{"id":22619,"date":"2016-01-27T16:42:21","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T22:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/?p=22619"},"modified":"2016-01-27T16:42:21","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T22:42:21","slug":"bsu-president-hanson-calls-mncc-a-key-link-with-real-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/2016\/01\/27\/bsu-president-hanson-calls-mncc-a-key-link-with-real-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ President Hanson Calls MNCC a Key Link with Real World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ and Northwest Technical College President and MNCC board member Dick Hanson is retiring at the end of the 2015-16 academic year. Guest writer and former MPR reporter Dan Olson spoke with Hanson about the history and philosophy that has informed his years of leadership. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

When students brought him news that hunger was a reality for some Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ students, President Richard Hanson seized on a teachable moment. The 66-year-old Hanson has spent a good share of his adult life communicating three bedrock principles of higher ed to students: “Serve the community – teach (students) responsibility to place.” In an age of fluff, superficiality and disinformation, “Supply students with the capacity to think critically, sort the wheat from the chaff.” And to address the country’s leadership vacuum he wants higher ed students to, “Be truth bearers – we have the fundamental responsibility to provide people with the tenets of effective leadership.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ students seek creation of a campus food pantry for students going hungry. Hanson has assigned them to research what’s already available in the area, talk to people delivering the services, and find out what’s needed. All this grows out of Hanson’s view that higher education is a force that strengthens society. He says that puts Minnesota Campus Compact, “Where the action is.” He touts MNCC is a link between higher education and the rest of the world, “MNCC has great power with its ties to what is socially relevant, I’m a devotee.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The value of education beyond high school has been a relatively easy sell for a long time. However, as Hanson prepares to retire in June, he’s aware of the discord. “The value of higher education has never been questioned more severely than it is right now. We have the competing interests from the for-profits that were for awhile eating our lunch literally.  We have the competing interests of a government wondering, ‘How are you spending our financial aid dollars, and is it a good investment?’” Then there’s supplying what the customers want.  “Students are wanting flexibility, they’re wanting online, they’re wanting hybrid courses, they’re wanting a different kind of learning environment than what we’re built for,” Hansen says.<\/span><\/p>\n

He cites his presidency at Waldorf College as a highlight of his career and as an example of the stormy seas faced by a growing number of colleges and universities. In 2005 the small Evangelical Lutheran Church in America affiliated college in Forest City, Iowa had a debt payment that swamped its annual budget. “There was no way that institution could survive,” Hanson says. The jarring decision he helped marshal through was sale of the college. The buyer was a family-owned business that operated an online educational enterprise but wanted a campus. “What we were able to do was retain accreditation, bring in the online programs from this other school . . . and for the first time in 40 years Waldorf has a positive budget balance.” There was criticism, Hanson says, but the result is “saving jobs, maintaining environments, and finding a way to get it done.  It was an amazing journey.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Hanson, at 6 ft 7 inches and 280 lbs, was a collegiate football star who logged a couple of  seasons as a pro with the New York Giants.  He hangs up his higher ed cleats at the end of the academic year in June and retires. Maybe. “I don’t know what I’m going to do!” he declares plaintively, like a starter being benched. Hanson’s time in higher ed is about evenly split between work as a faculty member and an administrator. Before arriving at Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ in July of 2010, Hanson was interim president of NDSU, the Waldorf post and VP and Dean at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, among other positions.<\/span><\/p>\n

He’s already declaring himself a failure as a traditional retiree.  “I’m not a hunter, I’m not a fisherman, I have no hobbies.  I like to travel, but I don’t fit in airplanes. . .” Hanson predicts he’ll have more success spoiling the grandchildren.  He and his wife Diane plan to move to a little farm they own near Sioux Falls and nearer the grandkids. “I’ve promised them all chili cheese dogs at Twins games . . . their parents are not in agreement but I don’t care.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Hanson doesn’t talk like a man who is ready to walk off the field. Growing up in Fargo where he helped his mother run the family restaurant, Hanson is not wired to sit on the sidelines especially given all the issues facing higher ed. “It absolutely stimulates me.  I’m signed up to be an interim administrator, maybe teaching educational administration . . . . There’s no one in the country that has had higher ed experience like I’ve had, public and private. ”<\/span><\/p>\n

by Dan Olson<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ and Northwest Technical College President and MNCC board member Dick Hanson is retiring at the end of the 2015-16 academic year. Guest writer and former MPR reporter Dan Olson spoke with Hanson about the history and philosophy that has informed his years of leadership.  When students brought him news that hunger was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-link"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22620,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619\/revisions\/22620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}