Below is the Preface to the Long-Range Plan. The link below is to the entire document available in PDF format. It is 5.41 Megabytes in size so please allow time for it to download.
Preface
All of us at Missouri State University-West Plains understand that it is virtually impossible to predict the future. Our last long range plan was written in the midst of an economic boom that appeared at the time to be endless. Revenues and subsequent appropriations rose every year for almost a decade. Enrollment was booming, increasing each year. The nation was at peace and focused on internal development. Few among us were able to foresee terrorist attacks against the continental United States and major European nations. Nor could we have foreseen a tsunami that would cripple much of the Pacific Rim or hurricanes that would hit Florida and the Gulf Coast, crippling our domestic oil producing and refining capability at the same time that world-wide demand for oil and oil products would reach the highest point in history.
What we can foresee is this: To thrive, communities in the area we support will continue to need well educated individuals. Where Missouri State University-West Plains has historically produced graduates who in turn go on to complete bachelor’s degrees at four-year institutions, there is an increasing need for two-year graduates prepared to immediately enter the workforce. In all cases, we must remain committed to the quality instruction that has been our hallmark for over four decades.
Further, we must be prepared to adapt our teaching and learning pedagogy to accommodate changing capabilities and needs in our student population. Ten years ago, seventy percent of our student population was non-traditional. Today that percentage is closer to forty-five percent. Ten years ago, eighty percent of our students were the first person in their family to attend college. Today that number is forty percent.
As we embark on this long range plan, over fifty percent of our students require at least one developmental class before they can successfully complete college coursework, significantly affecting our allocation of resources and need for faculty with the skills necessary to teach those classes.
We must also recognize that we are no longer the only viable option for higher education in our seven county service region. We must compete with online providers, branch campuses of other institutions, and perhaps some other competition yet to be invented. We must be prepared to do this in an era of decreasing state funding and constrained student ability to pay for their own higher education.
As we construct this plan, demographic information available tells us that student enrollment will be static to declining over the next decade, but economic development or natural catastrophe could just as easily lead to a major increase or decrease in population in the area we serve. We must be able to adapt to that possibility as well.
No plan survives its execution intact. What you read here is our campus community’s best effort at analyzing who we are, what we offer, how we can best deliver it, and most importantly, who we serve and what they and their communities need. It is the result of months of work by our faculty, students, administration, and members of the community. We recognize the importance of our responsibilities and will strive to be a teaching and learning institution providing quality post-secondary educational opportunities to the communities we serve.