Keenum meetings being webcasted....
- Thread starter topdawg.sixpack
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In the support staff meeting, his reply to each of the following (plus others) was to go to the alumni to get money to fund the programs:
1. Increasing student enrollment (asking all of you to be recruiters, so that's pretty much free but you have to pay for your own travel and wining and dining the prospective students)
2. Upgrading of laboratories so that we can do the research needed to make up a Tier 1 university, as he and you (and we) want us to be
3. Developing, instituting, and maintaining appropriate safety training for employees (chemical, biological, radiological, and other lab safety things beyond the miniscule things offered now)
4. Increasing salaries of faculty and staff to be competitive with other universities in the Southeast and nation
5. Increasing the veterans programs on campus
6. Improving campus infrastructure
All I can say is that I hope you folks have LOTS of money. Most of these things are not one-time expenditures, but continuing needs that will have to be funded in perpetuity.
1. Increasing student enrollment (asking all of you to be recruiters, so that's pretty much free but you have to pay for your own travel and wining and dining the prospective students)
2. Upgrading of laboratories so that we can do the research needed to make up a Tier 1 university, as he and you (and we) want us to be
3. Developing, instituting, and maintaining appropriate safety training for employees (chemical, biological, radiological, and other lab safety things beyond the miniscule things offered now)
4. Increasing salaries of faculty and staff to be competitive with other universities in the Southeast and nation
5. Increasing the veterans programs on campus
6. Improving campus infrastructure
All I can say is that I hope you folks have LOTS of money. Most of these things are not one-time expenditures, but continuing needs that will have to be funded in perpetuity.
Alot of the major universities have alumni to thank for helping them get to the next level. Research is the key financial driver for increasing revenue. I would venture a guess that most "Tier 1" schools are in fact research facilities that mask themselves as universities. MSU still has alot of professors that just want to teach. I think it is a good and bad thing. Bad, in that faculty directed to do alot of research end up putting education second. Good, in that forcing professors to do research, or hiring research professors will really be a good economic engine for State and Starkville.
He really harped on research from all areas, not just ag and engineering, and said for MSU to move forward it has to increase its research, because that is what we do. He talked significantly about creating new industry in the area to lure graduates back and keep students once they graduate to link them back into the university, which will increase the money. I expect to see him on the road a good bit with alumni and business leaders in Mississippi and the Southeast selling this message. On enrollement, he said he wants to increase it by 25% by 2015, which would be around 22,000 students.
My favorite part of the session was when he was talking about recruiting students, faculty, staff and administrators to MSU and how it should be their plan A, and how MSU should NEVER be anyone's plan B. A nice jab at Foglesong.
My favorite part of the session was when he was talking about recruiting students, faculty, staff and administrators to MSU and how it should be their plan A, and how MSU should NEVER be anyone's plan B. A nice jab at Foglesong.
What you're not considering is that he can fund a lot of these priorities just by raising enrollment. MSU's tuition for this year is $5,151, the highest in the state. Our student population has BALLOONED in the last two years, and if that continues, he'll have the money to do some of the things he wants to do. Some of this extra money, of course, will have to cover the cost of educating, housing, accommodating all these new Bulldogs, but much of it will translate into increased revenue for the school for all these other things. By the way, more students = more student fees for ATHLETICS. That's a plus. Maybe we can blow it all on knee-high Russell stockings and white shoes. All that being said, we still need alumni to chip in more to elevate programs. We have deep pocketed alumni, just like other big schools, but our alumni (particularly the rich ones) don't give back at the same rate that alums of other similar SEC schools do. It's a shame. They are just not very connected to the University.
I've never taken a prospective student out to eat to wine and dine them. I also don't think I really care enough to do it.
The university's primary goal should be research and to that end finding/creating research funding. Research dollars are what:
1. Improve the status of the institution
2. Increase faculty/staff salaries
3. Attract better faculty/staff
4. Fund upgrades to infrastructure
5. help keep tuition low
6. Attract better students
I don't want to take classes from faculty at research university who think their primary purpose is to teach that should be secondary. Learning at this level shouldn't require an instructor holding a student's hand. That being said, professors are required to teach as part of their jobs and if their research interferes with their ability to show up for class and/or properly convey the subject matter then I hope they are good enough at obtaining funding to buy their teaching hours from the school so they can focus solely on research. Or they need to seek non-tenure research positions in one of the univeristy's research centers.
1. Improve the status of the institution
2. Increase faculty/staff salaries
3. Attract better faculty/staff
4. Fund upgrades to infrastructure
5. help keep tuition low
6. Attract better students
I don't want to take classes from faculty at research university who think their primary purpose is to teach that should be secondary. Learning at this level shouldn't require an instructor holding a student's hand. That being said, professors are required to teach as part of their jobs and if their research interferes with their ability to show up for class and/or properly convey the subject matter then I hope they are good enough at obtaining funding to buy their teaching hours from the school so they can focus solely on research. Or they need to seek non-tenure research positions in one of the univeristy's research centers.
Very little of the tuition money makes it back to departments to be used for instruction. Many of the lab classes that all of you have taken were furnished with equipment and supplies that were paid for "on the side" out of some professor's research grants.
