REGENTS TO DISCUSS WILDWOOD PROPOSAL; WHERE WILL THE PRESIDENT LIVE?

Southeast Missouri State University's new president won't speculate if he will be living at Wildwood like past presidents.

Dr. Ken Dobbins, Southeast's executive vice president, takes over as the school's 17th president on Thursday. Dobbins has an off-campus home.

"I doubt if he really wants to live here," said Don Dickerson, president of the Board of Regents.

For his part, Dobbins said the decision rests entirely with the regents.

The board is considering a proposal to turn the old home on the north end of the campus into an alumni center. The alumni association and the school's fund-raising foundation want to renovate and expand Wildwood to house alumni and foundation offices. The project would be funded privately.

Aleen Wehking, a major financial supporter of the school, died in 1995. She left $400,000 for development of a new alumni center. The alumni and foundation offices currently are housed in a small, one-story building on Sprigg Street near the Show Me Center.

The foundation proposed buying a brick home at 1626 Whitener to serve as the new home for the school's president. But the off-campus home was proposed prior to the resignation of school president Dr. Dale Nitzschke and the regents' decision to promote Dobbins to the top spot.

The future of Wildwood is on the agenda when the Board of Regents meets today.

Dr. Shelton Smith, president of the university's National Alumni Council, is scheduled to discuss the plan. Smith also serves on the board of directors of the Southeast Missouri University Foundation.

The plan is listed on the agenda as a report item. Regents said they could take action at the meeting if they're convinced the project should proceed.

At the meeting, the regents also are expected to review conceptual design plans for the university's River Campus. Southeast wants to turn a former Catholic seminary into a school for the visual and performing arts.

At this point, the future of the Wildwood project is uncertain.

Regent Kim Mothershead said she hasn't made up her mind yet about the proposed project.

Neither Dobbins nor Nitzschke has made a recommendation to the board, Mothershead said.

Dickerson said he can't predict what the board will decide. Dickerson said the board wants to hear from alumni and foundation officials. "Let us talk about it," he said.

Dickerson said he wants the university to preserve Wildwood as opposed to tearing down the house. Wildwood has been the home of the university's presidents since 1924.

Dickerson said the future of Wildwood doesn't rate as high on his agenda as a plan to renovate Houck Stadium. He said the university needs to renovate the aging football stadium or consider building a new one.

Dickerson said a plan to spend $5.28 million to renovate Houck Stadium represents "a tremendous compromise" for providing a better facility for the football program. He said it would cost five times as much money to build a new stadium.

"Football at our level isn't about making money, but if you give up on it you suddenly have become a different kind of institution," he said.

Dickerson said the university would have to seek private donations to fund the bulk of the project. He said he worries about continually having to ask university supporters for more money. Still, private funding is essential to the university's capital projects, he said.

Even with all the talk about the future of Wildwood and Houck Stadium, they aren't the university's top priorities. Dickerson said construction of the Polytechnic Building and development of the River Campus school for the visual and performing arts remain the university's top building projects.