SEMO FINALIST CITES NEED FOR MORE MINORITIES

Southeast Missouri State University should try to enroll more minority students, presidential candidate William C. Merwin said Wednesday.

Merwin said the university's strategic plan should put a greater emphasis on diversity.

Merwin, the president of State University of New York College at Potsdam, is the first of three finalists to visit the campus.

About 200 people -- mostly faculty, staff and students at Southeast -- attended a reception for Merwin and his wife, Debra, Wednesday afternoon at the University Center. Debra Merwin is director of student counseling services at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.

William Merwin answered questions from the audience and afterward spoke to reporters.

The 56-year-old Merwin participated in a round of private meetings Southeast administrators and faculty leaders.

He will meet with the Board of Regents, student leaders and other university staff in a series of private meetings today.

Southeast wants to boost enrollment to 10,300 by 2000. To do that, Merwin said, Southeast will have to attract more minority students.

There are about 8,000 students at Southeast. Only a few hundred are black.

Merwin said the school may have to target some of its enrollment efforts toward minority students in cities like Memphis, St. Louis and Chicago.

But he said the university first must make sure it has a solid foundation of minority faculty and staff.

Under Merwin's leadership, Potsdam College hired more blacks and other minorities for faculty and staff positions.

Merwin said the school set up a scholarship program and then focused on offering a curriculum that exposes students to many cultures. That doesn't mean that a school has to offer black studies to attract black students, he told reporters.

Even in a predominately white region, students need to be exposed to other cultures, he said.

"You have to open their eyes to the facts of life. Minorities aren't minorities anymore," he said. White males are the minority in many American cities, said Merwin.

People today live and work in a multicultural society, he said.

Despite Potsdam's commitment to diversity, racial tensions surfaced last month at the small college when some minority students reported receiving death threats and hate messages.

Merwin called a campuswide meeting to listen to students and set up a task force to address the problem.

"It was a pretty uncomfortable time," said Merwin.

Chris Kirk, vice president of Student Government at Southeast, attended the reception. Afterward, Kirk said diversity isn't a big issue with most students at Southeast.

Student leaders are more concerned about involving commuter students in campus life, he said.

A "common hour" plan has been proposed that would set aside time in the middle of a day for lectures and other cultural events.

Dr. Bill Atchley, Southeast's current president, has pushed the idea. Merwin said he likes the idea too.

Merwin said universities should nurture economic development and work with businesses in their regions.

At Potsdam, he started the Rural Services Institute, which works with businesses and local governments in the northern reaches of New York state.

A former high school teacher, Merwin has climbed the rungs of education. He was a social-science education professor at the University of North Florida and later become the school's provost.

He was president of Montana State University-Northern before becoming president at Potsdam in 1989.

Merwin said he wants to be president of Southeast because it has a solid reputation among college educators nationwide.

"This is a good school," he said.