SEMO FINALIST STRESSES OUTREACH; EX-PRESIDENT OF SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA VISITS

Colleges must reach beyond campus borders to serve their regions or face the possibility of being replaced by a "Walt Disney subsidiary," a finalist for Southeast Missouri State University president said Wednesday.

The finalist, G. Warren Smith of Southeastern Louisiana University, said communications and entertainment companies might offer distance learning through computers and other technologies if universities don't do it.

Smith, 55, spoke to about 200 faculty, staff, students and others at a reception Wednesday afternoon. He later spoke to reporters.

Smith's wife, Connie, also spoke at the reception.

The Smiths, both of whom work in higher education, have had a long-distance relationship for the past two years: G. Warren Smith resides in Hammond, La., and his wife in Hammond, Ind.

The SEMO finalist is the former president of Southeastern Louisiana University and currently a chemistry professor there. His wife works in institutional research at an Indiana college.

Smith is the last of three finalists to visit the Southeast campus this month.

He spent Wednesday in a series of meetings with key Southeast administrators, faculty and staff.

The visit winds up today after meetings with student leaders, the presidential search committee and the Board of Regents.

Smith went to Southeastern Louisiana University 12 years ago when the relatively unknown school had to cope with limited state funding. He served as vice president for academic affairs before being hired as president in 1986. He resigned as president in 1995 and returned to teaching at the school.

Colleges must develop partnerships with other schools, as well as business and industry, to serve their regions, he said.

Schools today must be "friendly competitors," Smith said. "None of us have the resources anymore to be unfriendly competitors."

Too often schools try to do everything and don't do anything well, he said.

As vice president for academic affairs, Smith was involved in the school's decision to eliminate the football program so money could be plowed back into academics. After becoming president he continued to put the money into academics.

Smith said the school suffered through tough financial times.

Southeastern's new library stood vacant for two years because the school didn't have the money to put books on the shelves.

At one point, "The Marriage of Figaro" opera was staged in the empty library. Smith played violin in the temporary orchestra pit behind the circulation desk.

"We had a computer science department that didn't have a computer," he remembered.

The faculty hadn't had a raise in two years.

By eliminating football, the school bought computers, put money into the new library, raised faculty salaries and offered honor-student scholarships.

During Smith's tenure as president, enrollment doubled to more than 14,000 and the school developed a solid reputation for academics. The number of minority students grew from 5 percent to more than 10 percent of the student body.

Under Smith's leadership, the university created a College of Basic Studies for the open-enrollment school that worked to get students up to speed academically on the front end so they could meet stricter admissions standards for getting into the various degree-programs.

Unlike Southeastern, Southeast Missouri State has raised admission standards on the front end.

Smith told reporters that Southeast doesn't have to resort to open enrollment to reach out to students in the region.

But Southeast needs to work with community colleges and vocational-technical schools in an effort to bring education to those students who currently don't meet the Cape Girardeau school's admission standards, he said.