SOUTHEAST HONORS HARRISON FOR GIFT TO BUSINESS COLLEGE

Don Harrison, president of Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents, was honored this week for an endowment he provided to the College of Business.

Harrison's donation and the subsequent naming of the College in his honor -- now the Donald L. Harrison College of Business -- was announced last fall at the President's Council dinner. Harrison's generosity was formally recognized Wednesday in the Show Me Center.

"I am extremely happy to recognize Don tonight for his exceptional generosity and support of the university and the College of Business, and to honor his extraordinary career in business at the local, national, and international levels," said Kala Stroup, president of Southeast Missouri State University, at the dinner.

Gerald McDougall, dean of the business college, said the funds made available through Harrison's gift will be used to implement a plan to attain accreditation by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). It is the premier accrediting agency for collegiate schools of business and management in the United States.

The college plans to complete a self-evaluation by the end of fiscal year 1995 and to receive a site visit by an AACSB accreditation team in the fall of 1996.

"This endowment ... speeds up our progress toward achieving accreditation," said McDougall. "The income from the endowment will allow us to move at a much faster pace to provide the business program our university and community deserve and our students require."

The money also will be used to improve teaching effectiveness, he said, by acquiring new instructional materials. McDougall said the college would like to purchase digital reference materials related to international business, reading materials for the library, and other special instructional materials, such as videotapes, for classroom use. The college also plans to improve instructional microcomputer labs, making business applications and links to international communications networks available to a greater number of students.

Until the naming of the Donald L. Harrison College of Business, Southeast had not had a college named for an individual.

Harrison said, "Without education, there can be no progress. Education is progress."

Harrison, who is a Cape Girardeau native, attended Southeast two years before transferring to Yale University in 1944. After military service, he returned to Yale and earned a bachelor's degree in 1948.

He was the principal owner of the Delta Companies and Southern Illinois Companies. This group of 15 subsidiary companies operates in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Louisiana in highway construction and the production of materials for highway construction.

Locally, the companies operate Delta Asphalt, Cape Girardeau Contractors, Delta Concrete, and Southeast Missouri Stone Co.

Earlier this year, he sold the Delta Companies and Southern Illinois companies to COLAS U.S. INC, a subsidiary of COLAS S.A. of Paris. Harrison remains as chairman of the board and chief executive officer.