Minnesota,
7. developing much stronger programs of outreach to schools and
133

8.

other educational communities, and,recruiting more quality full-time graduate students (College of
Education, 1994, p. 19-22).

7. The Strategic Planning Process
Shortly after the retreat noted above, every academic unit aswell as the College administration began a long-term strategic planning process. Task forces were assembled to work on specificissues. These included teacher education, adult and humanresource education, educational policy development, continuing professional education and development, early childhood education,interfacing with the university initiative in K-12 education (elementary and secondary schooling), the role of technology in education,and the role of international education and development as theCollege sought to strengthen its global linkages. The life of thesetask forces was to be only long enough to complete the assigned
work and then they were disbanded.

8. Strategic Planning Examples
To illustrate the strategic planning process, I will share two
examples of what transpired in the two academic units to which I
was attached during this period. I am a faculty member withtenure in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction where I
am responsible for programming in elementary and middle schoolsocial science as well as global and environmental coursework.
These are all at the graduate level. I also am a member of the
Department of Educational Policy and Administration where I
teacher courses in comparative and international development education as well as advise graduate students in those areas.
Consolidation of Inservice MEd Programs
At the time the strategic planning process began, there were
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The Transformation of a University and It's
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

12 Master of Education programs focused on inservice teachers in
the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. The Dean
informed the faculty that one of the criticisms of the College wasthat there were far too many degree programs and that they werealso costly in relationship to those of counterpart institutions. The
challenge to the faculty was to reduce these multiple MEd programs to one! The faculty was unhappy about this as they had
spent years developing these inservice MEd programs around their
specific disciplinary content. The faculty set about restructuring
the degree requirements to include (1) a general foundations component which all students would be required to take and (2) specificcourses related to their particular discipline or subject area. The
end result was two inservice MEd programs: one for the elementary and middle school years and one for the middle and secondary
level. These reflect the way in which teachers are licensed in
Minnesota. This consolidation was viewed by university administration and legislators as a major reduction in degree programs,
whether it truly was or not, and they liked the change.
Program Enhancement
In my second home, the Department of Educational Policy and
Administration, we were asked to reassess the capabilities of theComparative and International Development Education (CIDE)
graduate degree programs with an eye toward making themamong the strongest in the nation. This was as a result of international education being made a central planning priority of theCollege. The problem faced from the outset was trying to teachand administer both MA and PhD programs in CIDE, an area
undergoing rapid growth with a minimal faculty cohort. We used
the strategic planning process to do two things that would movetoward alleviating this problem.
First, we made sure that a thorough examination of the CIDE
program area was part of a forthcoming Graduate School review ofall department programs. Further, we suggested an external135

review team that was chaired by one of the most highly respected
figures in the comparative and international development education
field. During the site visit, he interviewed each of the existing faculty in the CIDE unit as well as graduate students at both the MA
and PhD levels. He determined what they believed to be thestrengths of the program as well as weaknesses and what needed
to be done to move the program into the top five in the nation. His
report was critical in the development of our strategic plan for
CIDE in building a case for two new faculty members.
A second review was undertaken by the College, through ateam of three external figures in international education. While
their principal task was to assess movement toward goals outlinedin the College-wide 'internationalization' plan developed five years
earlier, they could not escape examination of the CIDE program in
their work. Their review provided some additional insights thatwere helpful in the development of the strategic plan for the CIDEunit.
The successful outcome of this process is that we hired one of
the top professors in the field to a senior faculty position for the
2000-2001 academic year and will search for a second one in thenear future. I am confident this would not have occurred without
the strategic planning process that forced us (1) to examine ourprograms, (2) identify our needs and (3) set a plan for achieving
them.
These are examples of planning that took place in two individual departmental units. But what about the overall planning
process of the College? How did this function? The following
describes this macro level work over a period of years.

9. The Collegiate Planning Process
The College administration designed a comprehensive planning
process that focused upon the long-term future of the College in an
information age. This is a crucial point. The goal was to plan for136

The Transformation of a University and It's
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

the future of the College, for the next 10-15 years and not to getcaught up in short term issues. Three complementary, parallel
tracks were identified in a comprehensive planning process. They
included a focus on
・ organizational and management issues;
・ potential interdisciplinary and collaborative initiatives; and・ long-range academic restructuring to meet future anticipatedneeds.
In the first instance, working groups focused on organizationaland management issues that required immediate attention to
improve the efficiency of the organization and to cut overlap offunctions and wastage of resources. A prime example of this was
the decision to eliminate a separate budget officer for each departmental unit and combine these functions under a College
Administrative Budget Center. This eliminated six positions andcentralized the budgeting work into one unit.
The second area of emphasis, interdisciplinary and collaborative
initiatives, was designed to reduce duplication of programming
efforts across the college and to encourage all-college, or at leastcross-departmental programs. For example, everyone of the six
departments had a basic introductory research course at the master's level. Why? Tradition! Historically each department had felt
the need to organize this course to the particular programmaticneeds of their unit. But upon investigation, it was discovered thatnearly every one of the six units was teaching basically the same
course; even using the same course text in several instances. The
task force working in this area recommended that a single course
be developed and offered to all entering master's level students inthe college. This freed-up five faculty to teach another course
offering.
In the case of the third area, long-term academic restructuring,I have already given two examples above from my own departmental homes in Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy
and Administration and will not repeat them. There were many137

other examples across the College as well including the development of entirely new programs.
This planning process resulted in six Strategic Directions for
the College that were basically parallel to those of the Central
Administration's U2000 goals. Making sure that College goals weredirectly inline with those of the university had been by intent so as
to demonstrate that (1) we were in concert with the mission andgoals of the university and (2) our future was intertwined with thatof the university as a whole.
The College goals included:1.

Promoting Excellence in Research and Scholarship
1.1 Advance knowledge about critical issues in education andhuman development, and effectively integrate and apply
new knowledge to the problems and challenges facing ourchanging society.
1.2 Continue to secure funding for new research initiatives inprogram areas where there is both demand and opportunity.
1.3 Create Interdisciplinary and collaborative research programs or centers addressing significant educational issues
and social problems that have an impact on the state,region, nation and world, and that build upon the college's
unique strengths, relationships, and opportunities.
1.4 Strengthen the infrastructure to advance the research mission of the college.

2. Strengthening Academic Programs that Prepare Leaders in
Education and Human Development
2.1 Strengthen and maintain core Ph.D., Ed.D., M.A. andSpecialist degree programs and practitioner-oriented graduate programs that prepare future scientists, practitioners,
policy makers, and other leaders in education and humandevelopment.
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The Transformation of a University and It's
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

2.2 Strengthen and maintain model initial licensure M.Ed. programs in teacher education.
2.3 Develop interdisciplinary, collaborative approaches to teaching and learning for (a) academic programs that address significant issues in education and human development, andfor (b) continuing professional education programs thatmeet the changing needs of practitioners.
2.4 Maintain and strengthen current outstanding programs ofundergraduate study, while collaborating with other academic units within the University to develop attractive elective programs of study for undergraduates.
3.

Extending Outreach and Service
3.1 Strengthen formal links between the college's teaching,research, and service programs and public and private
providers-schools, business and industry, service agencies,and related learning organizations.
3.2 Provide technical assistance to both internal and external
constituencies, and disseminate the best application-oriented
information to practitioners, policy makers, and other leaders in education and human development.
3.3 Serve as Minnesota's key information clearinghouse on education and human development issues, including policies,
practices, ideas, and research.
3.4 Provide model, state-of-the-art, relevant and accessible service and outreach programs in several new areas.

4.

Advancing Cultural Diversity
4.1 Foster and strengthen a college environment that values
cultural diversity and the is conducive to attracting andretaining a diverse community of students, faculty, andstaff.
4.2 Increase college resources for the recruitment and retention of students of color and students with disabilities.
1394.3 Vigorously recruit talented faculty of color in program
areas of long-term academic need.
5.

Creating a User-Friendly College Environment
5.1 Maintain and strengthen its historically strong tradition ofproviding a wide variety of students with access to its programs, and of designing curricula that take into account thechanging needs of students.
5.2 Create a stronger sense of community among faculty, students, staff and alumni.
5.3 Continue to redesign support services and space, with theassistance of central administration, to best serve today's
students, faculty and staff.

6.

Improving the Overall Efficiency and Effectiveness of College
Planning and Resource Management
6.1 Increase the efficiency and productivity of college curricula,and reinvest productivity gains and/or saved resources(usually in the form of faculty time and effort) to support
the college's core academic programs and new initiatives.
6.2 Increase non-state funding for core academic programs andnew initiatives in research, teaching , and service.
6.3 Reduce administrative costs significantly without substantially reducing the quality of service offered to department
chairs, faculty, staff, students, and others.
6.4 Build the analytical and institutional research capacity that
supports the college in planning, managing, and evaluating
its programs.
6.5 Enhance its communications capacity, with particular attention to 'making the case' for the College, providing important and timely information to both internal and external
constituencies, and strengthening student support services
and alumni relations (College of Education, 1994, pp. 36-67).
Dean Bruininks was very shrewd in making sure that College

140The Transformation of a University and It's
Faculty of Education: The Case of Minnesota

and the university-wide U2000 missions and strategic goals werealigned. Rumors were again circulating to the effect that there
were those in the university hierarchy and in the state legislature
who still questioned whether the University of Minnesota reallyneeded a College of Education. "Why couldn't these functions andprograms be carried out by those in the state university system?",they asked. The problem was that we were still viewed by mostoutside the institution and by several key people within it as aplace that trained teachers and nothing more. Bruininks knew thatfor the College to survive, this image had to be changed; indeed it
was inaccurate!

10. Name Change: Cosmetic or Substantive?
The first thing Dean Bruininks did was to petition the university administration and our governing Board of Regents to change
the name of the College to more accurately reflect what we actually did in line with our strategic plan. He had done his homeworkby first consulting with other college deans who might or might
think that they would be impacted by the change in title, ie, believing it to be too close to their own name and mission. This consultation proved critical. The proposed change was to the College of
Education and Human Development (1995). Our programs and faculty were engaged in all manner of human development activities
from our globally ranked Institute for Child Development throughour Adult Learning and Human Reresource Development programs in the Department of Work, Community, and Family
Education. The preparation of teachers for initial licensure and inservice programs for teachers was but one part of our total activity
and a reduced one at that given our move to an all-graduateteacher licensure program in the 1980's described earlier. To some
this name change was simply cosmetic. More fundamentally, however, Bruininks and the College used it as the leverage to connect
us with all kinds of other units in the university so that if Central141

Administration tried to cutback the College budget and programs
further, it impacted those units as well and they would come to our
defense. It worked magnificently.
A prime example of this was the creation of the Center for
Environmental Learning and Leadership (CELL) which was a joint
program of the College of Education and Human Development andthe College of Natural Resources. CELL coordinates environmental
education and leadership activities across the university as well as
offering both MEd and MS degrees and hopefully soon, the PhD in
this area. The formation of CELL linked these two colleges closely
and makes them much less vulnerable to budget cuts since they
are fulfilling both their own college missions as well as that of theuniversity as a whole through the focus on interdisciplinary programs.
Several all-university academic minors were developed as wellwhich heavily involved several colleges and thus to cut one of these
programs would impact two or more faculties. It was a superb
strategy by Bruininks.

11. A Model for the University?
Dean Bruininks then began taking a series of bold moves to set
the College apart from other Schools of Education in the region as
well as from other colleges within the university. The first initiative, already noted previously, was to totally restructure theCollege budgeting process and consolidate it into a centralized unit.
This eliminated six departmental jobs and theoretically was tostreamline the budgeting process so that the College administration
had a better grasp of its financial situation at any given point intime. This was not without its difficulties in the implementation
stage but these were soon worked out and the model became one
for the university.
Next, the College had the department chairs and their units
develop revised strategic plans. This would become part of an
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ongoing process, ie, continual reassessment of priorities and themeans for obtaining goals. Just as in the corporate world, we werein a constant process of reassessing our strengths and weaknesses
and finding ways to promote our strengths and improve weak
areas.
The move from three academic terms (Fall, Winter, Spring
Quarters) to two semesters (Fall and Spring) provided anotherleverage for change. The move, an all-university restructuring,
required that university curricula be reduced by one-third. Thus,
it was natural to use this occasion to eliminate courses no longer
serving a specific function. We also combined courses which could
be integrated into a 15 week semester as opposed to a 10 weekquarter. In the process, we thoroughly re-examined our academic
degree programs in terms of their quality, relevance and appropriateness. This was a one-time opportunity to really reflect upon andrestructure academic programs; even eliminate them when necessary if they were determined to be redundant. All programmaticunits engaged in this critical reassessment and the curriculum anddegree programs were offered beginning Fall Semester, September
1999. As a result, the college curricula are much stronger, coherent
and integrated than ever before.
Bruininks also launched a long-term examination of the College
Constitution toward the end of his term. This process is now completed and a totally new, faculty oriented, governance structure is
now in place. The former Constitution relied heavily on the Officeof the Dean. There was a College Assembly, made up of all the faculty and academic professionals in the college. Meetings of thisgroup were held several times a year when discussions regarding
major initiatives or policies needed to be discussed or as a means todisseminating information. There was also a Faculty Senate that
met once each term and otherwise as needed, convened by the
Dean. This body was elected by the faculty and was to rule on
matters of policy, oversee standing committees, and advise theDean when appropriate. In addition to this, there was a Senate143Consultative Committee, elected from the members of the Senatethat met monthly with the Dean. This group brought concerns of
the faculty to him as well as the Dean bringing important initiatives he had in mind to the Committee before sending them to theentire faculty.
Frankly speaking, the system was not working very well.
When Senate or Assembly meetings were called, few would show
up. Indeed, the impetus for change came when, at an important
Senate meeting, there were not even enough present to take a voteon a policy item before them. Faculty and the Dean agreed that
there was a need to review the structure and make changes to get
more people involved in the process of policy and decision-making.
This was initiated when I was Chair of the Senate Consultative
Committee and continued over a four year period. The Faculty has
now approved a new more de-centralized structure allowing for
more faculty input. As a result, College Senate members now taketheir responsibilities far more seriously.

12. The New President
In the Spring of 1997, the University of Minnesota named a newpresident. Mark Yudof was a lawyer and currently Provost andSenior Vice-President at the University of Texas, Austin. As
President, as well as an outsider to the university, he was concerned that he needed a person close to him who knew the university well and could help him learn the university system quickly.
Dean Brunininks was already becoming well known and respectedin the university community given the remarkable changes he had
made in the College of Education and Human Development. At thetime of Yudof's appointment, he was Chair of the Deans Council, agroup of all academic deans across the university, a position
achieved out of respect for the work he had done in the College.
President-elect Yudof invited Bruininks to Texas to visit with him
about the possibility of becoming Provost and Senior Vice-President
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in his administration and to be the person who would help him toquickly understand the university and how it worked.
Yudof selected Bruininks for a number of reasons but in largepart because of the way he had taken a College in serious trouble
financially and programmatically and reversed its direction. He
believed that such a transformation was needed at the all-university level as well and believed that Bruininks was the person to help
him do it.
They began working immediately on a process of decentralizing
the university decision-making and budgeting process. Both feltthat the decisions and the funding to implement them were bestplaced at the collegiate level. So they implemented a two-partprocess designed to ensure this.
IMG : Incentive Managed Growth, was a budgetary system
implemented by Yudof's predecessor, Nils Hasselmo. It is a process
designed to substantially de-centralized authority, responsibility
and accountability. Under IMG, the level of state financial support
for colleges was set on 1 July 1997. From that point forward, colleges now received whatever the level of state support was fortheir unit as of 7/1/97 plus 51% of their indirect cost recovery (ICR)
funds (overhead on externally funded grants and contracts) and all
tuition revenues. In addition, they have the grants and contracts
they secure for special research and development projects. If a college experiences growth in these budgets, especially tuition and
ICR, they are obviously in a position to increase their academic programs and faculty cohort. However, if they do not meet their current budget targets set on 1st July 1997, then they will have very
serious retrenchment decisions to make. But in all instances theprocess allows for the College to be responsible for its own futureboth in terms of programs as well as in the budgets to support
them as well. This was essentially the process that Bruininks had
already put in place in the College of Education and Human
Development so we were perhaps better poised than any other collegiate unit in the university to take advantage of this. Bruininks
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had told the College faculty again and again when he was Deanthat our future was in our own hands; that we could create the conditions to grow or we could complain and do nothing and see theCollege disappear. As in the case of Dean Gardner before him,with respect to the institution of postbaccalaureate teacher licensure programs, the faculty did not go enthusiastically into these
efforts. But I do believe that most realized that we were at a critical point and we either changed the way in which we worked quite
substantially or we would cease to exist. Bruininks saw every challenge as an opportunity. "You can either sit back and complain
about the hand you have been dealt (a reference often used in the
USA referring to a game of cards) or you can say to yourself, what
can I make out of this that is positive and progressive". I think in
the long term we were well served by Dean Brunininks' forward
looking, visionary posture. He has carried this same view forward
at the university level as well.
CPP : The second element of the restructuring is the Compact
Planning Process . This process is carried out with each collegiate
unit on the campus and is designed to engage them in the samekind of strategic planning process in which we engaged in theCollege of Education and Human Development from 1991-1994.
Basically, each collegiate unit must go through a strategic planning
process in which they・ identify their academic priorities,
・ develop collegiate and unit databases,
・ design an enrollment and revenue management strategy,
・ note specific faculty and staff issues and priorities,
・ note facilities issues which need attention if the college and its
units are to meet their Compact goals, and, develop a specificfinancial plan to achieve the Compact as well as any special
funds they will need to obtain to meet their targets.
Central administration then examines the Compact Plan in viewof central mission and priorities and either agrees, modifies orrejects proposals. In the end, the Provost and the College Dean
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agree to the revised Compact and this is the plan to which both areheld for the agreed upon period, usually two years. It is like a contract between the university and its collegiate units.

13. Summary
Much has been written in the last decade about the reform andrestructuring of institutions and programs in higher education globally. Indeed, this is one of the major areas of concern within theacademy as we enter the millennium. Most of these reports are ofan analytical and policy nature. In this brief essay, I have tried toshare a more personal view of the educational reform which
Michael Fullan most aptly described as "a process; not an event"(Fullan, 1996). Institutional change is slow and often quite painful tothose who are involved. But it is inevitable; nothing remains thesame.
Those of us in higher education are perhaps are only now
beginning to face what our colleagues in the primary and secondary school sector did two decades or more ago. But face it wemust with all the creativity and innovative behaviour our intellectcan muster. For without a careful, thoughtful, visionary examination of who we are, what is our purpose and where our future lies,
we shall fail and other institutions and/or entrepreneurs will
replace us. This is without a doubt our most critical challenge ofthe last century. Let us hope that we are equal to the task.

References
College of Education (1994) Strategic Plan: Preparing Leaders in
Education and Human Development. Minneapolis, MN: College of
Education, University of Minnesota.
Fullan, M. (1996) Change Force, New York: Falmer.
Holmes Group (1986) Tomorrow's Teachers: A Report of the HolmesGroup, East Lansing, MI: The Holmes Group.
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