Saint Mary's Newsroom

The Marketing and Communication team is excited to announce the launch of a brand refresh and website redesign project to support our strategic plan, Building a Future Full of Hope 2025. This initiative supports each of our strategic plan goals, with significant impact on Goals 1 and 2: Live our Lasallian Catholic Heritage and Grow Enrollment.

We have recently brought on an external branding and web design firm who will partner with us over the next year. The project has two stages, and we will ask for the participation and support of faculty, staff, students, and alumni throughout the process to ensure the outcomes are successful.

Part 1: Brand refresh

Great brands have a clear, consistent vision and understanding of what makes them different from the competition, and we are taking the time to ensure we have a clear, consistent, and compelling brand that touts our uniqueness and relevance, makes a lasting impression, and drives engagement.

The brand refresh affords us an opportunity to engage the university in review of our mission, vision, core values, key messages, and value proposition. A key component of branding is our brand voice, the personality, emotion, and sensibility we use in all our communications. It includes not only the words we use, but the images we create with those words. Our key messages and audience needs inform our voice. How we speak, what we say, the photos, videos, and words we use must be consistent, clear, and compelling to those we are talking to and engaging with.

To this end, our brand refresh will include an assessment of messaging and tone, setting a strong brand foundation and value proposition, and updating our look and feel (graphic standards such as fonts, colors, and logo usage). We will develop a brand resource guide, templates, key messaging, value proposition, and other deliverables to help each of us become brand stewards.

The discoveries from this part will inform the direction of part 2 of the project, the website redesign.

Part 2: Website redesign

As the website is Saint Mary’s No. 1 channel of communication with our many audiences, particularly prospective students, it is imperative for it to be timely, well-organized, and filled with compelling and informative content that is accurate and consistent.

To that end, the university is undertaking a web redesign project that includes:

1. Developing a responsive, mobile-friendly site.
2. Creating improved, clearer, and shorter paths to conversion through intuitive navigation and organization.
3. Enhancing the visual appearance of the site with a modern and appealing design.
4. Developing compelling content, including multimedia, through planning and calendars.
5. Improving accessibility.
6. Incorporating tools and technology to identify key pathways to conversion, and making decisions based on user behavior.

Each month, we will provide you with a status update on the work done to date, and next steps.

What has been done so far

Our team has been busy since last fall preparing for this project:

• Website redesign consultative committee established, representing key partners who rely on a quality website to meet division and larger university goals. The committee’s role is to provide insights and perspectives to inform the website redesign, and to serve as advocates and information sources for the redesign within their departments.
• Request for proposal created and offered to three external partners. This request for proposal detailed our needs for both the website redesign and brand refresh, expected timeline for completion, and goals of these integrated projects.
• Two prospective partners submitted responses, and members of the consultative committee reviewed and provided input. Marketing and Communication leadership interviewed both prospective partners and chose the partner most closely aligned with our needs, goals, budget, timeline, and culture: Modern Climate.
• Current site audit and competitive analysis.
• Initial sitemap created to guide the website redesign, informed by Google Analytics data about user demographics, most visited pages, exit pages, etc.

Highlights of next steps in June and July include:

• Focus groups and surveys for both website and brand including current undergraduate and Schools of Graduate and Professional Programs students, prospective students, alumni, faculty, and staff.

When will the new site be live?

Our current estimated public launch of the brand refresh and new site is by late spring 2022. We will continue to send out monthly updates that reflect our most current launch estimate.

As always, we appreciate all the thoughtful questions, feedback, and positive support from the community on the project thus far. Lots more to come! Please let us know if you have any questions.

Governor Walz launched the ‘Your Shot to Summer’ vaccine rewards campaign encouraging COVID-19 vaccinations by July 1. The first 100,000 Minnesotans ages 12 and older who get their first COVID-19 vaccine dose between May 27 and June 30 will be eligible to choose a reward of their choice from a wide-ranging list of options, including state parks passes, fishing licenses, and tickets to various summer attractions — including the Minnesota State Fair. Minnesotans can learn more, verify that they received their dose, and choose their preferred vaccine reward at mn.gov/covid19/summer. To find a vaccine location near you, go to vaccines.gov.

As has been our tradition, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota honors both retirees and employees with milestone service awards each year at a spring employee service award event. Because of COVID-19 safety requirements this past spring, we once again needed to replace our live events with a single virtual one.

Our virtual celebration includes announcement and recognition of employees who’ve achieved 5-year service increments, and a celebration of this year’s retirees. This year, we honor those with service from 5 to 35 years, as well as the following retirees: Paul Frosch, Michael Charron, John Anderson, Sherry Boynton, Ruth Torstenson LeMasters, Ann Jaques-Klingmann, Elizabeth Childs, Rob McColl, Preston Lawing, Ellen Bergler, Dr. Kenneth Solberg, Laurie Haase, Dr. David Sokolowski, Dr. Paul Weiner, and Dr. Ray Faber.

View this year’s virtual event and join us in celebrating this year’s honorees.

The university budget for fiscal year 2022 was adopted by the board at their May 2021 meeting and includes investments in many areas critical to Saint Mary’s progress to achieving the objectives set forth in the strategic plan, Building a Future Full of Hope 2025. This announcement outlines significant funding decisions as well as new technical elements incorporated in the new fiscal year’s budget.

While university operations are planned to have a deficit of $2.5 million in fiscal year 2022, which will be funded by excess endowment draw, it is imperative to make judicious commitments now which will preserve the quality and enhance the relevance of Saint Mary’s to our students, faculty, and larger community. In addition to funding strategic initiatives and supporting core infrastructure (as outlined below), the budget also contains operating contingencies to allow for real-time adjustments as circumstances may dictate.

The key fiscal year 2022 budget initiatives funded are:

• Restoration of a full 6.5% university contribution to the pension program, effective July 1, 2021.
• A salary raise pool for employees, including adjunct faculty, anticipated to be effective Jan. 1, 2022. (Details to be finalized this fall.)
• Support for new academic programs, including:
  • three professional certificates (global human resources and two in cybersecurity)
  • development of two new bachelor’s completion programs (applied psychology and social work)
  • a four-year undergraduate degree in pre-licensure nursing
  • the transition of the M.S. in Nurse Anesthesia to a doctoral level program
• Infrastructure investments, including:
  • Faculty professional development, especially in the area of online course delivery
  • Support of academic programs, including library resources, lab safety management, and further deployment of planned learning management system functionality
  • Expansion of student services, especially for the Schools of Graduate and Professional Programs population
  • Reallocation of resources to bolster in-house coordination of brand and program marketing

As noted over the previous several months to many different leadership groups, Saint Mary’s is in the process of moving to a new budget methodology, a modified form of a responsibility center management model. This will better support the university’s strategic initiatives by incentivizing beneficial growth. More information will be forthcoming in late October when we begin development of the fiscal year 2022-23 budget draft.

The most immediate and visible effect is a change in budget timeline. Contrasting with prior years where the university budget was not finalized until after fall enrollment census data was available, as noted above, the board of trustees adopted a university budget for fiscal year 2022 prior to the start of the fiscal year (June 1, 2021). This will be the budget timeline moving forward to better facilitate annual and longer-term planning.

Subsequent to the board of trustee action in May, departmental budgets for fiscal year 2022 have now been loaded. They reflect approved reallocations, updates to personnel rosters and university-wide expenses, as well as new allocations for strategically aligned departmental requests approved during the fiscal year 2022 budget cycle. Unit leaders with budget access privileges are encouraged to review their area budgets via the online report available through the faculty/staff portal or through management viewer. Please note, that while operating contingencies now afford some buffer, significant fluctuations in enrollment may require additional adjustments to departmental budgets.

New budget elements that will affect and be visible to applicable units:

• Academic Investment Fund (“AIF”) allocations: These temporary allocations generally provide seed-money for new program launches, and funding will be replenished by tuition revenue as programs grow to maturity. The allocations will be reviewed and adjusted as necessary on an annual basis, and, if applicable, converted to ongoing budget allocations with the provost’s approval.
  • AIF budget allocations will appear in new Accounts 7090 (for personnel) and 7999 (for non-personnel items).
  • Transactions funded by AIF allocations should not occur on Accounts 7090 or 7999, but rather on the natural expense account which most closely matches the nature of the expenditure.
• One-time (1x) allocations: To support temporary special purpose expenditures, such as time-limited initiatives or purchases of certain equipment. In general, these allocations will be zeroed out in the next fiscal year.
  • Allocations will appear, as applicable, in Accounts 7095 (1x Personnel costs) and 7997 (1x Non Personnel costs).
  • Transactions funded by AIF allocations should not occur on Accounts 7095 or 7997, but rather on the natural expense account which most closely matches the nature of the expenditure.

Saint Mary’s put students at the center of its strategic plan, Building a Future Full of Hope, and many of our students come to us online. This vision led to the inception, last year, of its first efforts to certify instructors as experts in online education. The 12-week, three course sequence offered through CELT and taught by Dr. Angela Velez-Solic of Rush University has been wildly popular with instructors over the last year, leading to over 400 course completions and 119 Saint Mary’s instructors completing the Advanced Online Instructor Certification course.

The initiative has had support from the highest levels at Saint Mary’s, including our president and provost of the university. In the previous fiscal year, Saint Mary’s invested in its future online with $119,000 in stipends to instructors who completed the course sequence, and this next fiscal year will bring an even more significant investment.

“In keeping with our Lasallian Catholic heritage, we deliver a quality education to our students so our commitment to faculty development and online learning is unwavering. With over 100 instructors completing the certificate this past year alone, it’s clear that our faculty share this commitment as well,” said Brian Schmisek, Ph.D., provost and dean of faculties.

Instructors who complete the courses receive a digital badge through the Credly service for each level completed, signifying their accomplishment and training. Saint Mary’s can use the badges to track who has been through the certification courses, but instructors can also share the badges on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook.

Here are some of the sample comments from instructors who have gone through the courses:

“I went into this course anxious and intimidated. I’ve come out the other side with a greater appreciation for online learning tools, design, and delivery, and I’m much less anxious about trying new tech.”

“As I continue to grow as an educator, I need and want to deepen my knowledge of and proficiency of the resources available to me to be an effective online instructor. Thank you for guiding me thus far on my journey.”

“Tying what we do in our fields with virtue/character education was very useful. Often we are not given the time, place, and space to reflect upon the ‘bigger picture.’”

“I have learned more than I ever thought I would. Seriously …  I also absolutely love teaching and if online is the new normal, I certainly want to be good at it.”

“I leave this course experience with the valuable benefit of knowing what a top-notch, well-designed online course looks like — and inside our new learning management system, no less! Perhaps this final takeaway is the most beneficial of all.”

Saint Mary’s will continue to offer the Online Instructor Certification courses and the $1,000 stipend for completing the sequence throughout the next fiscal year for both full-time and course-contracted faculty who have been nominated by their deans. The next full set of certification courses will begin on July 26 at the introductory, intermediate, and advanced levels. The courses are offered asynchronously (you can choose how you want to work on them throughout the week) through our new Canvas learning management system and allow instructors to have the experience of being an online student while learning the best practices in online education. Instructors who are interested should contact their dean and/or program director (or chair) for a nomination.

Dear Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota community,

As we continue planning for fall 2021, it has become apparent that we need better data on the percentage of our faculty, staff, and students who are vaccinated. While the university is not mandating the COVID-19 vaccination for fall, we do strongly encourage students and employees to obtain the vaccination. You can use the Minnesota COVID-19 Vaccine Connector to find out when, where, and how to get a COVID-19 vaccine. The new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance for institutions of higher education offers recommendations for institutions with fully vaccinated campuses and those without fully vaccinated campuses. As that guidance indicates, colleges or universities “where not everyone is fully vaccinated will have a mixed population of both people who are fully vaccinated and people who are not fully vaccinated on campus which requires decision making to protect the people who are not fully vaccinated.” Hence, the guidance recommends that people who are not fully vaccinated continue to correctly wear masks. The guidance also recommends the continuation of physical distancing of 6 feet for people who are not fully vaccinated. These recommendations have significant implications for the university as we plan for fall 2021.

Accordingly, we are asking you to complete an anonymous questionnaire about your vaccination status. The questionnaire is designed to give us some sense of the aggregate number of faculty, staff, and students who are vaccinated on each of our campuses. This will help us prepare and plan for the return to campus. We strongly encourage you to complete this survey NOW, but no later than July 9, 2021. Of course, please be honest in your responses since our goal is to plan for the protection of everyone on our campuses.

Complete the employee survey

Complete the student survey