Message from Chancellor Shirley Lawler to Faculty and Staff
Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a wonderful winter break, and you are all ready to start a new spring semester. I am excited to see what 2019 holds for Missouri State University-West Plains.
During the past several months, our staff and faculty have collaborated on multiple ideas and strategies to retain our students and to stabilize our enrollment. As of this morning, our enrollment numbers were down 4% with a headcount of 1,397. This decline is not due to a lack of hard work and determination to meet the needs of our student body. We continue to review our processes and procedures when working with our students. Dr. Totty, Dr. Lancaster and their teams are dedicated to removing any and all barriers to student success on this campus. If you have suggestions or ideas for the Enrollment Management Committee, please don’t hesitate to let us know your thoughts. Many of you have very successful strategies you use in your classrooms and in your interactions with students as they utilize our services on campus. Sometimes it takes an entire campus to save a student from dropping out of college. The positive news regarding enrollment is that we are flat in credit hours, which directly relates to budget. In addition, we are up 6% in online credit hours and up 4% in new students registered. We are still processing registrations for some dual credit courses and other special populations. The official enrollment numbers will come on census date, the 20th day of class.
In the coming months, many of you will be asked to talk about your programs to various community groups. We want to promote all of our academic programs, athletic events, student activities and special programs that take place on our campus. Please keep us informed of the projects in your department; we want to assist you with promoting the activities and informing our community about the many wonderful programs taking place on this campus.
Before the holiday break, the campus employees generously donated to the Heart of the Ozarks United Way. We had a goal of raising $6,000 for this worthy cause, and the grand total collected from our campus was $6,451. Thank you for graciously giving to such a worthy organization in our community.
Congratulations to Erica Puckett for receiving MSU’s Staff Excellence in University Service award at the annual Staff Service Awards program on the Springfield campus. We appreciate your hard work and dedication to the University. I look forward to seeing all of you at our MSU-WP Employee Recognition awards program on Jan. 25 at noon at the Civic Center. President Smart will join us for lunch.
We have many activities taking place on the campus and in the community during the coming months. Those events include the following:
Items of Note
- Jan. 16 Grizzly Basketball vs. Arkansas Baptist College, 7 p.m., civic center arena
- Jan. 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Day (No Classes/Offices Closed)
- Jan. 23 Grizzly Basketball vs. State Fair Community College, 7 p.m., civic center arena
- Jan. 26 Grizzly Athletics Trivia Night, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., civic center arena
- Jan. 29 Knockout and Cornhole Tournament, 6 to 8 p.m., Student Rec Center
- Jan. 31 Performance by hypnotist Daniel James, 7 to 8:30 p.m., civic center theater
Congratulations!
-Ten agriculture students attended the Missouri Professional Agricultural Student (PAS) Organization’s annual conference in November at Crowder College. All 10 students placed high enough in one or more contests to qualify for competitions at the national convention in March. Thanks to Linda Wulff-Risner for her leadership efforts with the PAS student organization.
Always remember, what we do each day for students does make a difference./
Shirley Lawler