Looking to Transform Your Life? Or, help creating a new life for yourself?

Want to get better where you already work? Or, need college credit for things you learned in life? Need to jumpstart your college education, again, close to home? Reached the point where you need a college degree but have a family, a couple jobs and it seems impossible?

Minnesota has just such a remarkable even magical place to help rejuvenate your life: Minnesota Metropolitan State University.

Since most universities describe what they are selling, pretty much the same stiff dull way, what tests does a University have to pass to be considered magical? To attract you, or your children at any age?

The test is provided by Prof. Ken Robinson’s gauntlet of maladies, bad habits, bureaucratic bungling, arrogance, factory like atmospheres and stuff that really smart people think really dumb people should know. If you’d like to hear personally from Prof. Robinson go to Ted.com and look for the most watched TED talk. It’s called,” Is Education Killing Creativity?” It is the most viewed Ted talk in history, more than 47 million views. For every criticism Robinson levels at education, Minnesota Metropolitan State University offers, in real time, completely opposite, energizing experiences. Welcome to MetroYOU.

• Imagine that you could select a university education customized to your specific needs, concerns, and requirements. Where, anytime you come in contact with the University you’ll experience something hopeful but challenging, enjoyable but difficult, of great personal benefit; while helping you sort out your life from the moment you sign up.
• An atmosphere which defies conformity by helping students focus on finding, embellishing and enhancing what they come to school for: personal creativity; purposeful, imaginative thinking; real learning and self-discovery, every day.
• Getting things done in your life from your own perspective rather than a University’s perception of what your life should be.
• Where education is about learning. A place where everyone is focused on their individual goals, needs and purposes.
• Where education is a human system rather than a manufacturing process.
• Students find a different sense of possibility, a different set of expectations, a broader range of opportunities and the discretion to be creative and to approach uniquely whatever they do.
• Where the role of educational administration is creating a climate of personal possibility.
• Imagine an educational climate where differences and diversity are celebrated as crucial ingredients in individual achievement.

But there’s more:

1. Educators who are doing what educators are trained to do: stimulate curiosity, encourage individual achievement, mentor, engage.
2. A place where the teacher’s job is to ignite the power of personal imagination, curiosity, and lifelong learning.
3. Where teachers come from the professions they’re teaching and who themselves are constantly learning, constantly creating, relentlessly curious and their responsibility is to model these attributes for their students.
4. Where teachers and students cherish each other. Everyone is all in for everyone else.

How do I know Metro is for you, because Metro Students are just like you:

• Average age of a Metro Student is 32
• 97% of Metro State students transfer from another school
• Metro has 750 community faculty and 179+ full time faculty
• 25% of Faculty and staff are from communities of color
• 41% of Undergrads take some courses on-line
• More than 200 Metro students do internships annually
• Metro students range in age from 15 to 81
• 8% of Metro Students are veterans
• 38% 0f Metro students are people of color
• 56% of Metro students are female
• 77% of Metro Alumni live in Minnesota
• 66% of Metro students receive financial assistance
• Metro State U is really all about YOU.

Well, yes, after 48 years and 37,000 graduates, and approaching its 50^th birthday, Minnesota Metropolitan State University continues its revolutionary nontraditional approach to adult education. It is magical, ask any MSU student. The University demographic matches almost exactly that of the seven-county metropolitan area, especially as the Minneapolis and St. Paul Metropolitan area is the living definition of a diverse culture and environment.

Perhaps the most powerful difference between MetroYOU and its neighbor universities and colleges is that the student is pretty much in control of their destiny. The story of the MetroYOU graduate is of a life of personally guided transformation, personal goals identified and achieved, nurtured by other students finding themselves among faculty that truly are there with them every step of the way.

Only in Minnesota can you find this magical education experience. Metropolitan State is your YOUniversity, as committed to YOU as YOU become committed to advancing yourself. That’s why we call it MetroYOU.

Mr. Lukaszewski, 76, is the 81^rst graduate (April 1974) of Metropolitan State University. He has been a very active graduate, the first elected head of the University Alumni Association, first student member of the MSU Foundation Board, member of various presidential kitchen cabinets, has served on most Metro standing committees; a frequent guest lecturer, currently serving as founding chair of the Community Advisory Committee to the MBA Program in the University’s College of Management. jel@e911.com, (203) 948-7029 (Text, Voicemail, Email)