University Communications and Marketing

New Seamless OneMSU initiative aims to ease transfers and simultaneous enrollment

University Communications and Marketing, 657-2266

MSU BILLINGS NEWS—Students attending Montana State University campuses in Bozeman, Havre, Great Falls, and Billings will have an easier time transferring, enrolling between campuses, and finding courses to help complete their degree thanks to an initiative launching this fall.

“Seamless OneMSU is designed to reduce paperwork, streamline transactions for undergraduate students, and help the four Montana State University campuses work together to better serve students,” said Cheri Johannes, Ph.D., director of admissions and records/university registrar at MSU Billings.

Johannes said the idea is that a student could be registered in Billings, see an online class they need in Great Falls, and be able to easily register for that class.

“We recognize that not all students proceed on a straight line to graduation,” Johannes said. “Seamless OneMSU acknowledges that students do sometimes attend multiple institutions on their path to graduation, and we want to serve those students better while giving them more access to unique offerings at our institutions across Montana.”

The Seamless OneMSU initiative provides a single webpage of informational resources for students, whether they are enrolled at Bozeman, Billings, Great Falls, or Havre. Students will fill out one form that will set all the necessary paperwork and records transfers in motion. Here is the MSU Billings webpage.

“This initiative provides students greater choice and accessibility to a larger selection of courses that can possibly be offered at a single campus,” said Melinda Arnold, Ph.D., provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at MSUB. “This will help students stay on track to graduate in their chosen majors with seamless access to quality programs taught by experienced faculty, regardless of the students’ home campus.”

“We’ve taken what has been a four-campus, multiple-form process that students used to have to negotiate for each individual campus and created one admission form and a standard process so students can more easily request the classes they need on multiple campuses,” Johannes said.

Johannes noted that Montana University System students normally do not pay for course credits beyond their first 12 per semester, but that is counted at each campus. If a student enrolled in multiple MSU campuses, they’d receive a bill from each, she explained.

The Seamless OneMSU initiative builds on a long commitment by the Montana Board of Regents and the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education to facilitate student transfers, a commitment that has included common course numbering among the state’s campuses, which ensures credits transfer between institutions.

“This is a great example of what can be accomplished when staff and faculty from different campuses roll up their sleeves and work collaboratively to streamline complex admissions and registration processes,” Arnold said. “The team never wavered in doing what is best for our students.”