(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Prairie Pulse.

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll tour Kittson County History Center and Museum in Lake Bronson, Minnesota.

But first joining me now is the new president of Concordia College, Dr. Colin Irvine.

Dr. Irvine, thanks for joining us today.

- Thanks for having me.

- As we get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and maybe your background.

- So, I'm originally from Boise, Idaho.

Grew up in Boise, went to college in Montana.

From there, spent some time in the Midwest, broadly, so school in Indiana, school in Wisconsin.

Found my way to Minnesota, spent 12 years at Augsburg University, commuted for 10 from Northfield up to the cities and back, from there went back to Montana.

Spent three years as a vice president at my alma mater, Carroll College.

That led to five years at Augustana as the provost and vice president.

And then very fortunately, very recently started at Concordia, July one as the new president.

I'm married and I have two kids.

One just graduated from Augie, and one is a senior here at Oak Grove.

- All right, well thank you for all that.

So give us your impressions of how things are going so far and your impressions of, well, the campus and the university especially.

- So when I was a teacher and people would say, how are your classes going?

I'd say, you have to ask my students.

In this role, I would say you'd have to ask the people that I work with, but I will say it could not be going better.

I've just been really struck on a daily basis by the positivity on campus, by the positivity in the community.

Right before we started, I heard somebody say in the background that we have a Cobber here.

I swear every meeting I go to in Fargo, in Morehead, in the Twin Cities, these people appear outta nowhere and they're so excited, so excited about what's happening on campus, what's happening at Concordia broadly.

So it's been a really, really surprising and affirming start and affirming has sort of been my go-to word, almost my mantra that I just feel affirmed that I made the right choice, that I was lucky to be picked.

- Well, good.

You know, but early in your tenure, what do you think the biggest challenges are that you see right now?

- The challenges that Concordia faces, that I face as a leader are pretty common across the region.

And in many respects, with the exception of just a few states common across higher ed, the main challenge is not what everybody's talking about, which is the demographic challenge.

The demographic challenge, the demographic cliff is associated with the recession in 2008, 2009, and those students who were born, those people who were born, or not born, problematically are creating a slight decline in population that feeds our college enrollment.

The bigger challenge is the perception of value challenge.

Is the four year college worth my time?

Is it worth my investment?

That's the biggest challenge we're facing is helping people understand the value of what we in higher ed offer, both public and private.

- Well, what about the enrollment at Concordia right now, and how does that compare in recent years?

- So the enrollment, we had a freshman class of about 438, and our overall enrollment for fall '23 is 1868.

That's lower than where we would like, we would like to see it, of course climb.

But I wanna say though, in response to a question about enrollment, I'm fortunate to be at a place where I can honestly say I've met every one of those 438 students, and sometimes when we talk about enrollment, we talk about it in the abstract.

I'm grateful for every one of those 438 students, and I'm confident given the strength of the class that came in, that we're gonna grow the enrollment based on the momentum that we're creating.

I hear if not daily, weekly, from the faculty that this seems like a special group.

And I know we'll talk about it eventually, but I think part of that sense of of uniqueness, of momentum comes from the sort of post-Covid moment we're in.

There's a lot of gratitude among the students, the staff and the faculty to be moving back toward and maybe even settling into a sense of normal.

And so I think schools, in spite of the demographic cliff are gonna start to see some enrollment shifts.

- Well, we are gonna talk a lot more about Concordia, but let's talk maybe about some of the things you achieved at Augustana University.

You were, I believe, the senior executive vice president there?

- That's correct.

- What are some of the things you achieved there, you're proud of, I guess?

- Well, yeah, those are two questions, right?

I would honestly say I achieved nothing, but I was really lucky to be a part of an amazing team, a team of leaders and faculty leaders.

And over the course of five years, we launched, we could name it 30, it's probably closer to 25 new programs and five sort of reorganized, rebranded programs.

And we maybe most significantly changed our governance model to create a model that's not terribly dissimilar from Concordia as the three schools model.

And that change in the governance model allowed us to spin up these programs very quickly.

We became a very nimble, agile, productive university, and we were able to buck the enrollment trends for schools of our kind and size and grow the enrollment both at the undergrad and grad levels.

- So how can those achievements there maybe help you at Concordia?

Or can some of those be implemented at Concordia?

- Yeah, the answer to both questions is yes.

You know, when you bring an offensive coordinator from one team to the other, they bring their offense with them.

And my offense is to move quickly, collaboratively.

I believe in more shared governance, more shared governance means when you're doing it right and well, effective shared governance.

And so I think working closely with the faculty, the staff, with alumni, and really importantly with partners in Fargo and Morehead, we can develop the kinds of programs that produce the kinds of grads that serve the needs of the community.

- You know, how do you convince parents and students that Concordia is a good value for the money and can help them of course, achieve success?

After college, of course.

- You know, in a more general sense, how does a person convince parents of the value of college?

If I could answer that question for you right now, this would not be the last interview I do today, this week, or the rest of the year, but I'll try to answer the question because I think it's a fair question.

I think one of the ways we convince them is we point to outcomes there, there's been a tradition at schools like Concordia to say that our grads succeed eventually, and we point to history majors that become attorneys and English majors who become business leaders.

What we need to help people understand is our students succeed immediately while they're on campus, through experiential learning, through internships, clinicals, student teaching research, and they succeed immediately when they graduate, regardless of the major, our students get good jobs.

More importantly though, than getting good jobs, most of the students that are going to graduate are gonna change jobs every three or four years.

And so we need people to understand that the first job's important, but the ability to understand who you are, to understand your strengths and what gives you joy, and then to be equipped to find the jobs that are aligned with your strengths, that's the most important thing we can do for our graduates, because if they're gonna change jobs every three, four or five years over the course of a career that's 15, 16, 17 careers.

And so we have to help parents understand that's the market the students are going into.

My son graduated in May and he got a wonderful job before he graduated, and his job seems to change weekly.

The company that he works for was bought out by another company in his first week of work.

He was moved into a different role.

He was equipped because of his education to keep evolving with that company.

So we need to help parents understand the first job matters, but the career matters more, and the kind of education we offer prepares them for a career of change.

Did I answer that question?

- You did.

You did.

I believe so.

I also understand there was talk of lowering Concordia's tuition in recent years.

Has that happened or does it, tell me about that.

- There was a tuition reset in 2019, and the main goal of the reset was to create more transparency and to address confusion around the relationship between the sticker price, the posted price, and the actual price that most students pay.

You know, going back to your previous question, how do we convince parents to understand the value, if we can just get 'em to ask the questions and then find the answers.

How much does it actually cost for their students to attend a school such as Concordia?

They'll understand that it costs much less than most of them anticipate because of the funding models, because of the scholarships.

And so the goal in 2019 was to just create more clarity and transparency around that model.

- Well, you know, we talked a little bit about what you've done in the past and are you looking at certain programs or majors that might be eliminated or combined with others?

Are you looking- - Yeah.

Oh, that's such a great question.

So the general model right now as schools are looking at enrollment challenges, is to cut programs, to cut under-enrolled programs.

That's not the direction that we're going.

We're not gonna cut programs in as much as we can hold out and maintain what I would describe as the portfolio of programs we have, for a couple of reasons.

One, the portfolio allows us to develop interdisciplinary programs.

It allows us to keep our strong professors, it allows us to continue to be nimble and agile because it's the faculty that develop the new programs in response to the work needs.

And so we're gonna maintain the portfolio and we're gonna grow the portfolio in ways that are market smart.

Because of Google Analytics, now we can know what students are looking for.

We can know what students in the Red River Valley and a 50 mile radius are looking for.

We can know what students in Minnesota are looking for.

So we're gonna build out programs using the portfolio of professors and courses we have that is really market smart and sensitive to the needs of the community.

- You know, do some of your majors not elicit good paying careers for some graduates.

And is that something you're looking at going forward?

- There are some, if you think, for instance, about education and some instance social work, but I would go back to my earlier answer.

Generally, even the students that go into those careers, they find their way into leadership.

They find their way into different opportunities that ultimately lead to different income.

And so to say what are they going to make two years out and to focus on that financial outcome is really, I think, a disservice to the students knowing that a career is 40 years.

And there's a study recently at Georgetown that said that regardless of the major that you received at a liberal arts institution, you would make $918,000 more, which is a thousand dollars more than you would if you went to an engineering school.

And that's not making any distinctions between whether you studied business or philosophy, English or physics.

So the information is there, there's another study at the Brookings Institute called the Hamilton Project, and it looks at all the disciplines, history, psychology, English, and it shows your earnings over the course of your career and it does it using what are called zip codes and crosswalks.

So, it says if you get a degree in history, here are the 40 jobs you could expect.

And I wanna be careful with my numbers, but historians are, over the course of their career, generally well paid, high achieving in terms of finances graduates.

So it's a very complicated answer to what feels like a simple question in terms of earnings.

- You know what, you mentioned public and private universities a few moments ago.

What are some of the key differences between private and public universities and running one versus the other?

- Well, I've never run a public university, so I can only answer on behalf of people at private.

Here's what I could say, and I suggested this earlier.

The nice thing about being at a private university is you can set the pace of change.

It's not regental, your board of regents is invested, sometimes literally, always figuratively in the work you want to do.

They're invested in the success of the school.

So we're meeting this weekend with our board of regents and our focus of this meeting and the next two meetings is investing to grow.

So at a private institution, we can set that agenda and we could commit to growth through new programs and run as fast as we're able.

My understanding from the outside looking in is sometimes that's not always as easy at a public university, you have your charge, whether you're an ag college or a college focused more on the humanities.

- Just talk a little bit about, yeah, what kind of endowment does Concordia currently have?

- So for its size, in terms of our enrollment, it's got a healthy endowment of about 184 million.

And I would go back to your question earlier, John, about enrollment.

You know, when I mentioned the 438 students, I met all those students.

The 184 million is coming from donors, investors, alumni, supporters.

Every one of those dollars is an investment in the future, because I believe the future looks very bright.

I believe that endowment number is going to grow in the years to come.

- Well with $184 million endowment.

My next question is kind of what shape is Concordia in financially?

- Yeah, so we're in good shape because of that endowment, because of the support of our donors and because the management that preceded me and the one that I joined in terms of the leadership, has been fiscally very responsible, very, very good stewards of the resources on campus and in that endowment.

- Yeah.

And of course, you know, as you take over, there've been some strong past leaders, or some past strong leaders at Concordia.

So you're following some big shoes.

- I'm very lucky to follow in the footsteps of President Craft and President Dovre.

And I just got a message from President Dovre yesterday, and apparently we were both at the Oslo choir event on campus.

And you know, it's really, these are not easy jobs and these are not easy times, but to know that you have the support of your predecessors is extraordinary.

- Now turn to some of your programs out there.

How important are the music and language programs at Concordia?

- Well, I think you know the answer to that question.

These are fundamentally important for a number of reasons.

One, it's a differential, right?

I mean, there are literally thousands of colleges, I was gonna say like Concordia, but there aren't, there are thousands of colleges.

But one of the things that makes us distinct is the CLV that offers a whole array of languages from Farsi to Arabic to Mandarin, of course French, German, Spanish, and the thousands of students that go through those programs in the summer.

And then that strength is reinforced by the strengths that we have on campus in languages.

And then of course our music program is, in the region, unlike any other, truly unparalleled.

And I just have to sort of illustrate that point.

So in the first week of classes, I went to four classes each day, one in each of the three schools, or four in each of the three schools.

And the last one I went to was Michael Culloton's choir rehearsal class.

It was one of the most, if not the most powerful experiences, I am not a musician, anybody that's spent any time with me and heard me sing will know that is an honest statement, but I could hear the brilliance in his teaching.

I could hear the commitment in the students, and you can sense that anytime you experience music.

So we have the inauguration coming up, and I should be worried about what I'm going to say because some people will be listening.

I'm not worried about the inauguration because the choir will be there.

And anytime the choir or the orchestra or the band from Concordia is there, you can be assured that the event is a complete success.

So it is a differential unlike any other, and it changes the way things feel on campus.

And you know, the the last thing I would say sort of about both is we are, what one school out West describes as an "And" school, you can come and study biology and be in the choir.

You can come and play volleyball and be in the band.

You can get a degree in Spanish and study business and play football.

And it's that "And" thing.

You know, I often describe the value of what we do in terms of liberal arts math.

You can add one and one and you get three.

And if you talk to people who have been in the choir, they understand what that math means.

- Where do your students typically come from?

And I understand, of course you have international students and do you recruit those?

- Yeah, that's a really good question.

So I wanna make sure I get my numbers right, but as you would expect, many of our students are from Minnesota.

So 63% are from Minnesota or from Minnesota and the region.

So Minnesota and North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Colorado.

We have students from 61 different countries.

Part of my hope, part of my goal is to grow that number of international students.

Part of the way we will do it is to double down on the methods we've already focused on, but also to add programs, especially programs in data science, programs in AI that are attractive to students from other parts of the world, especially Southeast Asia.

So we're going to lean into international recruitment to grow out the strength of our programs academically.

- Well, we don't have a whole lot more time, but can you talk about how maybe Covid has impacted higher education?

- Absolutely.

Covid has made us better at what we do.

Covid made us more collaborative as leaders, working as communities with faculty and staff, Covid reminded us of the human, humane work that we do with our students, Covid made us more effective technologically.

It helped us think about how we can use technology to enhance what we do, not to replace what we do.

And I would say of a school like Concordia, Covid stress-tested the question of, do students want a residential experience?

You and I are having this meeting together in person because that matters.

And Covid was a good reminder that people want to be in community physically together when possible.

So Covid changed everything and I think the thing that it most stressed for all of us was the importance of community and some clarity around why we do what we do.

- Well, I've got a lot more questions here, but what makes Concordia so special?

- The people and the way that people go about their work.

I was just having breakfast with some of the legends of Concordia this morning.

And I told 'em, I said, the word that I've come away with is thoughtful.

Everything that Concordia faculty, staff, administrators do is thoughtful.

And the thing they're thinking about is the students.

How does what I do serve the students?

How does it serve the students' needs academically and personally?

That's what it does the best, is take care of its students.

- Well, I wish we had more time, but if people want more information, where can they go?

- Go to Concordia College, go to the website.

If it's not out there, get ahold of us directly.

- [John] Dr. Irvine, thanks so much for joining us today.

- Thank you, appreciate it.

- Stay tuned for more.

(soothing music) The Kittson County History Center and Museum in Lake Bronson, Minnesota is an amazingly large and fascinating museum for a small town.

Nestled in the far northwest corner of Minnesota.

A tour of the museum is a trip well worth making.

(upbeat music) - We have a little saying here in Kittson County, Minnesota doesn't end here.

This is where Minnesota begins.

(music continues) This museum, the original building here was built in 1973 and through the years it has been added on.

The main building was 60 by 100.

We added on another building in 1978, and that's a farm machinery building.

And then we have the transportation building, which was added in the 1990s.

We've also added outside buildings, historic buildings.

We brought in a building from the James J. Hill Farm, which was north of Hallock and North Coat, and we also have the first Swedish settler's cabin in the county.

It was Eric Norland who were the first Swedish settlers in the county, and they came up on the Red River, and then they put in a homestead here.

He have a country school depot and a caboose and a country church that have all been moved into the museum ground.

I'd say we'd get between three to 4,000 visitors a year.

A lot of people that have roots here in Kittson County, that comes back.

I try to connect people to the items.

We do a lot of genealogy research here.

I've had wonderful volunteers that have helped get us our genealogy resources together.

- Look at this one, 1916.

- We get an appropriation from the county commissioners.

That covers mainly the salaries.

The rest is through memberships, donations for special projects.

We get grants from the Minnesota Historical Society or the Legacy Fund.

My favorite exhibit would be the Country School.

It's so quaint in there.

I just recently had a board member and his wife, they put new curtains in there and they made it all shiny again.

You go in there and it smells like school.

We had gotten a donation from a farmer.

He had bequeathed a large amount of money to the museum.

And with that, that was kind of a starter fund.

And then we were able to raise money to build this new addition.

It depicts the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and 1980s.

I had two ladies by the name of Catherine Matheson and Cindy Glidden-Olson, who were from Hallock, Minnesota.

They graduated from there and they wanted a project.

They went through the museum's collection.

First, they knew people from the area that had some clothing, and then they went shopping at vintage shops and they purchased all of the mannequins and they purchased all the clothes.

They did the whole thing themselves.

The military items, we have the Civil War up to the Gulf War.

They all are related to Kittson County veterans.

Odin Langen was a congressman and he was from Kennedy, Minnesota.

It was in the 1950s, early 1960s when he was in office.

The desk came from his office in Washington DC.

We have the 1929 Harley Davidson.

It has a neat story behind it.

The man who lived here in Lake Brunson, he was a collector of a lot of artifacts, and we have several of his items in here.

And he had went to South Dakota and he found this Harley Davidson sitting in a pig pen buried in mud (laughs) halfway up.

And then the sidecar was being used as a sled.

So it was all wore out on the bottom.

And he convinced the farmer to let him buy this Harley, and then he restored it.

I like how peaceful it is here.

It's quiet.

There's a sense of safety.

The people have supported the museum so well.

I have over 200 members, and that's a lot for a small county museum.

There's less than 5,000 people in the entire county.

I think one thing that helps us too is we're open year round and we're open full time.

In the wintertime we're closed on weekends, but we're usually open five days a week.

(train whistle blows) This is the county museum, this is the people's Museum.

And I just feel that when people come here, they kind of have a little bit of a sense that it is their museum.

(music continues) - Well, that's all we have on Prairie Pulse this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(soothing music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.