Rochester may be home for specialization
07/23/2006
By Don Davis, The Forum
Published Sunday, July 23, 2006
ROCHESTER, Minn. – Gov. Tim Pawlenty went to Rochester a year and a half ago with a vision: “Today, I propose that we create a university here in Rochester.”
Immediately, thoughts of modern classroom buildings, big residence halls, a student union, and even a football team and marching band popped into minds. Rochester, the third-largest Minnesota city, finally would have a university like many smaller cities – Moorhead, St. Cloud and Duluth.
Or so many Minnesotans thought from the sound bite they heard.
Moments later, Pawlenty qualified the remark: “Campuses are trying to be everything to everybody.”
So instead of a new campus offering degrees in everything from athletics to zoology, the Republican governor called for a specialized campus dealing with a few subjects, such as medical programs presented in cooperation with world famous Mayo Clinic, and technology classes and research that would mesh with needs at the gigantic IBM campus in north Rochester.
But a change in state law legislators approved earlier this year does not guarantee that the Rochester university – a branch of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus – will be limited to a few, select programs. The new law muddies just what kind of university Rochester will have.
The University of Minnesota established the University of Minnesota Rochester in 1999, although it has offered programs in Rochester since 1966.
Concern that the Rochester university will grow beyond what is planned is especially great among lawmakers serving Winona, 43 miles to the east on U.S. 14 and home to Winona State University.
“We still don’t know what this money is going to go for, but we have some big numbers,” Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona, said about estimates produced by the Rochester Higher Education Development Committee.
The committee was established by the 2005 Legislature to research, recommend and develop a proposal for expanded higher education programs or institutions in Rochester.
A spreadsheet in the committee’s recommendation to Pawlenty in January shows unfunded annual costs of $920,000 in 2008 for the university in Rochester, mounting to nearly $27 million by 2015. It doesn’t show who would pay. The Rochester university’s total budget would be nearly $63.7 million in 2015, the task force estimated, up from this year’s $6.2 million. As a comparison, Minnesota State University Moorhead’s 2005 budget was $73 million.
Pelowski said some of the money for the Rochester campus will come from university campuses such as those in Crookston and Morris.
“Whatever is happening in Rochester is coming from somewhere,” Pelowski said.
Pawlenty and University of Minnesota officials – and even leaders of the university’s competing higher education system – say no one will lose money. Funds are coming out of the natural growth of the state budget, they say.
But questions remain while university leaders decide how their Rochester operation will look.
There are no deadlines for a decision, but the top university official in Rochester said he knows what will not happen.
“We have no interest in becoming a traditional campus,” Provost David Carl said.
Carl said the vision is to emphasize health-related classes and research, where students can work on the Mayo campus that dominates downtown Rochester as well as at technology-related firms like IBM and electronics manufacturer Pemstar.
The campus may offer a few lower-division classes that students will take the first two years. It will confer bachelor’s, master’s and doctor’s degrees, Carl said.
Besides health care and technology, the campus will offer programs in education, business and social work, Carl said. Some classes will be on the Rochester campus, some will be offered by video or the Internet and some will be a combination.
When the Rochester university’s expansion began in 2000, officials in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system were worried. They aren’t now.
“This is an economic engine,” said Don Supalla, president of Rochester Community and Technical College, a MnSCU institution. “This ultimately will generate more revenue than it will cost.”
Despite the MnSCU support, questions remain about where money will be found, even given top policymakers’ promises that Rochester investments will not hinder other state needs.
“If you only have so much money to spend and there are so many demands, you are going to have to parcel it out judiciously,” said Clyde Allen, a Moorhead resident and member of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents.
Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, said there is a competition for state funds.
“There is a limit to the state dollars we put into education,” said Urdahl, a member of the House Higher Education Committee. “They either are going to be competing for a slice of the pie or the pie is going to have to get bigger.”
Sam Schuman, who in a week is leaving the University of Minnesota Morris chancellor job after eight years, delivered a quick “yes” when asked if his school would compete with Rochester for money.
University campuses “have not been generously funded by public funds the last half-dozen years,” he said. “If there isn’t enough money to go around with four campuses, it is a concern that there will be enough money to go around for a fifth.”
Still, Schuman said the Rochester campus is needed.
MnSCU Chancellor James McCormick said he thinks the Rochester expansion is nothing but good news for both Minnesota public higher education systems, as long as funding does not come from existing programs.
One of McCormick’s campus presidents said he sees benefits, even though his school is far away.
“You have to have support staff doing much of the routine work,” President Roland Barden of Minnesota State University Moorhead said.
Some of the 7,500 students on his campus could end up working with people trained in Rochester. Others may transfer to Rochester for advanced degrees.
“There is every reason to believe it is a wise investment of state funds,” Barden said.
A legislator who has worked closely with western Minnesota colleges is not worried.
“I personally would not have supported the expansion of the Rochester campus if it has any affect in rural campuses up here,” said Rep. Bud Nornes, a Fergus Falls Republican and chairman of the House Higher Education Committee. “I kind of envision it as being almost an invisible campus. … I’m not aware they have a plan to build a campus or build buildings.”
Nornes may be wrong about construction plans. Although the university has not decided, the governor’s task force recommended that the university buy land near Mayo in downtown Rochester to build a permanent campus.
The Rochester Higher Education Development Committee’s report earlier this year recommended moving the university’s Rochester operations to crowded downtown near the Mayo Clinic. That would move the campus from current east-end facilities shared with Winona State and Rochester Community and Technical College, which are in an area with open spaces available for expansion.
The task force suggested constructing a nearly $40 million, 60,000-square-foot downtown building to be ready in about six years. “Ultimately, as many as six contiguous city blocks may be needed,” the report said.
The state would pay two-thirds of construction costs, as well as interest on construction loans, the task force suggested. A Rochester sales tax would fund remaining construction costs.
Nornes said if the university wants to build, it should seek private funds, not state money. But the task force identified no private money that could be used for the expansion.
Until this year, state law required limiting a Rochester campus to such areas as teaching and research in technology and health. A provision slipped nearly unnoticed into a larger bill this year that lifts those limits.
Sen. Bob Kierlin, R-Winona, said he understands the need for medical education in the community that hosts Mayo. But he does not want the Rochester university to grow into a school offering a broad range of programs.
“My biggest disappointment has been the people who pushed for what the Legislature passed this year made it sound like they were pushing for higher education at the professional level,” Kierlin said. “But I think deep down all along they have just wanted to have a four-year college in Rochester, like they say with the cheerleaders, the marching band, the football team and the rest of it. … Now they have permission to do all that.”
Pelowski said one reason Rochester won permission to build is politics. Rochester voters elected two Democratic legislators in 2004 after years of Republican domination.
“Is this just foo-foo dust for a political season or is this a need that needs to be addressed?” Pelowski asked.
The question was rhetorical. Pelowski answered it himself: “You have politics all over this. This is not about higher education. This is about (getting votes in) the third-largest metropolitan area in the state.”