 Pat Hagen employed a Sherlock Holmes motif with the slogan, "Get a Clue" on updates about the project. |
Pat Hagen is helping St. Scholastica "get a clue" about itself. At least once every 10 years, each college and university in America must be accredited. Everything about the college is scrutinized, from its mission and policies to its financial solvency and parking lots. This is St. Scholastica's year. In October, a team of investigators from the North Central Association's Higher Learning Commission will visit campus to examine the financial books, stroll campus, talk to anyone and everyone they'd like, and draw conclusions about whether St. Scholastica is fit to continue doing business. In reality, the visit by the team of peer faculty and administrators is the culmination of a thorough self-examination that the College first performs upon itself. "I chose Pat for this position because she's bright, thorough, organized, articulate and knows the College well," said Larry Goodwin. "She's also a creative person who takes an imaginative approach to leadership." |
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Hagen, an associate professor of English, has worked at St. Scholastica since 1990. She
teaches Irish literature, Management Communications and Introduction to Art courses, among others.
For the duration of the accreditation process, she is in the classroom only half-time. It's worth the
tradeoff, she said, because accreditation's importance can't be overstated. "If we weren't accredited we would go under. End of story," Hagen said. "St. Theresa's of Winona (MN) was put on probation for a year and never recovered. They closed down." The value of the process goes beyond getting OK to continue operating. "Taking a detached look at what we do - the shortcomings we have, the strengths we can build on - is good for us as an institution," Hagen said. "It's a time for people who aren't at the upper level of administration to think about pieces of the College outside their immediate area. They can offer valuable perspectives. "It's kind of the equivalent of making New Year's resolutions institutionally," she said. "It's our one opportunity to look into every nook and cranny." Hagen's diligence - and imaginative approach to keeping people involved and on task - helped a lot, her colleagues say. "She makes things happen," said Registrar George Beattie, a member of the steering committee that led the effort. "This is a critical juncture for the College; accreditation always is. Pat put her heart and soul into it and uncovered a lot of information - not singlehandedly, but she set the stage so that all of this could happen." Hagen has been pleased with how "everyone has been so truly cooperative, willing to be a part of all the effort." She wasn't sure they would be. "In recent years we'd gone through a lot as a college. We'd had a big administration change, and were switching to outcome-based education that demonstrates student-based learning rather than faculty-oriented teaching. And then we also converted from quarters to semesters; many schools take three years to do that and we did it in one. A lot of people felt stretched quite thin already. For me, the biggest reward was, when I was coming to people with yet another thing, they said 'Yes, I will sit on that committee,' or 'Yes, I'll track down that information.' That to me says a lot about St. Scholastica, the level of care for the place that many people feel." Hagen used humor to help keep everyone engaged. She employed a Sherlock Holmes motif with the slogan, "Get a Clue" on updates about the project. She sent notes with candies, and when a draft of the project's findings was finished, she distributed bubble-gum cigars to announce the "birth" of the document. "I couldn't afford to really reward folks," she said, "but I could afford a chocolate or a bubble gum cigar. People like to be appreciated, even in small ways. And it helped keep the process in people's minds." To her steering committee, she gave poseable toy figures that could be bent easily. The message: be flexible. She gave each member a toy top. The message: "Even when things are spinning, keep your balance. And remember - it's going to stop eventually." She gave toy penguins that marched in step but stopped when they came to the end of a desk or table. The message: "Do your job, but don't go over the edge." |
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 "Do your job, but don't go over the edge." |
 "Be flexible." |
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"Sort of dippy, but fun," she said. "The idea was, 'Yes this is serious, but lighten up.
Don't make yourself crazy over it.' Which was a message I had to give to plenty of people." So how would she expect the College to be different a decade from now, based upon the study's findings? "We'll have a Wellness Center of some type. We'll have a better strategic planning process in place. Hopefully, we'll have better communications flow - the way it works now is person-dependent. I hope a decade from now it's built into the system - built into people's responsibilities to communicate. I hope we'll be ever-more solvent financially. I hope we'll continue to develop alternative learning models, new ways of delivering education to people. We'll also have more graduate programs. Finally, we should have an institutional researcher. It's hard to evaluate and plan strategically without data. It'd be best to have a centralized location and a person with all the data." This spring Hagen will continue disseminating the findings throughout campus. Over the summer she'll prepare all the data and materials for the visit next October by the five-member team. "They're not police;" Hagen said. "They're not trying to 'getcha.' They're trying to see whether we're a mature enough institution to assess our weaknesses or vulnerabilities, to admit them, and to have a plan to do something about them. One person put it as: 'Don't sweep things under the rug. Don't even have a rug.'" Read more about the College's self study: The Verdict - Highlights from the findings of the self-study project The word on buildings, mission and vision |
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