University of Minnesota’s general college may close next year

“The University began as a land-grant university and it shouldn’t be turned into an elitist club!” declared teaching assistant, union organizer and graduate student Issac Komola at a recent rally supporting University of Minnesota’s General College (GC).

For 63 years, the semi-autonomous General College has specialized in serving “nontraditional” students—largely poor, minority, older or immigrant students, many the first in their families to go to college. The college’s intensive remedial courses, small classes and creative teaching methods are designed to help students climb out of a disadvantaged background.

Last month, however, University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks proposed sweeping changes intended to make the university into a top-flight research institution, which would reduce the General College to a smaller department. Since then the university has seen numerous protests, sit-ins, arrests and angry debates, with many more expected before the Board of Regents vote on June 10.

One argument for eliminating the college, the administration said, was the changing demographics of higher education—colleges are no longer the institutions for the white and wealthy they were when the GC was formed in 1932. Even today, however, when people of color are 28 percent of the nation, students of color make up 8 percent of the U of M but 46 percent of the GC. Students with family incomes of $30,000 or less are 26 percent of the GC and just 10 percent of the rest of the U of M.

Bruinink’s stated goal is to “raise the national ranking” of the U of M to “make the University of Minnesota one of the top three research institutions in the world.” Students have been excluded from participating in Bruinink’s “strategic positioning” sessions, and he has refused to meet with them.

Echoing rhetoric similar to other “privatization” and “free market” arguments, one focus of the corporate-funded research is the growing biotech industry pursued by such transnationals as Minnesota agriculture giant Cargill. Biotech research into genetically-engineered plants are a major concern for conservationists and anti-globalization activists, as well as Native American tribes—who are concerned about how such research impacts indigenous crops such as wild rice in northern Minnesota. Longtime corporate funders at the U of M also include weapons’ manufacturers.

Since the 1960s, students have raised concerns that for-profit research too often trumps their education—especially for undergraduates. For GC supporters, university administrators’ rhetoric seems to echo “privatization” and “free market” arguments being used to dismantle more and more of the public sector, from health and human services to Social Security.

“The University has never been just for honor-roll and rich kids. Let’s not make it one now,” Lena Gardner, an African-American liberal arts senior, said. “The U is starting to model corporate structures as an institution. That’s problematic, because it’s supposed to be educating people—not making profit.”

Gardner’s concern represented the 250 students, faculty, community activists, graduates and union-members in a lively speak-out on the MacNamara Alumni Center plaza. The mostly young crowd carried Heart of the Beast Theatre’s colorful puppets and many gold T-shirts proclaiming “Support General College,” and began the chant of Mexico’s Zapatistas, “Nothing about us, without us!”

Bruinink’s arguments about “raising the rating” of the university reminded this writer of some of the anti-affirmative action arguments made in the University of Michigan case that went to the Supreme Court last year.

But Vice-President for System Administration Robert Jones sees GC-supporters’ concerns as lopsided.

“The emphasis is all on access to the University without any on results,” Jones said. “How much good does it do low-income and students of color to come to the University, spend the time and the money, if they don’t get a degree?”

GC students’ graduation rates are lower than for those students who go directly to other colleges at the U. Taking six years to get a degree, only 30.8 of percent GC students succeed compared to 62.7 percent on non-GC students.

Jones is African-American and has spent the last 17 years working on increasing the diversity of the student population at the University. He raises the issue of “unprepared” students. George Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act gathered undeniable evidence of serious gaps in test scores between children of color and white children. From the Children’s Defense Fund and parents to Bill Cosby, communities of color share Jones’ concerns about whether or not students of color are being educated to succeed in college.

The General College Truth Movement (GCTM) has two main demands: that there be no “restructuring” (that is, closing) of the GC, and that the “Strategic Positioning” process be opened to democratic decision-making. They insist no decisions be made until November, allowing time for broader community input.

Closing GC is being justified, in part, as a result of declining state funding. However, it looks likely that a new Gophers Stadium will be built.

“Now is not the time to close General College. It’s the time to expand it!” declared Paul Rolfing of SEIU, the country’s fastest-growing union. “In a global economy, the most important rungs out of poverty are access to quality education and union jobs with good wages and benefits.”

Closing GC will cut workers

“GC has a special place in my heart,” said Farkeen Hakeem, a Muslim-American U of M graduate in mathematics and the Green Party candidate for Minneapolis mayor. “Working with Upward Bound students at GC I could see the difference when kids have options and choices for their lives.”

A resolution supporting the GC is before the Minneapolis City Council, and is sponsored by council members Natalie Johnson Lee and Dean Zimmerman (both GP) and Democrats, Don Samuels, Gary Schiff and Sandra Colvin-Roy.

Lester Collins, Council of Black Minnesotans, quoted early 20th-century U.S. president Teddy Roosevelt as saying, “The country won’t be good for any of us to live in if it’s not good for all of us to live in.”

“It’s critical General College be maintained and transformed,” Collins said. “This is a period of financial and scientific progress, but there’s also social breakdown with extremes of wealth and poverty. Closing GC disrupts balance, fairness and equity that the University has to make. Another path is guided by the right questions, rather than ready answers,” he said.

“Students in GC should be the ones to decide if they want to be folded into other departments,” said Katie McWatt of the St. Paul NAACP. “Would the College of Architecture be told to merge with Design—which includes fashion and art?”

Vice-President for Academic Affairs E. Thomas Sullivan wrote in the Pioneer Press that “a new scholarship would be offered to attract diversity,” although the $20 million needed for the scholarship has not yet been raised.

“[N]ot all students require or are prepared for the unique ... research and teaching mission of UM,” Sullivan wrote. “[I]f we accept unprepared or less motivated students ... we will fail better-qualified students.”

Emphasizing “access to excellence,” Sullivan and other closing GC supporters appear to use current “code” to justify returning the U of M to dominance by racial and economic elites, while “tracking” low-income and youth of color into vocational community colleges.

On the other hand, “GC is very personal,” said Regina Alexander, an African-American returning student, calling GC a model to improve education for all students. “Student-teacher relationships are important. You learn a lot better there instead of in huge lecture halls. They say low-income and students of color can just go to junior colleges, but that’s perpetuating a stereotype.”