Vice President Brannen understands transitions

-- Patricia Carlberg

Vice President Cathleen Brannen came to Metropolitan State University seven years ago with plans to help the school with its collaborative partnership with Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC), by providing financial planning for the collaboration of the two schools.

Both she, as well as Scott Erickson, MCTC vice president, were presented an Outstanding Service Award two weeks ago by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) Office of the Chancellor for their hard work on the collaboration project in 2005.

Once Brannen took on her position at Metropolitan State University, she decided she could help the school while its Minneapolis campus was transitioning from its old site on 730 Hennepin Ave. to its new site at MCTC on 1500 Hennepin Ave. "There were a lot of opportunities on being a part of something exciting," she said.

Transition has always been a part of Brannen’s life; her father was in the U.S. Air Force, which forced her family to move to various naval bases throughout the United States. Consequently, while traveling, Brannen was introduced to many urban city settings where her interests in urban theatre, food and music grew.

Brannen also brought her own family through transition, when she decided to return as a working mother to school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. in 1985. She graduated there with an executive master of business administration degree.

She decided to work at Vanderbilt University, first as a secretary, and eventually as director of finance at the nursing school.

After 17 years at Vanderbilt University, Brannen advanced her career once more by taking a position at the University of Minnesota, Morris (UMM) in 1993. She worked there as vice chancellor of financing until 1999. From there, Brannen made another transition to Metropolitan State University, accepting the position as vice president of administrative affairs.

Many new challenges lie ahead for her and Brannen will strive to support the institution’s growth, as she oversees many of the departments in the building.

One of the departments is finance, where Brannen is in charge of Metropolitan State University’s annual budget. Her responsibilities include controlling expenditures within authorized funding. She works with the budget advisory committee, and communicates with government groups and administrators regarding fiscal matters.

Another department is the university’s information technology system. This department requires Brannen to look over various branches of the system, including network administration, telecommunications, database management and Web site development.

Everyday Brannen provides leadership to the school by supervising the management of the university’s employee and labor relations operations. She assures that the university complies with the MnSCU Board Policies as stated on the MnSCU Web site, as well as federal and state laws, statues and collective bargaining agreements.