Reader offers views on Bruce Speck's listening tour

A reader sent me these thoughts about the first day of Missouri Southern State University President Bruce Speck's much-awaited listening tour. The name of the author has been withheld:

I watched the news tonight with interest to hear of Dr. Bruce Speck’s first ‘Faculty listening’ meeting. The Television channel that I watched featured Dr. Speck’s response to questioning about the International Mission and he stated that it had to be evaluated in terms of ‘How does it benefit every student on campus?”. On the face of things this seems to be a reasonable request, until one actually takes a moment to think about what a University does.

Let’s assume for a moment that this ‘every student’ filter is the correct method to evaluate programs offered by Missouri Southern State University.

What about the majors that students get. Not every student gets the same major so perhaps we should eliminate all courses related to a student actually getting a Major. So the four schools would all have to be eliminated (save some money on all those pesky Deans and Faculty). All that would be left is the general education curriculum – the first two years of a student’s academic career at MSSU. Isn’t that the definition of a Junior College – Crowder. They provide the general education courses that are required of all students.
What of the proposed new Medical school – since presumably not all MSSU students would become Doctors it doesn’t pass that muster either. So we can quit fooling ourselves about this since it won’t ever become a reality anyway.

So, what would MSSU actually have since:
Not all students receive financial aid
Not all students drive and park at the University
Not all students live in the dorms and eat at food service
Not all students get sick and need the medical services clinic
Not all students use the library (ask any professor or the professional library staff that question)
Not all students play sports
In fact, not all students do anything except pay tuition, oops, the Honors program doesn’t pay that and that sure isn’t all students, not even if you throw in all those non-paying athletes.

It might be a very interesting analysis to compute the cost of each sports team and the actual number of students who benefit (This was asked of the International Mission) and just as the requirement was stated there – these sports program must either pay for themselves or make a profit. (A doubtful proposition since the Int’l Mission was cut by over $ 200,000 and the money given to the Sports programs which had gone over budget by that amount). Dr Speck is the one who created this lightning rod, not anyone else. I'm not advocating getting rid of sports, they, like every other program which does NOT BENEFIT EVERY STUDENT ON CAMPUS is valuable and part of the University.

The purpose of a University is to offer differing course work leading to a variety of Majors to serve students learning needs for their differing careers. When Dr. Speck begins to say things like ‘every student’, ‘cost effective’, or ‘fair’ he is about to state something that simply leads to further doubt about his credibility and honesty.

Is the International Mission of benefit to all students? It has a created a diverse campus which provides for rich experiences both in and out of the classroom.
It has created a faculty that provides learning experiences in the classroom that extend beyond the horizon of just SW Missouri and provides the basis for integrating a students learning with the extended world beyond the borders of Missouri and even the United States. It makes them (students) more competitive, self confident, and enables them to view life in terms that apply critical thinking and evaluation from a richer and more informed viewpoint. Yes, just like ‘Go Lions – Beat Pitt” does.