LETTERS: STUDENT'S TOP PRIORITY: GOOD FACULTY

To the editor:

I've researched the proposed River Campus issue quite thoroughly. As an economist, I agree that there's little doubt that the revitalization of this property is good for downtown, good for the university and good for the county. And the cost seems to be failry shared among the beneficiaries. But this isn't the movies. I'm on record on "Let's Talk Business" (heard on KRCU-FM) as stating that an attitude of "build it and they will come" just won't do the trick.

You'll remember in "Field of Dreams" the attraction wasn't the facility. It was the game and its players. Does the university have the commitment to spend possibly millions more over the next several years on competitive salaries to attract top-notch performing faculty and adequate scholarships to attract talented students? Answers included in a recent insert in the university newsletter entitled "Frequently Asked Questions About the River Campus" indicates that it doesn't have that commitment.

To be sure, this new campus promises to be impressive, both in its physical plant and its river setting, and more of the lovely old homes surrounding its site will be restored, a certain benefit to its downtown neighbors. But gifted students wanting to become top performers don't choose buildings. They choose faculty. They need scholarships. And no matter how geneours the salaries, gifted performing faculty won't be satisfied unless their students are gifted as well.

In addition, as worthwhile as they are, centers for the arts usually aren't money-making operations that support themselves. Fine arts graduates often don't make enough money to live comfortabley let alone to become generous alumni. And patrons of the arts are harder and harder to find, and not just in Southeast Missouri. Even in a city as large and cultured as London, both the Royal Ballet and London Symphony aren't sure their audiences will enable them to afford their elegant new home, and it's already been built.

Finally, when it comes to people flocking to a new facility, where are they coming from? Some examples of local support for the arts include a recent free concert featuring the area's most talented young performers hosted by well-known Martin Goldsmith of National Public Radio which hardly filled one-quarter of the seats. To be sure, Academic Hall doesn't have the best acoustics, but Old St. Vincent's Catholic Church does, and those same young performes joined by accomplished musicians from the university's music department couldn't even fill such a small facility.

Theater patronage doesn't appear any better since on the night my wife and I saw four exceptional Royal Shakesperean actors put on an unparalleled performance of "Midsummer Night's Dream," even the 496-seat Rose Theatre was barely half filled, if that.

And, I must ask, why is there a Paducah Symphony and no Cape Girardeau Symphony? It can't be due to Paducah Sympny's concert hall, a high school auditorium with acoustic panels.

Maybe the university's promise that the new center will provide a "quantum leap in the quality of life for Cape Girardeau" is the most unrealistic dream of all. As someone with a paralyzing fear of heights who has braved the opera-lover section of the old Metropolitan Opera house, 11 terrifying floors above the stage, I'm an avid lover of the arts willing to show up for a good performance just about anywhere.

Nothing would please me more than to see the proposed Center for the Visual and Performing Arts become a magnet for talented performers from around the Midwest and from around the country, both students and faculty. So call me a skeptic, but I don't believe even $35 million of fine arts buildings will make them come. To make them come there'll need to be a lot of attention -- and money -- directed toward what goes on inside those buildings.

Or maybe Mark McGwire would help.

STEVE CORRELL, host, "Let's Talk Business"

KRCU-FM

Southeast Missouri State University

Cape Girardeau