NEWS | March 2010

Each month NEWS delivers stories about our colleges and higher education research, trends and policies Read full articles on one page or go to the NEWS archive
	Keeping students in college and on track Minnesota's Private Colleges already have the best graduation rate in the state, but they aim to do even better with a variety of proactive measures that help keep students on the path to completing a degree. Read the story.

	National college attainment goals aim high The U.S. and Minnesota will have to stretch to meet proposed goals for the percentage of workers who earn a college credential. While our national standing is being surpassed by other countries, Minnesota is well-positioned to produce more college educated workers. Read the story.

	Higher education bills move forward The higher education committees of the Minnesota House and Senate passed their bills last week; each addresses the State Grant program's budget shortfall differently. Read about the bills.

	Fact you can use Over the past five years, inflation-adjusted net tuition at private colleges in Minnesota has increased by 15 percent. Inflation-adjusted institutional student aid, meanwhile, has grown at over twice that rate (32 percent).

	Campus News Cathryn Manduca and the Carleton College Science Education Resource Center have been awarded the Science Prize for Online Resources in Education for their Web site creation, On the Cutting Edge, which fosters the sharing of ideas about the geosciences, both in terms of teaching and education throughout the field. When The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition makes its debut at the Science Museum of Minnesota on March 12, it will include a gallery devoted to The Saint John’s Bible. Displaying the original folios from The Saint John’s Bible provides a compelling juxtaposition with the Dead Sea Scrolls. St. Catherine University's Exercise and Sport Science program is one of 24 in the country and the first in Minnesota to earn accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP). Assistant Professor Mark Blegen, Ph.D., led faculty colleagues in revamping the curriculum to meet CAAHEP’s national standards.

	Briefs Minnesota, which expected to receive as much as $250 million in Race to the Top funding, now will have to rewrite its 1,000-page grant proposal and hope to get re-consideration in June. Read the MinnPost article. Louis Johnston, a professor of economics at Saint John's University and the College of Saint Benedict, was a guest on MPR’s Midday program earlier this month for the discussion, “Where is the Minnesota economy headed?” In response to a question on the importance of liberal arts, he said “I actually think that a liberal arts education is more important today than it ever was because of the pace of change. ...people with liberal arts degrees do pretty well.” Listen to the interview.