Institutional Profile

Twin Cities Campus

The University of Minnesota - Twin Cities is a nationally and internationally renowned public research and land-grant university set on the banks of the Mississippi River near downtown Minneapolis and in St. Paul. (link to campus maps)

The Twin Cities campus has one of the most comprehensive academic programs of any institution in the world; it is also the nation’s second largest university campus as measured by enrollment.

The Twin Cities campus is the flagship campus of the University of Minnesota, which also includes coordinate campuses in Crookston, Duluth, and Morris; an education center in Rochester; a statewide Extension Service; and six research and outreach centers. other University Locations

The University of Minnesota - Twin Cities aspires to provide undergraduate, graduate, and professional student experiences that are consistently characterized by educational excellence, timely degree and academic program completion, and a supportive institutional environment.

Through world-class research, scholarship, and public engagement, it also aims to solve challenges facing the state, nation, and world and provide broad access to programs and resources.

The Twin Cities campus intends to advance its reputation as a leading research university in the nation and the world. It aspires to be known for excellence in teaching, research, and public engagement and for continually setting new standards of quality and service.

To achieve these goals, the Twin Cities campus invests in its strongest programs and in new and existing areas of strategic importance. It also seeks resources for programs through sponsored funding and voluntary support, significantly leveraging state investments in the University.

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Degrees/majors offered
152 undergraduate degree programs; 131 master’s degree programs; 104 doctoral degree programs; and professional programs in law, dentistry, medicine, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine. (www.umn.edu/twincities/
02_academics.php#2)

Faculty Size (FY 2004)

Tenured/Tenure Track	2,377
Other Faculty	739

Staff (FY 2004)

Civil Service and Bargaining Unit	8,576
Professional and Administrative	4,149

Degrees Awarded (FY 2004)

Undergraduate	6,049
Master’s	2,677
Doctoral and First-Professional	1,307 10,033

Alumni (FY 2004)

Alumni Association Members	55,518
Living Alumni	365,000

Number of Buildings
253 (12,972,000 assignable square feet)

Expenditures (FY 2004)
$1,899,018,319

Degrees Granted: In 2003-04, the Twin Cities campus awarded over 10,000 degrees, the highest number in its history - 6,049 bachelor’s degrees, 2,677 master’s degrees, 592 doctorate degrees, and 715 first-professional degrees.

State’s Only Major Research Institution: HLC 5c The statutory mission of the University is to “offer undergraduate, graduate, and professional instruction through the doctoral degree, and…be the primary state-supported academic agency for research and extension services.”

The University is Minnesota’s only major research university. This sets Minnesota apart from the many states that have at least two major research institutions (e.g., Michigan and Michigan State; Iowa and Iowa State; Indiana and Purdue).

Its research, conducted almost exclusively on the Twin Cities campus, comprises 98.8 percent of sponsored academic research in Minnesota’s higher education institutions— more than one-half billion dollars each year— and creates an estimated 20,000 jobs in Minnesota’s private economy. In addition, the University has helped establish more than 30 start-up companies over the last five years and now holds over 650 active technology transfer agreements with business and industry.

Nationally Ranked: The Twin Cities campus ranks consistently within the top seven public research universities in the nation, according to a University of Florida annual study. It is also among the nation’s most comprehensive institutions, one of only four campuses nationally that have agricultural programs as well as an academic health center with a major medical school. The University prides itself on nationally ranked programs and departments— from theater and dance to chemical engineering and economics— and its breadth provides unique interdisciplinary strengths, particularly in the life sciences.

Graduate and Professional Education: HLC 3c, HLC 4b The University aspires to provide graduate and professional education programs that are among the best in the world. Its graduates are recognized as among the best-educated and most innovative scholars and professionals in and across their disciplines and within their chosen professions.

Graduate and professional education at the University is distinguished from all other post-secondary institutions in Minnesota by two related activities: a major emphasis on post-baccalaureate and professional training and a fundamental commitment to advanced research and scholarship as part of education. To enhance graduate and professional education, major investments have been made in fellowships, career-oriented educational opportunities, and recruiting and retaining a larger proportion of students of color.

The University has one of the largest and most productive graduate schools in the country, ranking 11th in the latest survey of Ph.D. production. It also offers one of the nation’s most comprehensive selections of graduate programs, about 230, enrolling nearly 14,000 students. Graduate and first-professional students constitute about 30 percent of the Twin Cities campus’s enrollment and about 40 percent of the degrees awarded each year.

State’s Economic Driver: HLC 5b The University provides significant return on the state’s investment. As the primary component of a system-wide budget of about $2.4 billion, and widely considered the state’s “economic engine,” the Twin Cities campus is a major employer, recipient of research grants, producer of technology commercialization benefits to the state, student and faculty talent magnet to the state, and provider of cultural and other community service programs.

Importance of State Support: HLC 2a State appropriations, providing 25.7 percent of University revenue in FY 2004 (down from 29.9 percent in FY 2003), are the most flexible sources of funding. (Adjusted for inflation, state support for the University is less today than it was in 1978.) Minnesota dropped from 6th among states in 1978 to 26th in 2004 in the percentage of state budget support for higher education.

Grants and contracts provided another 26 percent of revenues, tuition and fees provided 18 percent, auxiliary enterprises 10 percent, gifts and non-exchange grants 9 percent, and educational activities and other sources the remaining 11 percent. graph

Private fundraising is an increasingly important source of funding within the University’s diverse revenue mix, but at present this source represents less than 5 percent of the annual operating budget and is often restricted for specific purposes.

In 2003, the University completed a six-year capital campaign that raised nearly $1.7 billion in private donations and pledges.

Governance: HLC 1e The University of Minnesota was founded in 1851, predating statehood by seven years. The University receives appropriations from the State of Minnesota, but is constitutionally independent from it.

The University operates under a shared governance system consisting of the Board of Regents; faculty, staff, and student standing committees; and a variety of advisory councils and other groups. All decisions and advice are governed by the University’s charter, by-laws, and delegation of authority policies.

The 12-member Board of Regents is elected by the state legislature. Eight members are elected to represent Minnesota’s eight congressional districts and four, including one student, are elected at large. Information on recent initiatives to assess and improve governance is included in Challenge 4 of this report.

Economical Management: HLC 2b The University of Minnesota has no separate “system” office. This is an economical management structure, since the University’s senior officers double as the chief operating officers for the Twin Cities campus. The University’s auditor, Deloitte & Touche, commented in November 2004: “The University…is an excellent example of an organization that is focused and efficient. I'd call it a model of fiscal responsibility.” 2004 annual report PDF

Statewide Presence: HLC 5c The Twin Cities campus is the largest of the University’s four four campuses (Crookston, Duluth, Morris, and Twin Cities). The Twin Cities campus also is linked academically and administratively to the University’s other statewide programs and services, including a developing cooperative campus (with the Minnesota State Colleges and University System) in Rochester (see below), six agricultural experiment stations, one forestry center, and 18 regional Extension offices.

The University’s public service programs (e.g., Extension, clinics in medicine, dentistry, and veterinary medicine, outreach to K-12 education) touch more than 1,000,000 people annually.

University Center Rochester: Since 1966, the University has provided higher education opportunities in Rochester, and now operates the University Center Rochester in cooperation with Winona State University - Rochester Center and the Rochester Community and Technical College. The University focuses on upper division programs, primarily in the health sciences and technology, under the auspices of the Twin Cities campus. In summer 2005, Gov. Pawlenty appointed an 11-member committee to evaluate the higher education needs of the Rochester area and make recommendations to him and to the legislature for expanded educational offerings.

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The University of Minnesota’s mission is shaped by its status as a land-grant institution. The University’s mission statement was reviewed and updated by the Board of Regents most recently in 1994. In 2004, during the initial stages of the current strategic planning effort, the provost’s strategic positioning task force affirmed the mission statement during its deliberations. The Board of Regents, in accepting this affirmation, did not think it necessary to review the mission further.

The Twin Cities campus is composed of 19 academic colleges and schools (listed below). Nearly 51,000 students were enrolled in fall semester 2004.

2004-05 Enrollment in Academic Units of the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
In 'Total' column, click for 10-year enrollment trend.

In support of its mission, the University adheres to the principles and tenets of academic freedom. In 2003, then-Provost Christine Maziar and the Faculty Consultative Committee appointed a task force to assess the University’s current understanding of academic freedom, its implications, and strategies for helping the University and the broader community to embrace academic freedom values.

The task force’s final report was presented to the Board of Regents’ Educational Planning and Policy Committee in June 2004. Later that year, current Provost Thomas Sullivan, in addition to disseminating the report internally to the University community, provided copies to the chief academic officers of all institutions in the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago).

The University’s senior administration consists of the president and an executive team of three senior vice presidents, an executive associate vice president, the chancellors of the three coordinate campuses and the provost of the Rochester campus, seven vice presidents, two associate vice presidents, the general counsel, and the director of intercollegiate athletics.

The president and most of his executive team have Twin Cities campus responsibilities as well as University-wide responsibilities. The University does not have a separate system-wide office.

Appendix B lists the central administration team members, their position titles, academic backgrounds, year of first employment at the University of Minnesota, and, for use by the Commission’s visiting team, their telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Two of the three senior vice presidents and the 21 deans who report to them provide the central academic leadership on the Twin Cities campus. Fifteen deans report to Senior Vice President and Provost Sullivan, while six deans in the Academic Health Center on the Twin Cities campus report to Senior Vice President Frank Cerra. The provost is supported by five vice provosts. In addition, a number of key Twin Cities campus administrative functions and centers report to Senior Vice President Robert Jones.

Appendix C lists these academic leadership team members, their position titles, academic backgrounds, year of first employment at the University of Minnesota, their telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses.

The method by which the University allocates its financial resources has undergone fundamental change since the last comprehensive evaluation conducted by the North Central Association. In 1998, the University adopted an incentive-based budget system after two years of study and planning — which it named Incentives for Managed Growth (IMG).

In contrast to the commonly accepted, centralized general-fund approach, a decentralized incentive-based system such as IMG shifts a larger portion of budgeting and management decision-making — and accountability to individual academic and administrative units. In most cases, the academic units are colleges that, in turn, allocate funds to their departments.

Thus, instead of a system where central administra-tors distribute funds to individual units based on priorities, an incentive-based system attributes revenues and costs to individual units, which allows them to benefit from their own revenue generation and cost savings.

Ideally, an incentive-based system fosters improved decision-making and performance because better information is available at the unit level and because there is a direct, consequential link between budget decisions and outcomes. No institution, however, has adopted a “pure” incentive-based budget system, since units that generate fewer revenues, or no revenues, such as support units and central-administration units, require special consideration.

The University of Minnesota is the largest institution, to date, to implement an incentive-based budget system. Its IMG approach differs from other similar approaches by linking budgeting to planning in three fundamental ways: the compact process, revenue attribution, and internal revenue sharing.

Compact Process: The first component of IMG is the development of agreements — “compacts” — between the University’s senior management and each of the colleges and most support units. The compact document is a written agreement — available to the public — between the University’s management and a campus, college, or support unit that aligns broad University goals with the directions, investments, and actions of the unit. The compacts outline each unit’s direction and performance indicators in areas such as strategic planning and goals, programs, and evaluation procedures.

Revenue Attribution: The second component of IMG is the formulaic return of tuition and other revenue sources to the colleges. For example, the return of tuition revenue is divided between the college teaching the course (75 percent) and the college in which the enrolling student is registered, i.e., his/her “home college” (25 percent).

Internal Revenue Sharing: In addition, the Uni-versity recognizes that certain fixed costs result in benefits throughout the institution but exceed re-sources available from state appropriations. To obtain funds for these “common goods” — general overhead, physical and technological infrastruc-ture, etc. — the University assesses all revenue-producing units annually through a process called internal revenue sharing (IRS). The current IRS rate for most units is 8.5 percent of total revenues.

While the potential for academic units to engage in competitive behaviors is among the greatest concerns — and a common perception — associated with IMG, the University has not experienced uncoop-erative behaviors such as the "hoarding" of students. Rather, IMG has encouraged planning while empowering the colleges with decision-making tied to fiscal outcomes.

These trends are monitored and, each fall, reported to the Council of Undergraduate Deans and the Senate Committee on Educational Policy. The hoarding-of-students perception is not borne out by the data: there has been no distinct difference in collegiate behavior, in this regard, before IMG was instituted, when the University switched from quarters to semesters (and departments and colleges initiated major course and curriculum revision), or over the years since then.

Another common perception within the University is that IMG has been an impediment to the creation of interdisciplinary research and education programs. Again, the data do not support this contention, but remains an issue that the University needs to address. In addition, under the internal revenue sharing system, it is difficult for units to understand the costs being attributed to them, and insufficient incentives are in place for continuous improvement. These shortcomings also need to be addressed.

In July 2004, in anticipation of the strategic positioning work that the University was about to undertake, President Bruininks created a task force to ensure that the University’s budgeting framework and processes would be fully aligned with and responsive to the institution’s aspirations for the future.

See Challenge 1 for a complete discussion of the work of this task force and its relationship to the University’s strategic planning efforts.

1 - Institutional Profile