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MSU adopts plan to offer trade-school classes

After months of debate, Montana State University has adopted a plan that calls for offering trade-school classes at the Bozeman campus, while at the same time trying to attract more of the best and brightest undergraduates.

By GAIL SCHONTZLER, Chronicle Staff Writer

On Tuesday the 21-member budget committee voted unanimously to approve the Strategic Concepts and Priorities plan. It is intended to guide the committee’s future budget decisions.

The most controversial idea in the plan is the proposal to offer Bozeman students classes from the two-year MSU College of Technology in Great Falls.

MSU Provost Dave Dooley, who heads the committee, said in spite of criticism on campus, people in the Bozeman community have told him that offering COT classes is "long overdue and most welcome."

Last month some professors complained by e-mail that offering trade-school classes would lower MSU’s prestige and that MSU is trying to be all things to all people.

But the goal, MSU officials said, is to offer students who are struggling a chance to brush up on basic skills, so that they can continue their education instead of dropping out. Right now, 30 percent of freshmen don’t return. Only 44 percent of students who start at MSU graduate.

The strategic plan also calls for recruiting more "well-qualified, highly motivated students," trying to hang onto students, especially those who get decent grades, and improving MSU’s quality.

Overall, it calls for MSU to strive for national prominence as a great place for students to get an education, a great place for research, and a land-grant university that serves the people of Montana.

Another priority calls for raising MSU’s reputation, by recruiting bright students and by better marketing. The committee voted to remove a controversial sentence that suggested MSU would thus become more "selective." Historically, MSU has been open to most Montana high school graduates.

Despite budget-cutting that’s just started in the Legislature, the committee agreed to ask MSU departments for their ideas for spending more money next year, if they would help MSU improve and reach its goals.

Arts and Architecture Dean Jerry Bancroft suggested limiting requested increases to 2 percent, in light of the state’s deficit of more than $200 million.

Dooley agreed to an overall limit of 4 percent above current budgets, or around $3 million. But he rejected the notion of freezing MSU’s creative ideas.

"No institution can long tread water and remain healthy," Dooley said.

Just how MSU would pay for new professors or programs — or old programs whose costs are rising — isn’t clear. Dooley suggested one option would be to cut every department’s budget by 2 percent to free up funds.

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2003/01/09/news/tradeschoolbzbigs.txt

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