TACKLING THE CHALLENGES OF HIGHER EDUCATION HEAD ON

The business of public higher education has never been much of that ... that is, a business. University of Missouri President George Russell expresses this with the passion of a reformer and the caution of one who knows change comes slowly. He believes higher education has been managed badly and has taken steps to do something about it in the University of Missouri system. While we take issue with some of his approach, we commend his effort to meet problems head-on.

The University of Missouri system, which has a combined enrollment of 54,000 students at four campuses, has recognized a trend important to state taxpayers: the well of public funding has a bottom. During the last decade or so, when times were allegedly austere, the nation's universities and colleges increased administrative personnel by 26 percent while enrollment remained relatively constant. Were there ever a combination for removing bang from the educational buck, this was it. Institutions did not respond in the way a normal business would in such a situation. While educators might contend that a university is not a "normal business" -- an assertion we agree with in large measure -- there remained a sense that schools were not responding to fiscal realities.

Under Dr. Russell's leadership, the University of Missouri has worked to realign its resources, implementing a five-year financial plan that calls for competitive faculty salaries, maintenance of buildings, replacement of equipment, improvement of libraries, enhancement of student financial aid and various campus-specific priorities, all by fostering available financial resources.

The system realizes these funds not solely through ongoing state appropriations, but with resources accrued through personnel reductions. A voluntary early retirement program yielded 703 faculty and staff positions systemwide; add the positions not filled with attrition and layoffs, the total reduction is 1,323 positions. Included in this number were 115 administrative positions. The system will also realize savings through new oversight of research projects, consolidation of computer operations, managed health care and refinanced debt.

Dr. Russell's vision, outlined during a visit to Cape Girardeau last week, does not hold for us an undivided appeal. He believes in a single governing board to direct policy for all public colleges and institutions in Missouri; he decries the "regionalism" of various schools as inefficient to the grand scheme of higher education. We believe institutions such as Southeast Missouri State University have a proper role (educationally, historically, culturally and so on) to play within their regions. Dr. Russell sees the Coordinating Board for Higher Education having a lot of responsibility but no authority. Our view on that is not to create a centralized board, but to give the coordinating board some teeth.

Further, there are consolidations within the University of Missouri system that haven't been touched and aren't likely to be. For example, it is possible to get a doctorate in engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla, a world-renowned school, and do the same thing 97 miles up the road at the Columbia campus. We can't cite this for efficiency, though we understand historically how it could develop.

We would like to think that Dr. Russell, who hails from the Sikeston area, took on the tough tasks of his institution by applying common sense instinctive to Southeast Missourians. Likewise, we might not find it mere coincidence that working with him in this endeavor was another native of this region -- John Lichtenegger of Jackson, former board of curators president -- known for good judgment. This provincial ballyhoo aside, it is important that the work done in the University of Missouri system be recognized as forward-thinking, sustaining in the academic setting an awareness that market factors inevitably apply to education at this level. The University of Missouri system boasts that it is solving its own problems, and we appreciate that attitude in any institution.