DIVISION I MOVE WILL BE POSITIVE FOR UNIVERSITY

Six days from now, Southeast Missouri State University's football team begins another season. It is the 80th such season at the school, yet the game against Southern Illinois University is more noteworthy for what it represents to the future than what it owes to the past. The game will be Southeast's first as an NCAA Division I institution. While what happens on the playing field will capture our attention, the significance of the step will not be lost on the university and community as a whole.

This move to Division I athletics has been several years in the planning, many years in the making. From strictly an athletic standpoint, it is a major leap forward. Southeast teams have excelled at the Division II level; 10 of 14 squads qualified for post-season competition in that division in the 1990-91 school year, with eight finishing in the top four nationally. Individual athletes earned seven national titles and won 65 All-America awards. In advancing to a higher level of competition, the university is living up to a proper commitment to excellence in all areas of endeavor.

Beyond this, however, is the reality that the university, with a great many irons in the fire, was not getting the most exposure possible from its considerable success in athletics. When Southeast men's basketball teams advanced in the Division II national tournament, the accomplishment was hardly known to students (not just athletes) the university was trying to attract. Despite an effort to vigorously promote itself and upgrade its academic offerings, Southeast has experienced flattened enrollment figures. The university reached a peak enrollment of 8,301 full-time equivalent students in 1984; by contrast, last fall's full-time equivalent enrollment was 7,181.

Across the state, in Springfield, Southwest Missouri State University has experienced a steep ascent in enrollment over the last decade. While there are many reasons for this, it is not entirely coincidental that the school moved up to Division I athletics in the early 1980s (from the conference Southeast just left) and has gotten a high degree of exposure for the move.

Critics of this move have pointed to the increased costs of Division I status as prohibitive during a period when Southeast is suffering fiscal hardships. It is true that timing has not been the university's friend in this regard; when planning began for the Division I move, however, few could have forecast the extent of the state's revenue woes and their impact on the university. Still, we remain confident the university athletic department is running as tight a ship as is feasible to stay competitive in an advanced league.

A great many positive things are happening at Southeast Missouri State. Academically, standards have been raised and the curriculum enhanced. Financially, the subversion of state support has been greeted in part by an unprecedented level of private and community contributions. Structurally, the beautiful campus remains its own best advertisement, the Show Me Center has become an impressive and functional facility and a new business building is on the drawing board. Athletically, the Division I move fits nicely with all these other positive steps.

If you look past the cloud of immediate funding problems, the future of Southeast Missouri State appears bright. The Division I move should help.