Transcript of December 13th, 2007

Ryan Roberts:

And welcome to the Grizzly Halftime Interview presented by Missouri State University-West Plains. I’m your host this evening Ryan Roberts, and it’s my pleasure this evening to welcome Dr. Marv Looney, former chancellor of Missouri State University-West Plains, and the current Chancellor, Dr. Drew Bennett, and gentlemen how are you guys doing this evening?

Dr. Drew Bennett:

I’m doing great, Ryan.  Thank you very much for having us here.

Ryan Roberts:

Absolutely, anytime. So what are we here to talk about this evening?

Dr. Drew Bennett:

Well Missouri State University-West Plains is conducting its very first Campus Opportunities Campaign...

Ryan Roberts:

Ok.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

...and I wanted to talk a little bit about that and explain what this campaign does for our University.

Ryan Roberts:

All right, sounds good.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

And I thought instead of just having the current chancellor that I would bring along one of our great former chancellors,...

Ryan Roberts:

Absolutely.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

...who also understands the need for education in our community.

Ryan Roberts:

Absolutely. If you would care, I’ll kind of turn it over to you here and if you want to talk about that it would be great.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

Well, things are going great at Missouri State University-West Plains and as you know, we had a record enrollment this year of 1,771 students...

Ryan Roberts:

That’s awesome.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

...during the fall semester but with more students comes more needs, more challenges, more requests for funding, and our funding has not kept up with our enrollment, and we can’t do everything that we’d like to do, and in some cases, things that we think we need to do for our students. That’s why we came up with a Campus Opportunities Campaign. We announced it in late October, we sent out our first mailing in November, but we really haven’t spent a lot of time to talk to the public, and we wanted to get an opportunity today to mention what these opportunities might be.

Dr. Marv Looney:

You know, one of the things I would like to say is that we’re very fortunate here in the Ozarks to have SMSU-West Plains. It really offers an opportunity for students that might not be able to go to school otherwise, so as Drew said finances have been going down over the years and, even though we have a nice A+ program that’s put a lot of high school students in West Plains, there’s still a great need, and I think that if the people understand this out in the community, they will certainly really consider supporting this campaign.

Ryan Roberts:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

Ryan, let me tell you some of the things that this money will go to.

Ryan Roberts:

Ok.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

Scholarships, emergency grants, educational activities, providing academic enrichment activities for students in some cases. Leadership programs, developmental programs that we have, trips to competitions or conferences, campus technology labs and facilities is another example. And so again our budget, we kind of do the very basic meat and potatoes, but there are some things that we would like to provide our students, things that we think we need to that we really can’t afford. As Marv said, and based on the work that Marv did, for 12 consecutive years, students have scored at or higher than the national average in all categories of the Collegiate Assessment and Academic Proficiency Test

Ryan Roberts:

Very impressive!

Dr. Drew Bennett:

So, you know a national test says that our students, when they graduate from Missouri State University-West Plains, are at or above the national average.

Ryan Roberts:

Right.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

Now this is important because we’re an open admission university. Students that come to us, they don’t need great scores on the ACT, and maybe they’ve been out of high school for a while and they’re just getting back into the college environment, and in fact, 85% of our students require some kind of financial assistance whether it be Pell grants, loans, scholarships, so some of this money goes into scholarship pools and some of it goes into programs that we couldn’t offer unless the community provided some assistance.

Ryan Roberts:

You’ve listed a lot of examples of the things the college would like to do, now for support for this program, what is the college looking for? Are they just looking for businesses around the area to step up to the plate, because I mean lets face it, you guys are educating their future employees.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

Right. We asking for everybody in the community, whether they be alumni, whether they be business owners or whether private citizens, to contribute to our program, and to encourage this we have a pledge of a matching gift of $50,000 from Bill and Virginia Darr for the Darr Honors, who have supported our Darr Honors Program. This particular $50,000 is pledged toward the Corps of Opportunities Scholarship. So for every dollar, our goal is to raise $100,000, and if we do that, the Darrs will give us $50,000 toward the Corps of Opportunities Scholarship. And so for every dollar that somebody contributes, for every two dollars that somebody contributes, the Darrs are going to contribute a dollar.

Ryan Roberts:

Now that’s incredible!

Dr. Marv Looney:

Well Ryan, a few years ago like 15 or 20 years ago, we could say that we were state supported. But now we talk about being state assisted, so we need private funds in order to make up some of the money that the state doesn’t pay. Now the state budget, the colleges used to get a much higher percentage from the state budget than they do at this time, so this campaign really covers a number of counties and will affect high school students in six or seven different counties, and we're hopeful that all of those people in those counties will take a look at this campaign.

Ryan Roberts:

Absolutely, and what is needed is, like you said before, is the support of the community and for folks out there that are able to, business owners and folks like that, this could be your children in college eventually or, like I said earlier, you're educating your future employees. I mean that’s one great way to look at it.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

That’s right. We’re looking at gifts, we have different gift levels starting from $25 and in denominations of $50, a $100, $250, all the way up to $1,000, $2,000, or $10,000. You can pledge by going online to Missouri State University-West Plains' home page. Again, we did send out a mail-out, which has a pledge card that you can fill out and mail in, or you can drop by our Development Office at Kellett Hall, or you can call the Development Office and put a pledge that way.

Ryan Roberts:

Ok, and this is not for something, I know I focused on the business owners and whatnot, but this could be alumni or anybody that, even students looking to further their education, and they have the extra $25 to make that donation, to make that pledge. It's going for their own education, so this is very important that the entire community supports it. And like you said, this covers several counties in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, as we’ve got students from all over the place.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

That’s right. The state, average for high school seniors who go to any college or university or vocational school is 69 percent. Unfortunately, in our seven counties that we service here in the Ozarks, it's more like 50 percent.

Ryan Roberts:

Wow!

Dr. Drew Bennett:

So, if we want to encourage more of those students to come to college, we need to have a bigger scholarship pool, and we need to offer programs that are going to benefit them in the future.

Ryan Roberts:

Absolutely. Now, I know we’re running out of time here shortly, but in closing, is there anything else you gentlemen would like to add?

Dr. Drew Bennett:

Well, let me say that our Development Office phone Number....

Ryan Roberts:

Yes, very important.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

...is 255-7240, and that’s one of the easiest ways to make a pledge. Marv?

Ryan Roberts:

Very good, very good.

Dr. Marv Looney:

Well, I think that you’ve done a great job, and I’m very hopeful that this campaign will be a 100 percent.

Ryan Roberts:

All right, well I hope that the people of our community come through because, let's face it, our children that we’re trying to educate and make a better life for them.

Dr. Drew Bennett:

Thank you, Ryan, and I think together we’re going to be able to that.

Ryan Roberts:

Absolutely! Chancellor Dr. Drew Bennett and former chancellor Dr. Marv Looney, gentlemen thank you for your time, and you're welcome anytime to come join us on the Grizzly half-time interview.

Dr. Marv Looney:

Go Grizzlies!

Ryan Roberts:

Absolutely, and that’ll wrap up this edition of the Grizzly half-time interview presented by Missouri State University-West Plains, and it's now time for more Grizzly Basketball here on Hot Country KDY.