This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 7, 2012 - As he finishes his first year as president of the University of Missouri, Tim Wolfe faces familiar challenges:
- selling Missourians on the importance of the university to the future of the state,
- selling lawmakers on the need for more financial support,
- making sure everyone at the university is using limited dollars in the best possible way.
Wolfe told members of the Board of Curators meeting at the university’s St. Louis campus Friday that the school is on what he called “a never-ending journey” of saving money and finding new sources of support.
“Dependence on state and federal funding is a risky proposition,” Wolfe said, adding, “We know that we have to be more effective and efficient.”
With the addition of 19,000 students in the past 12 years – the equivalent of another whole campus – the university has shown its popularity and its value, Wolfe said. Now, it must help the state reach a goal of 60 percent of working-age adults with a higher education degree by the year 2020, in part by stressing the importance of education to getting a good job.
Wolfe’s selection as president was announced last December; he took over in mid-February. He told the curators that “I don’t think I’ve ever had a year in my life that I’ve had more fun and harder work,” and he noted that such hard work is far from over.
Lamenting last month’s loss of Proposition B, the tobacco tax increase that would have provided a financial boost to higher education, he noted that the proposal won in areas where colleges and universities are prominent, including St. Louis, Kansas City, Columbia and Springfield.
Now, he said, the university must work hard to stress the importance of higher education to other parts of the state as well.
“Our university, and all public higher education for that matter, is at a crossroads,” he said, and schools have to make their worth clear to the state and society in general.
“In the past we’ve been forced to play catch-up,” Wolfe said. “Now, it’s time to chart our own course.”
To address what he called the university’s customers and the marketplace in which all four campuses operate, he said a strategic planning process will continue for schools not only to articulate their mission and their vision but to outline the route they plan to follow to reach those goals – and the barriers they must overcome.
Leaders of all four campuses presented brief versions of their plans, most of which contained common themes of raising revenue from a wider variety of sources, building on academic success, using technology effectively and increasing all kinds of support from the communities in which they operate.
Chancellor Thomas George of the UMSL campus stressed the need for partnerships among various members of the community, from educational institutions to businesses.
“That is where I think we particularly shine,” George said.
Noting what he called a “friendly competition” for students with other local campuses, he said that by 2018, UMSL hopes to increase the number of students from about 16,800 now to 18,000, and the number of those who are seeking degrees to 13,000 from the current 12,200.
As the campus builds partnerships, he said, “there is a lot more that we are doing that looks like a private university.”
In particular, George noted the marketing effort on billboards and elsewhere featuring UMSL graduates saying why they chose the university.
Now that the campaign has been in place for a while, he said, “many successful alums are calling me now and saying, ‘I want to be on a billboard.’”
Curator David Bradley of St. Joseph, who is ending his year as chairman of the board, urged his colleagues, “let us not be content with mediocrity.”
He said curators have to resist the temptation to get involved in managing the university, instead of setting policies to be put into place by Wolfe’s administration.
And Bradley praised the job that the new president has done, saying that the decisions he will make in months and years to come are only going to get harder.
“We know we have to bring our expenses under tighter control to keep our education affordable to everyone,” Bradley said.
Of Wolfe, he said: “Is he perfect? Of course not. There will always be speed bumps along the way. But he has always been open to learning.”
At the conclusion of its meeting, the curators elected Wayne Goode, the longtime former Democratic legislator from Normandy, to replace Bradley as its chairman for next year. Goode, who left the General Assembly in 2005 after 42 years in the House and Senate, was instrumental in the establishment of the university’s St. Louis campus.
Elected vice chairman of the board was Don Downing of Webster Groves, giving the St. Louis area the two top spots on the university’s governing authority.