Photos by John Cross
President Richard Davenport's convocation focused on the achievements of the previous year, and the challenges of the coming year.
There are so many great things happening at Minnesota State University that it took President Richard Davenport about 25 minutes to mention them all before getting to the juicy stuff.
Well, juicy stuff may be a relative term. The venue Monday morning was the annual convocation, the symbolic beginning of another academic year.
It's a chance for the President to kick things off right and set a positive tone, but it's not typically known for breaking major news.
Still, he eventually got to the hard stuff — talk of higher education crises, harbingers and outlooks. And as it turns out, the future of higher education in the United States isn't all that bright.
Davenport cited a couple of journal articles and a recent talk by Thomas Friedman (of "The World is Flat" fame), all of which pointed to the state of global change that will deeply affect higher education.
"It is important to recognize that our higher education system is falling behind," he said. "We're losing out to (foreign countries.)"
Case in point: Project 211 in China, which aims to produce more than 100 top universities early in the 21st century to help the country produce and elite, educated class. Davenport was a member of a delegation that visited China recently. He said he saw a nation eager to expand its reach in higher education.
At Minnesota State University's annual convocation Monday, several hundred MSU faculty and staff were on hand to listen to President Richard Davenport discuss the state of the university. Also on hand was former President James Nickerson.
Davenport also visited India recently, another country that is quickly making its presence known on a global scale, particularly in science and technology.
In this environment, more needs to happen at American universities, and at MSU, to compete, and that includes, of course, funding.
"More needs to be done to fund higher education," he said.
He quoted a recent Thomas Friedman lecture in which the New York Times columnist said, "True leaders are those who can connect the dots," Davenport paraphrased.
MSU needs to produce leaders that can recognize the ways in which everything is connected. When people with that kind of vision take charge, the world and its problems will be in much better shape.
He thinks MSU already has some of those leaders, and hopes MSU can produce some more of them.
"I've always believed that universities can make a world of difference," he said.
And as for those achievements, enrollment is up (overall enrollment as well as students of color and international students), the new campus in Edina is a positive step for the university, applied doctorate programs are growing and progressing nicely, dozens of faculty are winning awards, students are winning Fulbrights and MSU is winning lots of management awards.
Classes begin next week.
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