For the Record: U of M President Kaler chides Strib's DJ Tice

President Kaler complains about the Strib:

" it’s bad when comments I’ve made are taken woefully out of context "

From the Strib Letters to the Editor Section:

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

We are an enduring institution, but also one of useful change

It is good when the Star Tribune drives the community discussion around issues in higher education, but it’s bad when comments I’ve made are taken woefully out of context. In his Aug. 23 column (“The ungrounding of the institution of higher ed”), D.J. Tice chided me for my “medieval attitude” as he cited a recent Minnesota Monthly magazine article in which I said that, unlike many thriving modern institutions, world universities have been in existence since the 1500s, and “I just don’t think the business is going to change very much.”

That historical fact — and I’ve said it many times — comes in the context of that same article’s mention of the many changes underway at the U as we need to “retool in the face of international competition.”

While I do disagree with some prognosticators who are predicting the end of place-based education, a much more accurate description of what I think comes from my State of the University address last spring: “Yes, universities are remarkable for their historic continuity, but they and we do change. We change because of the needs and demands of technology. We change because our faculty uncovers and gives birth to new ideas and new discoveries. We change because students lift their voices.”

I’m proud that we are one of Minnesota’s oldest and most enduring institutions. I’m also proud that through distance and active learning, flipped classrooms, electronic textbooks, interdisciplinary courses and a commitment to diversity, the University of Minnesota is always in the process of changing for the benefit of our students and the prosperity of our state. Medieval? Not so much.

Eric W. Kaler, president, University of Minnesota

Out of context?  Let me explain what I really meant when I said ...

Measure twice, cut once?