A NEW ADMINISTRATION AT UNIVERSITY DEVELOPS

With the academic year at hand for Southeast Missouri State University, Academic Hall is slowly but surely filling its vacant offices. A recent round of hirings in key university positions is giving shape to the administration of Southeast President Kala Stroup. The university and community are looking on with interest as this new team develops.

The upper reaches of a university hierarchy are dynamic by nature. Higher education is a business where personnel changes are not unusual: bright people are hired, bright people are hired away. This familiar churn is given added notice only in those times following a change in the upper leadership. Dr. Stroup has been on the job since July 1990. Taking over as president, she inherited a talented group of administrators. Now, as some of the executive positions have become open, she encounters the challenge, and the opportunity, of filling them with equally talented individuals who share her vision for the university's future.

In the past two years, the turnover at Southeast has been significant. The chief financial officer, who served a stretch as interim president, retired, as did the trea~surer/business manager. The provost, assistant provost, vice president of students affairs and dean of students all were drawn to jobs elsewhere. One presidential assistant died. Thus, the human landscape at the university is changing. Restructuring comes in the wake of these changes, along with overhauled job descriptions and greater economy in staffing.

In recent weeks, the university has hired a new assistant vice president for financial affairs, a vice president for students affairs and an assistant to the president for equal opportunity/diversity issues and university policy development. The operation of the university proceeds apace, but a new structure is going into place.

While the commotion of the changes has been immediately apparent and good people have been lost to university service, Dr. Stroup surely feels a liberation in putting together her own team, an administration built to certain specifications and a distinctive view. These are leaders (hired now or to be hired in the coming months) who will direct the campus in years to come and leave their mark on a venerable institution.