News Highlights

MnSCU launches accountability tool online

'Dashboard' for use by trustees, public

A new Minnesota State Colleges and Universities initiative to track accountability has been launched that will allow the system's Board of Trustees -- as well as any mem­ber of the public -- to peruse per­formance measurement data.

2008-06-18
By Robb Murray, Free Press Staff Writer [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN, 6/18/2008]

No more wondering whether your local community college is a better buy than the ones in the metro area.

No more guessing whether the area university’s retention rate is commensurate with your expecta­tions.

No more trying to divine how many graduates end up with jobs in their field.

A new Minnesota State Colleges and Universities initiative to track accountability has been launched that will allow the system’s Board of Trustees — as well as any mem­ber of the public — to peruse per­formance measurement data.

It’s call the Board of Trustees Accountability Dashboard, and it will track performance of the sys­tem’s 32 colleges and universities on 10 key measures: net tuition and fees as percent of median income, student persistence and completion, related employment of graduates, licensure exam pass rates, percent change in enroll­ment and condition of facilities.

For now, actual data are avail­able for six of the 10 performance indicators. The others will follow as sufficient data becomes avail­able.

The dashboard assigns one of three categories to each indicator — gold for “exceeds expectations,” blue for “meets expectations” and red for “needs attention.”

“I believe this dashboard will help us to concentrate our energy and resources in moving the dash­board’s dial to the ‘exceeds expec­tations’ category,” MnSCU Chancellor James McCormick said. “ Taxpayers are increasingly skeptical of state universities and colleges. The dashboard will be a visible means of displaying our commitment.”

Craig Schoenecker, of MnSCU, said they researched other states and higher education systems. All track accountability, but none do it like this.

“We have not found any states or systems that are using an interactive tool like we are,” Schoenecker said.

Said McCormick, “ We’re about making things that are good better, and good to great.”
Linda Baer, senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, said the accountability dashboard will help system officials show off their work.

“We work very hard to serve students,” Baer said. “ We do a very good job. This helps us tell the story.” The dashboard spent about two years in develop­ment. Staff within the chan­cellor’s office did much of the work, but MnSCU also spent $150,000 on a firm that helped MnSCU with some of the technological aspects of the program.

So far, the system does not exceed expectations in any category, but meets expectations for percent change in enrollment, stu­dent persistence and com­pletion, related employment of graduates, licensure exam pass rates and the facilities condition index.

Tuition and fees as a per­cent of median income, which seeks to measure affordability, is the only indi­cator at a systemwide level in the “needs attention” cat­egory.

Before the dashboard, MnSCU had a complicated system for measuring per­formance in 31 different areas.

“Thirty-one was too many,” Schoenecker said. “ That was a significant fac­tor in us going to this new accountability dashboard.”

The dashboard is available online at www.mnscu.edu.

Email this article | Permanent link | Topstories news | Topstories news archives