GO TO HEAD OF THE CLASS; FULTON STEPS DOWN AS ADMINISTRATOR TO TEACH

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- For six years, Betty Fulton has toiled with the business side of operations at Southeast Missouri State University.

But she'll soon be back in the classroom teaching economics as she did prior to going from a faculty position to an administrative job at the university.

Fulton, who is vice president for business and finance at Southeast, said she expects to finish up her administrative duties today.

She then plans to take a sabbatical until the start of classes this fall.

She said she plans to spend about two months traveling through Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. She also will be spending time preparing to resume the teaching of economics.

"I'll have to spend a lot of time studying," she noted.

"I've always liked to teach and I have a number of academic projects I'm interested in," said a smiling Fulton, adding that she is looking forward to returning to the classroom.

"I just wanted to get back into the teaching field," added Fulton, who served as chairperson of the department of economics from 1978 to 1980 and taught full-time at the university for more than a dozen years.

A professor of economics, Fulton has served in administrative positions at Southeast since January 1981.

She started out as an academic administration associate in the provost's office.

In August 1985, she was named associate vice president for financial services. She was named vice president for business and finance in January 1987 as part of an administrative reorganization at Southeast.

But while the name has changed, Fulton said that she has basically been supervising the business side of the university for the past six years.

As vice president for business and finance, Fulton has been involved in everything from purchasing and accounting to budgets and financial reports.

She also has responsibility over the personnel office and the hiring and promotion of non-faculty employees at Southeast; the computer center; and campus commercial operations dealing with everything from vending machines to the book store.

"This is a very demanding job," said Fulton. "Many times I'd take the work home at night."

Fulton takes pride in the improvements that have been made in Southeast's financial operations.

When Fulton assumed charge of the university's finances, Southeast was operating on a single-entry bookkeeping system and had no certified public accountants on its staff.

Fulton said she supervised the change to a modern accounting system.

"At one time we had two accountants. We now have five accountants, in addition to two CPAs," pointed out Fulton.

She said the entire staff now uses personal computers in the accounting work.

Fulton said that when she took over the financial duties, the university's financial practices were so bad that it was hard to get an accurate accounting of funds.

"It was ridiculous in this modern day and age that you couldn't get financial records that made sense," she observed.

"I felt complete frustration when I was a department chairperson about the fact that the university was giving me virtually no information about the (department's) budget," she recalled.

"It was a long time before I found out that the administration wasn't hiding anything from us. They just didn't know," said Fulton.

That's no longer a problem, she added. Department budget information can be instantly called up on the computer screen.

Improvements also have been made in the personnel department, in everything from personnel records to policies.

"Basically, the university didn't have much in terms of personnel policies five years ago," recalled Fulton.

Since then, job classifications and descriptions have been developed, she said. "Now, I think you have fairly consistent personnel policies."

Said Fulton, "I feel like in the personnel area we have come out of the dark ages."

Increasing government regulations have added to the work load, she said. "At one time, a person could handle grants in just a few minutes. Now, it's a real job just to meet the requirements of the grants."

Southeast has also had to cope with funding woes brought about by state budget problems.

"The 1980s were terrible budget years," she recalled.

Fulton said she believes funding will remain a problem for the foreseeable future. "I don't see the 1990s being a great deal different than the 1980s.

"I know there is a drive on now for a tax increase to put more money into education."

But with many Missourians out of work and the economy in a recession, Fulton predicted it will be difficult to pass any tax measure.

"People don't vote for any kind of tax increases when they are out of work," she said.

Fulton said she feels she's contributed all she can to the financial operations at Southeast. "I feel I've accomplished the objectives I wanted to do."

Fulton, who grew up on a farm in Wickliffe, Ky., taught sixth and eighth grade mathematics and science at Wickliffe before joining the Southeast faculty as an economics teacher in 1968.

While Fulton has taught a few courses since becoming a full-time administrator, she has not been a full-time faculty member for 10 years.

But now that she is returning to the classroom full time, Fulton said she hopes to teach for another five or six years.

"I feel the instructional mission is central to this university," said Fulton. "I feel most of our resources should be spent on educating the students."