Driving Transformation in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System

The University Design Institute was recently engaged by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System to facilitate a months-long Design Accelerator with three of its universities to support its Equity 2030 initiative.

Several members of the UDI team traveled to St. Paul, Minnesota in late June to launch the first phases of the Design Accelerator, the program provides an opportunity to support the upward mobility of institutions, the students they serve, and the overall educational fabric of the higher education system.

During this session, teams from Bemidji State University, Metro State University, and Minnesota State University-Moorhead tackled critical issues such as transferability/transfer credits, student success, and regional stewardship. Satasha Green-Stephen, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs for the Minnesota State System, played an integral role in the session by providing opening remarks about the system’s strategic direction and how the Accelerator supports the efforts of the institutions they oversee.

The Design Accelerator advances new models and impactful outcomes for institutions. Focused on a specific challenge identified at the system-level, design teams from participating institutions identify ideas to address challenges, then work with design experts and mentors to structure and advance their ideas and iterate towards implementation. The immersive, 12-month program expertly weaves in the real-world decision-making of institutional leaders and the needs of their stakeholders, utilizing critical frameworks across their learning journey.

UDI’s Design Accelerator is powered by Principled Innovation, which helps leaders imagine new concepts, catalyze ideas and form new solutions, by putting character and values at the center of decisions and actions. Part of ASU’s nine design aspirations, Principled Innovation supports the ability of leaders to imagine new concepts, catalyze ideas and form new solutions, guided by principles that create positive change. It carefully considers context and larger systems while placing the people who are affected by the problem at the center of the proposed solution.

UDI will continue collaborating with these teams and gather insights over the next 10 months to track outcomes delivered with sustainability and scale.

This is the second Design Accelerator the University Design Institute has facilitated in the United States. In August 2022, UDI supported a systems-level Design Accelerator for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, working with several of its colleges and universities on specific challenges within their institutions.