Coordinating Board endorses strategic goals for higher education

Sedalia – The Coordinating Board for Higher Education endorsed Governor Jay Nixon’s strategic initiatives for higher education at its regular board meeting Sept. 10, held at State Fair Community College in Sedalia.

The board applauded Governor Nixon’s leadership and charged Interim Commissioner of Higher Education David Russell to begin work on achieving the strategic goals. Russell and the staff of the Missouri Department of Higher Education were specifically directed to:

·Conduct an inventory review of degree programs to identify those that do not meet established productivity criteria;
·Prepare, in consultation with the institutions, an inventory of existing cooperative and collaborative academic programs and submit that inventory to the board no later than December 2010;
· Convene a task force to review and possibly revise the existing higher education funding model to put more emphasis on the mission and performance of public institutions, with results to the submitted to the board by June 2011;
· Work with institutions to identify innovative ways to provide support services and deliver academic programs more efficiently, including but not limited to sharing resources and expanding collaboration, and to share best practices with other institutions.


“It is a new day for public institutions of higher education in Missouri,” said Tom Vansaghi, associate vice chancellor of college and community relations at MCC. “ In many ways MCC is ahead of the game in terms of collaborating with other institutions and emphasizing results and efficiencies. MCC will need to place growing emphasis on initiatives like the Institute for Workforce Innovation to build long-term funding streams to withstand cuts we know are coming from the state over the next few years.”

Russell says the department will immediately begin to review approximately 4,000 academic programs at public institutions. Programs that do not appear to meet the board’s productivity criteria of producing 10 graduates per year (calculated over a three-year average) at the baccalaureate level, five majors per year at the master’s degree level, and three majors per year at the doctoral degree level will be identified for further study.

Institutions will have an opportunity to comment on the results prior to a preliminary report to the Coordinating Board in December.