Nietzel Next SMS President

Michael Nietzel is the next president of Southwest Missouri State University. KSMU's Missy Shelton reports.

Southwest Missouri State University today introduced its new president, Michael Nietzel, the provost of the University of Kentucky.

Shelton: You've outlined 5 goals for the university. Please tell me about those.

Nietzel: First, it should be an institution that democratizes society. By that, I meant we should be an institution that afforded access to very high quality education because post secondary education is going to be increasingly important for individuals to participate fully in the twenty first century. The access is key and that's one of the roles for the West Plains campus. The second goal was to be an institution that incubated ideas. By that, I mean the importance of strengthening the university's research activities, its discoveries and innovations. Third, I talked about the institution helping Missouri imagine its future. By that, I meant the university needs to discuss and consider how these innovations should be used. Fourth, I want the institution to be one that prepares students to help make Missouri's future where we have intellectually confident students who are willing to take well-considered risks, to be strong leaders in the future. And then fifth, as a public institution, we have to be a model for how to our business well, do it openly.

Shelton: Some of those may require additional funding. Missouri's Governor Matt Blunt has recommended that higher ed funding remain essentially flat. What are your thoughts on the funding challenges that face the university?

Nietzel: Those challenges are like the ones facing public institutions across the country which is you've been in a period of time where revenue has been down in the states. But it's common in most states that we've struggled with flat or even declining public appropriations for public education. I think it's important to show that expenditures for public education are really investment. It's key to growing wealth and improving the quality of life for citizens. It's simply not going to be possible to have a healthy community, a prosperous lifestyle without significant investments in higher education.

Shelton: There was a national report recently that gave the state an "F" in affordability for higher education. Tuition has been going up because of these funding issues with the state. Talk about what you want to see with tuition. Do you want to keep a cap on tuition increases?

Nietzel: Of course. You don't want to raise tuition any more than necessary. Neither however, do you want the quality of education to decline. It's always a balance between what is a reasonable increase to expect of students and their families versus what are the consequences of not making those investments. A cheap education isn't necessary an education that's of value to a student ultimately if you can't sustain the quality you know you need and the students have a right to expect.

Shelton: Earlier today, you talked about the need for the university to get its hands dirty by tackling important issues that face our local community and by extension, our state. What issues were you talking about?

Nietzel: Those may involve health. Those involve the need for a continuing diversity with respect to economic development. They involve achievement gaps in public education from K-12 all the way to higher education. There's a significant gap in terms of the college participation of white and minority students in this state that needs to be closed. I think that I want to emphasize for SMS is that we need to be an institution that helps solve important problems and that improves communities and lives. You can be very proud of your academic reputation but as an institution, if you don't end up making life better and improving communities then ultimately, the institution fails.

Shelton: I understand you like to hold town hall meetings where the campus comes together to talk about important issues. Tell me about how those meetings work.

Nietzel: I do like to have open meetings where we give the university community the chance to debate problems we face either internally or problems that are apparent in the society outside the institution and have those be invigorating discussions. I personally like to do it. You've got 700 bright faculty and thousands of bright students, why would you not want to have discussion about interesting topics as often as possible?

Shelton: As you prepare to become president, do you have a message for those bright students?

Nietzel: I would first thank them for wanting to be students at this university. They have a lot of options. The fact that they selected SMS is something I'm very pleased about. It means we have an obligation to continue to provide a good education. The university needs to help students come to love the place they attend. Students come to love a university when we challenge them, when they are successful. I think college should be hard. I think given the kind of student we have here, they should be successful, we support them and they're ultimately successful.

Shelton: Now here's an excerpt from remarks Michael Nietzel made today at a ceremony on the SMS campus.

Nietzel:

I'd like to close with some words from the English poet John Masefield about a university and the kind of university SMS should be...

"There are few earthly things more splendid than a university. In these days of broken frontiers and collapsing values, when the dams are down and the floods are making misery, when every future looks somewhat grim and every ancient foothold has become something of a quagmire, wherever a university stands, it stands and shines. Wherever it exists, the free minds of men urged on to full and fair inquiry may still bring wisdom into human affairs."