Winter 2007 TODAY Column

Just a few years into the twenty-first century, it seems it’s not a small world, after all. It’s a brand new one where information, innovation and alliances are all cultivated at lightning speed and across national borders.

The world for which we prepare our students is one that creates challenges new to our way of living, our way of thinking. Population is outpacing the earth’s available resources; potential pandemics pose a devastating threat; world tensions continue to rise as diplomacy seems to be needed more than ever before in seeking global solutions to our world problems; energy issues are, finally, among the foremost concerns not only of our policy makers, but the general consumer. Issues of sustainability are no longer long-range and theoretical— they are immediate and crucial.

Minnesota State University, Mankato is poised now, more than ever, to address these issues and contribute to their solutions. Historically, Minnesota State Mankato has been a visionary institution, wellequipped to prepare students for the new world that would eventually emerge. That time has arrived, and it is gratifying to know we’re providing a world-class knowledge base and an entire new generation of capable leaders.

We have long held that our brand of higher education positions Minnesota State Mankato as a significant resource in addressing present and future challenges to a world that is no longer across the seas and across borders but, indeed, is at our doorstep.

How are we doing this, a state university in a Midwestern town? I will address that question in detail through upcoming columns in this magazine. For now, I would point to new and important developments such as the establishment of our applied doctoral programs, our plans for a Center for Global Entrepreneurship and giving more students more opportunities to study abroad. These are but a few of the latest ways your University is providing and nurturing world leadership.

Through the determination of University leadership dating back to the late 1960s, we have at long last established ourselves as a doctorate-granting institution and next fall will begin offering applied doctorates in counselor education and nursing, addressing immediately the urgent needs in health care. This, of course, does wonders for our prestige and pride. But it also attracts the best and brightest from around the world, boldly positioning us to contribute to solutions to global challenges like never before.

Just as groundbreaking has taken place for a renovated Trafton Science Center— where faculty continue their research in myriad environmental issues—plans are progressing for a new, state-of-the-art College of Business building that will include Minnesota State Mankato’s Center for Global Entrepreneurship.

This center will stimulate students, faculty and working professionals to seek new, creative approaches to the challenges posed by the ever-changing, ever-growing business world. It will allow our future entrepreneurs to help society prosper in creative, innovative ways once deemed beyond possibility.

While we will draw some of the world’s greatest thinkers and innovators to our University, we are embarking as well on significantly increasing the number of our students studying abroad. Travel abroad is expensive, prohibiting many talented and motivated students an ideal opportunity to gain the worldview, experience and perspective so crucial in meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow. We will address this by encouraging a select number of students to travel internationally each year in order to expand the scope of their education in the most direct way possible.

We're on our way to being an international force. Thanks to a faculty distinguished by unbridled enthusiasm and vision, Minnesota State Mankato is now established as a leader in education that provides an impact well beyond the Midwest and across national borders. We see this not only in our own applied doctoral programs, but also in the predoctoral programs that are part of our Institutional Diversity. We see it in our Center of Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence, an effort to encourage young minds to contribute to engineering, manufacturing and industry innovation, putting them on the track to succeed internationally.

Now, more than ever, we are a university that will see its students’ dreams realized as they contribute to the world’s science, environment, technology, health care, arts and education. It’s their world, after all.