FORUMS TO GATHER THINKING ABOUT FUTURE OF UNIVERSITY

Southeast Missouri State University officials expect to do a lot of listening over the next two weeks.

University President Kala Stroup, her top administrators and members of the Board of Regents will hold a series of nine strategic planning forums over the next two weeks.

The goal is to obtain public opinion about the school and how it can better serve the region.

The input, along with that gathered from campus hearings with faculty, staff and students next week, will be used to develop a strategic plan for the school.

The whole planning process is expected to take about a year.

School officials say they are interested in how the university can better deliver services to the region and educate a 21st-century work force.

The initial forum will be held at noon Monday in Caruthersville, followed by ones in Kennett and Malden later in the day.

On Wednesday, a forum will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau.

Forums will be held Thursday in Jackson, Farmington and Perryville. The Jackson session begins at noon at the Chamber of Commerce building, 125 E. Main.

The final sessions will be held on Oct. 5 in Sikeston and Poplar Bluff.

"The university is making an effort to reach out to the people in the region," Regent Don Dickerson said. "We are perfectly willing to listen to what they think we are doing right and what they think we are doing wrong."

Dickerson said the regents are attempting to bring the university to public and give the people a sounding board for their ideas.

The university has specifically invited city, chamber and school district officials to the hearings. But Dickerson said the university wants to hear from the general public as well.

In addition to the hearings already scheduled, Dickerson said school officials hope to hold a forum in the St. Louis area in October or early November.

Provost Charles Kupchella said people often feel that large institutions, such as universities, don't listen to them.

"We continually have to prove to people that the institutions do listen," he said.

Kupchella, who heads up the school's strategic planning committee, said Southeast is a regional university and its foremost goal is to serve the area.

Stroup said, "We are now planning our university and planning our programs for the 21st century."

It is important, she added, to get the thinking of communities on where the university should go.

School officials say this will mark the first such hearings in the region in the more-than-century-long existence of Southeast.

Kupchella said, "In the past, universities were much more detached, much more ivory towered in the way they conducted business."

Today, colleges and universities are tied much more closely to the communities and the geographical areas they serve, he said.

A college education remains a good investment, he said. Those who have college degrees generally make twice as much as those who have only a high school education.