REGENTS: HOLD OFF ON WILDWOOD DECISION

For 75 years, the home known as Wildwood in its gracious setting on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University has served as the residence for university presidents. But that may be coming to an end.

The university's Board of Regents will be meeting this afternoon to discuss the purchase of another house several blocks from campus to become the official president's home. Wildwood would be converted into an alumni center.

Regents should hold off on this decision, and here's why:

There is an unsettled air lingering over the university campus right now resulting from a combination of events that just happen to coincide.

One of these is the fate of the proposed River Campus, a school for the visual and performing arts on the grounds of the former St. Vincent's Seminary overlooking the Mississippi River. The cost estimate so far for this project is $35.6 million, half of which would need to be raised locally. Although voters approved using Cape Girardeau's hotel and restaurant taxes to pay for bonds, they did not approve a companion bond issue. The university now is seeking state bonds that wouldn't require voter approval. A lawsuit has been filed challenging the legality of this funding plan.

But there are questions about several financial issues swirling around the university.

One issue is the recent increase in tuition and fees for Southeast students, one of a series of regular increases in recent years. The rising cost of attending the university is bookended by cost overruns for a fountain and other improvements between Kent Library and Academic Hall -- the heart, so to speak, of Southeast's hilly and picturesque campus -- and concerns about what cost overruns the university might incur if and when the River Campus project gets under way.

What started out as a project to be funded by a $30,000 gift in 1995 from former President Kala Stroup and her husband for a fountain and pedestrian plaza in front of Academic Hall has escalated to more than $70,000 for the fountain in front of Kent Library, plus another $47,500 for new steps to the library and other improvements. The Stroups later increased their donation to $38,000. There are questions, however, about how much the entire project really has cost, because some expenses such as labor provided by university employees apparently hasn't been included.

The fountain has both its supporters and detractors. In years to come, the fountain may well be a point of pride for the university and the community. But for now the expense has raised a welt that could easily turn into more serious injury to the sensibilities of prudent townspeople, students and alumni.

Then there are the costs associated with purchasing a new home for the university president -- said to be well over $200,000 plus whatever renovations are needed -- and the cost of renovating and expanding Wildwood for alumni use, an estimated $400,000 from funds provided by the late Aleen Wehking for whom the current alumni center building is named.

And many in the community don't understand why the president's home should be away from the campus. Or why Wildwood can't be renovated to suit the social needs of the president. Or why the architecturally magnificent university-owned house known as Graystone on North Sprigg Street isn't being considered as a possible alumni center or president's home.

These are the questions that are contributing to a storm front that seems to be growing as many loyal university supporters try to sort through all the projects and attendant expenses that have been proposed without adequate effort to explain the need or funding plans.

The regents could do us all a favor by holding off and laying some groundwork before proceeding on the Wildwood matter -- if it turns out that's really best for the university.