News
Chancellor Skogen visits DCB to canvass community on college standing alone
Scott Wagar
12/17/2013
Dr. Larry Skogen, the chancellor of the North Dakota University System, made a visit to Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB) this past week to discuss the possibility of Bottineau’s local college becoming independent of Minot State University through a public forum. The forum gave individuals from the area the opportunity to ask questions on the issue and give their opinion if DCB should become a stand alone college.
DCB has been affiliated with Minot State since 1996. However, in 2012, the former chancellor of the state board of higher education, Dr. Hamid Shivani, originated the idea to make DCB independent of Minot State University because he felt the college met all the elements to be a stand alone college.
Shivani also felt that with Dr. David Fuller’s retirement from MSU as president on July 1, 2014, the timing to separate Bottineau’s junior college from MSU would allow the transition between the MSU’s presidents to go at a more efficient pace.
In November of this year, the board of the university system made the decision to canvass the community members of Minot and Bottineau, along with its colleges, to receive their personal views on the subject.
Skogen visited Minot State on Tuesday and came to Bottineau on Wednesday where he heard the pros and cons of DCB going independent of Minot State.
Bottineau held two meetings on Wednesday where the opinion of those who attended had mixed reviews. The primary questions in the two meetings concerned the nature of the relationships between the two colleges, the pros and cons of DCB going autonomous and how state legislators would react to Bottineau’s college standing alone.
There were mixed reviews by those who attended the meetings, who stated they wish for DCB to stay with Minot State because it would grant the local college more security being associated with a four year university.
However, others felt that DCB should gain their own status because they believe the college could be run successfully independently from Minot State University.
There are presently 11 colleges which are part of the North Dakota University System, which includes DCB; but, the junior college in Bottineau is the only two year school in the state which is associated with a four year university.
For Dr. Ken Grosz, dean of Dakota College at Bottineau, he would like to see DCB become independent of Minot State because he feels it would make Bottineau’s college look weak if it stayed associated with a four year university. By DCB becoming self-supporting, it would show the college is a strong learning institution that can self-govern itself.
One major issue that came up was the question of what would happen if the people of the state would vote to close DCB, and, would it help if Bottineau’s college was independent or associated with Minot State if it came to a vote.
Skogen stated that DCB is one of eight colleges that is part of the state’s constitution and cannot be closed. The chancellor did state that legislators could vote to remove Bottineau’s college from the constitution and then close the college, but that was very unlikely because the issue has been voted on before in the state and was defeated.
It was also brought out that if DCB was voted out of the state constitution, and attempts were made to close the school to force the local college’s students to go to Minot State, what was the possibility of that happening. Fuller stated it would be very unlikely for that to happen, because the two institutions have their own missions and programs and it would be difficult for MSU to take on the missions and programs of Bottineau’s college.
Jack Woods, a DCB graduate, and a retired math instructor from the college, reminded everybody that unlike other times when attempts were made to take DCB out of the constitution, the state today is financially sound.
“There wasn’t a lot of money back then so the state tried to get these schools eliminated,” Woods said. “But, we are now in surplus, these are not low money years, these are high money years.”
The next step in the process is to see if the members of the state board of higher education will vote on making DCB a stand alone college. If the vote is passed, DCB will become an independent college some time before July 1, 2014.