- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
Putting The Multi-Purpose Back In The Show Me Center
I was a sophomore at SEMO when the Show Me Center was built.
It wasn't always called the Show Me Center. During construction the facility had no name. It was simply called the multi-purpose building.
The building's name was chosen by committee prior to its grand opening in the fall of 1987. This was years before selling naming rights became the standard operating procedures for public facilities everywhere. Although nothing is stopping the University from pursuing this lucrative revenue stream now even though the facility has been named the Show Me Center for nearly 23 years. We can still call it that. That can be its base name. The University can then sell the "above the base" naming rights.
For instance, one of our area convenience store empires might want to pay the University a fee to brand the facility. "Rhode's 101 Stops Show Me Center" has a nice ring to it and it would be appropriate since they have a store right across from the venue on Sprigg.
Or how about "Domino's Show Me Center?" On second thought, that name does sound a little too much like a "gentleman's club." That might not be good for the University's image. Or then again, maybe it would be.
Being known as a "party school" has done wonders in terms of enrollment for a lot of universities over the years and I can't imagine there being anything that screams "PAR-TAY!!!!!" louder than having a strip-club right on campus. I bet if SEMO actually implemented something like that, enrollment would be at twenty or thirty thousand in no time flat.
Obviously that won't happen.
SEMO does have standards and being known as The Party School With The An Arena-Sized Gentleman's Club does not necessarily attract the type of students we want to attract.
No, the administration would definitely want to screen whomever they sold the Show Me Center's above the base naming rights to.
For example, they certainly wouldn't want to sell the rights to Three Rivers Community College. That could get just down right confusing.
"Welcome to the Three Rivers Community College Show Me Center at Southeast Missouri State University!"
Talk about an argument for wayfinding.
But I digress. While I was attempting to help the University bolster its dwindling financial resources, I've gotten a little off topic which is that I believe we need to put the multi-purpose back in the Show Me Center.
The arena is a big venue that sits idle much of the time. Oh sure, I know that it takes time to prepare the facility to host things like monster truck rallies and professional wrestling events and -- during this time of the year -- basketball games. But most of that prep work involves the arena floor area and the lower bleachers and the catwalks up by the roof.
However, I've noticed on my visits to the Show Me Center that the bleachers in the nosebleed sections are often vacant.
I believe the University could better use this significantly underutilized seating for classes.
For instance, rather than have 38 on-campus sections of the introductory English Composition course EN100 as the University offered this past fall, they could have just one really, really big class that meets 3 days a week in the upper bleachers of the Show Me Center. Don't think this is such a crazy idea. Mizzou has been doing these ginormous intro classes for years.
And best of all the University will save tons of money because instead of needing ten or so faculty to teach the 38 sections, they'll just need one.
Another great thing about this solution is that the Show Me Center has a lot of available nosebleed seating. While EN100 could be taught in the upper bleachers on the north side of the arena, a different freshman level class could easily be taught at the same time using the south side seating.
I could see both Intermediate Algebra 1 and 2 -- each has 24 sections -- as being perfect classes for the Show Me Center.
Fundamentals of Oral Communication and its 19 sections could also be easily taught here. This class was known as "Talking" when I was growing up, but by the time I was in college it was called "Speech."
Anyhow, I know that some professors might complain about getting assigned a class with potentially close to a 1000 students. Granted, that's a lot of grading.
But my advice is don't complain.
At least you have a job. And I'm sure that the University administration would recognize the fact that any of these classes would be a crushing workload by most people's standards so I'm sure that the unlucky faculty members who got chosen to teach any of these courses at the Show Me Center would be given a teaching assistant to help with all of the grading.
But just a part-time TA. After all, funding is tight.
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