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CR and HSU Hold Second Partnership Summit

CR and HSU Hold Second Partnership Summit

Published on 2/26/2021.

In the fall of 2019, College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State University held an historic partnership summit that culminated in the institutions’ presidents signing a Memorandum of Understanding, which laid the foundation for initiating and strengthening collaborative activities between CR and HSU.

On February 19, 2021 they convened a second summit to expand on progress made thus far and to identify short and long term goals in the following five focus areas:

  • Academics
  • Student Services
  • Enrollment Management
  • Facilities, Safety & Human Resources
  • Community Partnerships & Athletics

The core objectives of the summit, and the partnership in general, are to make it easier for students to transfer from CR to HSU (or vice versa) by more closely aligning programs, to bring down institutional costs by sharing physical and human resources, and to increase student graduation rates by ensuring a continuity of support services as they move from one institution to another.

“We couldn’t ask for a better partner in Dr. Jackson and his team,” says CR President Keith Flamer. “We agree that, central to our partnership, is the commitment that whatever we do going forward is about students.” 

“The work HSU and CR have been doing reflects our commitments to our students and to our broader communities,” agrees HSU President Tom Jackson, Jr. “These efforts will help create strong pathways to education and careers for our local youth and those from outside the area who aspire to be CR and HSU graduates and contribute back to our communities.”

Over 50 representatives from the two institutions came together remotely and outlined several ideas for how they could support those objectives.  

Some of those ideas included:

  • Exploring joint grant opportunities
  • Engaging industry partners to align curriculum with workforce needs
  • Better engaging our Indigenous Tribes in developing pathways between CR and HSU
  • Combining our career centers
  • Creating joint professional development opportunities for our faculty and staff
  • Creating a joint admissions process
  • Leveraging our joint purchasing power
  • Linking our Emergency Operations Centers
  • Creating reciprocal agreements for us to use each other’s campuses to hold classes
  • Hosting joint sporting or other events
  • Establishing a CR/HSU alumni organization

“The partnership that CR and HSU is developing is extremely rare in higher education,” continues President Flamer. “The reality is, because we are a small, rural, and somewhat remote community, our institutions have always been interconnected. We share students, faculty and staff.  The question is, how can we better integrate our programs and operations to take advantage of shared resources and create a better experience for local students?”

Working groups left the meeting with several action items that will be reported on in the next summit.

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