Commission promotes increased collaboration between UM System campuses

The Maneater: Latest Stories The University of Missouri Review Commission recommended that the UM System develop more shared programs and classes across campuses in a report addressing shortcomings and outlining solutions to budget issues.Commission Chairwoman Jeanne Sinquefield and Vice Chairman Gary Forsee presented the report the the Board of Curators at their Feb. 10 meeting. The state legislature created the commission to review the UM System in response to criticism of the handling of race-based protests at MU in Fall 2015.
“As they always say, necessity is the mother of invention, and if any time there is a time to be more collaborative across campus, it’s right now,” commission member Dave Spence said.
The commission investigated a variety of topics in groups of two, with Spence and his fellow commission member Michael Williams assigned to look at “Workforce Readiness, Program Analytics and Articulation.” The sharing of programs and classes across campuses falls under that section.
The pair met with leaders from each campus and the UM System and examined the efficiency of various programs.
“Each college and university probably has a reason that they’re doing things the way they’re doing it,” Williams said. “But we tried to give them steps we thought would make the system stronger so that all campuses are all pulling in the same direction.”
Some examples of shared courses and programs already exist, such as the Intercampus Course Sharing initiative, which allows for students to take courses taught at other UM System campuses through eLearning technologies, according to the UM System website.
The goal of the current course sharing program is to expand course offerings, give faculty more time to conduct research or teach other courses and allow courses with low enrollment to be offered by enrolling students at other campuses, according to a document on the UM System website.
But for the spring 2017 semester, only 20 courses were ...


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