President Stephen Jordan is rounding the corner on his third year at the helm of Metro State and just signed on for at least another three years (see http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/jordan_twv5050808.shtml). In announcing his contract renewal, the Board of Trustees praised Jordan’s progress toward achieving several goals for the College.

BOT Chair Adele Phelan said that Jordan embraces Metro State’s unique niche within Colorado’s higher education institutions and its mission as a four-year urban institution. “Dr. Jordan continues to make Metro State's importance understood in terms ofstate funding for higher education,” she said. “At the same time, he has built a strong internal administrative team that is working with him to move the College toward our goal of preeminence.”

“Metro State’s accomplishments of the last three years are impressive, it’s true,” said Jordan, “but the credit is due to the passion, commitment and perseverance of our tremendous faculty and staff. They have embraced the vision of preeminence, and worked diligently and creatively to achieve it. It is a very collective success that we enjoy.”

Jordan’s three-phase plan
In one of his earliest public addresses to the campus community in September 2005, Jordan laid out his vision for Metro State to become “the preeminent public urban baccalaureate college.” (See http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/welcome_twv3090705.shtml.) Jordan proposed a three-phase plan for achieving preeminence: stabilization, growth and investment, and assessment. He said at the time: “In phase 1, which I believe will last two years, we will stabilize the institution both academically and financially while we prepare ourselves for the future.” He laid out key goals of the stabilization phase: the addition of new tenure-track faculty, with an emphasis on achieving ethnic diversity; improving conditions for part-time faculty; and improving capital investment in the College.

Jordan also called for 2+2 programs, the development of an academic strategic plan and for Metro State to assume the role of an urban “land-grant” college, becoming more involved than ever in meeting the needs of businesses, nonprofits and the Denver community.

In a September 2007 address to the campus community, Jordan reported that the College had finished with the stabilization phase and was moving into the growth and investment stage.

Here is an update on the progress the College has made in the past three years.

Faculty
Between September 2005 and September 2007, the College hired 88 new full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty, a 28 percent increase from 2004. Since 2004, tenured and tenure-track faculty of color have grown by 58 percent, with African American faculty increasing by 92 percent and Latino faculty by 64 percent. Since 2005, the College has instituted pay raises for both tenure-track, tenured and adjunct faculty (see http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/salary_twv3062106.shtml and http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/parttime_twv3041806.shtml).

Working with the legislature
Jordan has made informing legislators about Metro State and its funding issues a key priority, meeting one-on-one with key legislators. Since 2006, Jordan has been holding monthly meetings with legislators and key College personnel through the Metro State caucus. Jordan also testified at the legislature in support of several bills including SB 79 (instate tuition for U.S. citizens), contributing to their successful passage. The 2008 legislative session ended with increased funding for Metro State and many measures favorable to higher education (see http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/legislature_twv5050808.shtml), including funding for the Science Building.

Capital investment
Since 2005, and with the passage of Referendum C, Metro State has been able to make some capital investment, infusing $6.2 million into classroom equipment, technology and classroom renovation.

Diversity
In addition to the hiring of faculty of color, the College established an Office of Institutional Diversity in 2006 and hired its first-ever associate to the president for diversity, a cabinet-level position. (Go to http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/diversity_twv5022008.shtml to read about initiatives of the office.) Jordan also has had numerous guest columns and op-ed articles published in the Rocky Mountain News, The Denver Post and other publications on Colorado’s changing demographics and serving the needs of low-income and students of color in urban secondary schools and colleges.

HSI
In April 2008, the 60 plus-member Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Task Force presented 55 recommendations to Jordan on how the College should go about increasing its Latina/o student enrollment from the current 13 percent to 25 percent. Jordan is currently reviewing the recommendations. For more information about the HSI initiative, go to http://www.mscd.edu/president/hsi/index.shtml.

2+2
Metro State has made significant progress since July 2005 toward offering its degree programs off-site. The 2+2 Program with the Colorado Community College system allowscommunity college students to earn an associate’s degree and then complete a Metro State bachelor’s degree in selected programs, while physically remaining at their community college. Metro State now offers marketing and management degree programs at Front Range Community College and will begin degree programs in psychology and biology at the Community College of Aurora in fall 2008 (see http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/2plus2_twv5040308.shtml).

P4P
A pay for performance (P4P) program for faculty salaries was originally proposed by Jordan in fall 2006. More than 50 faculty members engaged in the process of designing the program over the subsequent year, through work on various committees. The services of consulting firm UM Global HR were retained to help design the system and assist the process. In December 2007, the Board of Trustees approved the P4P plan. Since then, the Faculty Evaluation Steering Committee (P4P) drafted pay for performance evaluation guidelines and presented them to the Faculty Senate in April. The steering committee will work over the summer to finalize details of the guidelines.

Strategic Plan
From 2005-07, Metro State developed a strategic plan, under the leadership of Associate Provost Joan M. Foster and Faculty Senate President Hal Nees. Every department, unit and program across the College developed plans in keeping with four strategic planning goals. The final plan is seen as a blueprint for college priorities for the next ten years.

For more information go to http://www.mscd.edu/institutionalplanning/.

Other initiatives
Other initiatives undertaken--and completed--under Jordan’s leadership include the Integrated Marketing and Communications (IMC) Plan and the establishment of two offices related to international opportunities.

The IMC was a three-year effort to set a clear vision for Metro State’s image and reputation among the College’s key constituencies and to unify Metro State’s messaging through an institution-wide program of branding and marketing (see http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/imc_twv4022107.shtml).

The Office of Global Initiatives works to develop international partnerships and exchanges with other universities around the world. Through it, Metro State administrators and faculty members have traveled to China, India and elsewhere to establish partnerships. The Office of International Studies was reestablished last year to provide a full spectrum of assistance with international exchange opportunities for students and faculty.

To read more about these and other presidential initiatives, go to the Office of the President Web site at http://www.mscd.edu/president/.