Grand Junction Blog

The significant growth of Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado begged the question; and now it’s out there: When Is Mesa State going to become a University? There, we’ve said it: Mesa State University. On the heels of the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce making the Mesa County School District 51 their highest priority as increasing the lifestyle and attractiveness to business in the Grand Valley, it was the most natural of follow up issues.

It’s a question Mesa State’s office of institutional research and assessment posed this spring to nearly 1,300 Mesa State students, alumni, and employees, as well as local business professionals. Respondents on average rated “pursuing university status,” an important goal for Mesa State.

Graduating from college to university would make room for more programs, more post-graduate degrees and possibly some research opportunities. Changing one word, college to university, has a very real impact on both the image and the total projects taken up by the institution. It could provide opportunities for research and grant funding and attract leaders in certain fields to teaching positions at the college/university. Mesa State has been authorized to grant baccalaureate degrees for 34 years and launched its first of three graduate programs 13 years ago. The college will soon offer a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree.

At least one professor has observed that the inclusion of three graduate programs at Mesa State since 1997, a doctorate program on the way, 20 percent growth in enrollment in 2009 compared to 2004, and large-scale projects such as the upcoming forensic anthropology lab have led many community members to believe it’s a matter of time before the college becomes a university.

Faculty members opposed to university status have said they want to wait until the college is big enough to contend with large schools such as Ohio State University. Of course that’s never going to happen. Whether that desire is held only because of it’s sheer impossibility, thereby to negate the question, is not known.

The real, sincere issue is: keeping the school’s small, community feel as a university could help preserve one of Mesa State’s most notable attributes while still progressing. One student trustee and senior has actually stated that underlying concept. At least one faculty member stated that change is only worth it if the college maintains close student-faculty relationships and a focus on teaching. Some faculty members believe that a name change won’t really change the operations of the school, but that the name would be significant.

Some students say they’re worried Mesa State will be less affordable or less accessible if the college becomes a university. However, a university could attract employers to the area because they’d know they could send employees to Mesa State for additional education at any level and recruit employees while they are earning university degrees locally.

Predictably, the college president is taking a middle of the road stance on the question. One Mesa State Trustee sees the advantages as a half-full glass also. There is always the out-of-area issue of asking a resident if they drive their oil rig truck to class every day.

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Concerned citizens in Grand Junction, Colorado asked themselves questions a year ago about how to make the valley even better. The Grand Junction Forum started as a think tank for the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce. Some dozen people gathered monthly to discuss how the community, bustling at the time in 2007, could continue to grow industry while retaining local character.

Initial brainstorming suggestions ranged from supporting downtown businesses and revitalization to encouraging use of riverfront trails or helping the medical community. A year ago the conversation shifted to making Grand Junction more attractive to business, and it identified the No. 1 factor in economic development as the quality of K-12 education. Education, the group said, is the key to diversifying the economic development base and insulating the Grand Valley from boom and bust cycles.

The forum made cultivating a world-class education system in Grand Junction its No. 1 goal and spent a year asking community members and educators what that system should look like. The forum wasn’t being critical of School District 51. Rather, it sought to engage the community through a grass-roots efforts to get residents to take responsibility for the education of their children.

The Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce agreed that the community could make a difference and have a positive effect on youth, parents, the business community and business recruitment. The forum wanted a system that fit into Grand Junction’s small-city lifestyle by making the effort about community participation in schools.

Obviously other communities, large and small, have asked this same question. A world-class education system seems to mean an education experience comparable to or better than what a student would receive in any other developed country where students demonstrate proficiency in several subjects.

The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce recently estimated 77 percent of U.S. jobs will require at least a bachelor’s degree by 2018. But the United States fell to 12th place this year, according to the Organisation for Economic and Co-operative Development. The U.S. ranked 25th in math and 21st in science skills on international assessments given to 15-year-olds in 2006. International assessments given the same year to fourth-graders listed the U.S. 15th in reading.

Teresa Coons is the current mayor of Grand Junction and the director of the John McConnell Math and Science Center of Western Colorado. “If we’re going to attract and keep young professionals, part of that is having a community that has a global outlook.”

Businesses and employees put a local school district’s reputation at the top of the list when considering a move to Grand Junction, according to Terry Farina, a forum member and attorney. An education system that can launch successful adults in a global market appeals to working parents and the community at large, he said.

All of this well-intentioned discussion boils down to two objectives. First, the children must be in the classroom, ready to learn. Second, the curriculum and delivery must be exceptional. After that, an evaluation instrument must be accurate enough to give accurate results.

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The coal mining industry is not well known in western Colorado. The fact that Colorado coal is so much cleaner burning, and typically mixed in with dirtier burning coal back east, is even less well known. Xcel energy is pushing natural gas in the western US, as well they should. But when coal miners in western Colorado see a threat to their jobs, they get visible.

If there’s any doubt about Grand Junction, Colorado being the capital of the western slope, that was stomped on again as more than 300 people gathered Monday evening outside the old Mesa County Courthouse before a hearing of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. Most were coal miners or people tied to the industry who oppose Xcel’s plans to switch from coal to natural gas energy sources. There are no coal mines in Mesa County, Colorado.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission heard dozens of speakers in an impromptu outdoor hearing set up on the east side of the old Mesa County Courthouse after audience members in an overflow room couldn’t hear proceedings in the main public hearing room.

Miners and their families are worried about the potential effects of Xcel Energy’s plans for coal mining in northwest Colorado, which were drawn up to meet the requirements of House Bill 1365. The bill was aimed at boosting the natural gas drilling economy of the Western Slope and at fending off regulators from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Xcel intends to continue burning coal at its Hayden, Colorado and Craig, Colorado stations and is making technological changes to accommodate it.

Using natural gas would prevent a “hostile federal takeover” by the EPA and help the gas and related industries, one oil field services company owner told the commission. That would come at the cost of a toll on the small communities of northwest Colorado for which coal mining is a mainstay, coal backers said.

Environment Colorado said the issue is bigger than northwest Colorado. That probably won’t fly around here.

Routt County might see 16.4 percent of its tax base imperiled. Other counties could suffer similar losses, while consumers now are looking at the prospect of higher rates as a result of the changes.

Xcel is proposing to close two coal-fired plants on the Front Range and replace them with gas-fired plants. That might be the fly in the ointment. Just like water rights on the Continental Divide, energy on the other side of the mountain, versus jobs on this side, gets the fur flying. As many as 200 direct jobs and 1,600 indirect jobs might be at stake.

Predictably, several citizens concerned with ‘greeness’ had their say about the efficieciency of coal.

The Colorado Public Utilities Commission visited the Cameo Generation Station, which will be closed at the end of this year, before the hearing; and later took off back to Denver on the Colorado State Patrol airplane.

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Local Colorado legislators, specifically western slope legislators, are very interested in Arizona’s newly enacted, and restricted, immigration law. Rep. Laura Bradford recently traveled to Arizona to examine the law and it’s effect up close.

Bradford and Ray Scott, the Republican who is unchallenged in November in his bid to be the representative from House District 54, joined a handful of other Colorado legislators on a trip to Phoenix to meet with their Arizona counterparts to discuss that state’s immigration law.

Rep. Bradford’s biggest conclusion was that the law is about safety, not exclusion. Maybe. The mystery to me is why the media, or the legislators, doesn’t put as much energy into the other side of the issue. The US-Mexico border is a two way street. Humans and drugs jump the fence this way and the US sends weapons of human destruction the other way, but rest assured it’s not over the fence. The auto traffic going south needs the same attention the foot, fence-jumping, and auto traffic gets coming north.

The Arizona law, referred to as AB 1070, which is being challenged in court by the federal government, calls on Arizona’s law enforcement officers to check the residency status of anyone suspected of being in the United States illegally. Colorado has a similar law, but police here are limited to checking that status after a suspect has been arrested on other charges.

Bradford and Scott said other Republicans who went on the trip are expected to introduce a bill into the 2011 Colorado Legislature that mirrors Arizona’s law.

Bradford said she learned that because the U.S. Coast Guard has been highly successful in preventing drug smugglers from entering the nation along the Gulf Coast, and California’s border fence is all but complete, most of the new crossings have been concentrated along the Texas, New Mexico and Arizona borders.

I used to live in New Mexico and I can assure you that for various cultural reasons, New Mexico has nowhere near the illegal immigration or drug or assault weapons problems that Texas or Arizona has. Anyone interested in this topic needs to rub their chin and ask themselves why New Mexico is so very silent on this issue.

Bradford said. “One idea that they’re floating in Arizona is to ask illegals to pay tuition in order to go to public schools. We’re eager to see how that works.” (Yeah, right.) Apparently many hospitals are already posting warnings that citizenship will be verified before admittance. How strict the emercency rooms are would be interesting.

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The Forbes.com list of the nation’s top colleges has just been released. Out of the top 610, Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado ranks 555th. Not too impressive until you consider the list in the context of the total number of colleges in the country.

Forbes.com list of 610 represents the top 9 percent of the nation’s colleges. The country has 6600 institutions of higher learning. That’s a much more impressive number when taken in perspective.

In the three years the ranking has existed, Mesa State has made the list twice. The college made its first appearance on the list last year at number 326.

The list grades schools based on the following information collected about each school:

How much debt students have and how many students default on student loans.

Student evaluations on MyPlan.com and Rate MyProfessor.com.

Alumni salary and placement in corporate positions.

Percentage of students receiving nationally competitive awards.

The percentage of students who graduate from the school within four years and retention rates.

Most students when quizzed about their selection of Mesa State College cite affordable cost and proximity to their hometown.

US News and World Report also ranks colleges. Mesa State doesn’t fare well on their list. Mesa State doesn’t care much, natch. You just haven’t lived until you’ve spent a few days here; on Colrado’s western slope.

If you buy the argument that college is what you make it, you’ll want to take a look over here.

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