Office Hours with John Gardner
We are searching for big ideas that inspire hope and action in higher education around institutional transformation and innovation to advance student success and more equitable student outcomes. Joining John Gardner are higher education leaders and other relevant persons of interest who will discuss innovation and strategies that improve higher education.The Gardner Institute, a 24-year-old non-profit, has been at the forefront of innovation in higher education; our mission very clearly connects us to the broader societal efforts to increase social justice.The Gardner Institute connects with thousands of professionals in the higher education ecosystem; through a wide array of activities such as Transformative Conversations, the Teaching and Learning Academy, and the Socially Just Design Series, and through our work as an Intermediary for Scale supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As a leader in the student success movement in higher education, we strive to provide support for institutions interested in social justice and institutional transformation.
Office Hours with John Gardner
Marta Mohr- Belonging to a System
I'm newly retired and in the process of sorting through 40 years of books and papers! My professional life has been shaped by a variety of experiences, including my childhood in South Dakota, my experiences at rural and tribal colleges and universities, travels to Latin America and the South Pacific, nonprofit agency and board leadership, teaching undergrad and graduate students, and advocating for social justice. These experiences have taught me how to approach student concerns holistically and to trust the student’s instincts and my own. I seek to bring a diversity of viewpoints to find creative solutions to complex problems, whether that's in a large system workgroup or in a classroom.
I was educated at the University of Sioux Falls, graduating with a degree in Psychology, and Sioux Falls Seminary, where I served as a graduate teaching assistant and was awarded a Masters in Counseling. When I became a licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist and Chemical Dependency Counselor, I provided clinical supervision and executive leadership to a large nonprofit organization that provided K-12 prevention education to an 18,000 student school district, outpatient treatment services, city/county detox services, county jail and state prison treatment programs, a halfway house for men coming out of treatment and the state’s first halfway house for women and their children. I returned to graduate school at South Dakota State University, where I was accepted into the Honor Society of Agriculture, Gamma Sigma Delta, and awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy. The field research for my dissertation, Higher Education in Rural America: A Study of Northern Plains American Indian and Non-Indian Attitudes, Aspirations, Expectations and Perceived Barriers, was conducted with over two hundred people living within a twenty-five-mile radius of Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Reservation, home of the federally recognized Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Chief Spotted Tail (Sinte Gleska), was noted for his interest in bringing education to his tribe.
In 2008, I came to the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system to work with stakeholders across the system’s 54 campuses to develop, implement and assess academic programs and transfer policies and procedures. The Minnesota Legislature had just passed degree credit cap legislation, and my first assignment was working with the seven state universities and 30 colleges to reduce associate degree programs to 60 credits and baccalaureate degree programs to 120 credits. During my tenure I facilitated the system’s Transfer Governance Team, sat on the Policy Council, Graduate School Council, and the Transfer Pathway Coordinating Team, charged with improving student transfer through the development of 26 “Transfer Pathways” designed to guarantee acceptance of all associate-level and junior status for students transferring to the system universities.
