CLIPS REPORT.doc

							                              CLIPS REPORT
 Clips Report is a selection of local, statewide and national news clips about the University of Missouri
 and higher education, compiled by UM System University Communications as a service for UM System
 officials. The report may include articles dealing with controversial subjects, policy matters, higher
 education trends and other significant topics affecting the University.

 The articles are not screened for accuracy, balance of favorable and unfavorable reports, or
 representation of campuses, University Extension or media outlets. Some articles, especially those from
 Columbia newspapers, are written by students. The report is not an effort to measure the University’s
 public information efforts.


                                             February 22, 2008



New UM president begins work, 1
Cartoon: UM and state funding, 25
UM students slow to sign up for text alerts, 26
MU group identifies at-risk students, 29
MU students hold vigil for NIU shooting victims, 31
MU: Reactor audit doesn’t apply here, 44
County gives ABC Labs $1.55 million tax break, 46
State historical society hopes to relocate out of MU library, 48
MU biochemistry department relocates, 51
MU researchers develop smart carpet, 52
MU researchers study roots of autism, 53
MU to offer winemaking curriculum in fall, 55
Former MU teaching assistant sentenced for stealing, 57
Former MU running back runs for Congress, 58
MU basketball players charged with third-degree assault, 59
MU students get new free, legal music downloads, 63
Op-ed: U.S. students should consider engineering, 64
Washington U. replacing student loans with grants, 66
MSU shakes up social work faculty, 68
Drury University to offer animal ethics with gift from Bob Barker, 72
MSSU board of governors votes to increase tuition, 73
SEMO regents OK more than $10 million in projects, 74
Missouri Senate sends MOHELA appropriations bill to governor, 75
Bill would help veterans with cost of college, 76
Q&A: An American education abroad, 78
College giving sets record in 2007, 80
Scientists worry that not enough nuclear engineers are being trained, 84
Disputed plan would let Congress weigh in on state budgets for colleges, 86
Panel discusses how colleges can stem the rising cost of higher education, 89
Columbia Daily Tribune
‘Business model’ in focus
UM president pursues ties to faculty, students.
By ABRAHAM MAHSHIE
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

University of Missouri System President Gary Forsee took a break from his first day on the job to answer
reporters’ questions ranging from off-court trouble in the basketball program to campus security and how
he would keep the cost of tuition down.

"I’ll take a few more questions," he said 25 minutes into the news conference yesterday afternoon at the
Old Alumni Center near University Hall, batting away a UM official’s announcement there was time for
only one more question.

Forsee had spoken without notes as he outlined his top goals coming into the university. He then opened
the floor to questions from the small gathering of about a dozen television, radio and print reporters from
Mid-Missouri, sipping a glass of Diet Coke in between answers.

"We have to be sure that our business model - if I can use that term - our funding model is going to serve
us in the future as it has in the past," Forsee said in a theme he repeated. He also said the university must
"look to the future to be sure that there are models out there that would allow us to develop new sources of
revenue and to develop new opportunities to grow the university."

Forsee praised Gordon Lamb’s guidance and said Lamb’s new role as executive vice president would allow
the former interim president to help in the area of economic and business development. Lamb also would
take on distance education, a relatively untapped revenue source Forsee has mentioned on multiple
occasions.

The former chairman and CEO of Sprint Nextel said he has requested sessions with faculty and students on
each of the four UM campuses so that he could have the chance to "engage with them" so they can see his
initiatives are "not just words."

Forsee equated the importance of keeping tuition down with raising faculty salaries, saying, "Students have
to value coming here as a good deal."

He also said that what neighboring states are doing doesn’t necessarily matter as long as UM stays
competitive. He praised Gov. Matt Blunt for his support of scholarships and said he also would consider
seeking revenue from nongovernmental organizations such as the Kauffman, Danforth and Stowers
foundations.

The Kansas City-based Kauffman Foundation has an asset base of $2 billion and awards grants for
entrepreneurship and children’s education. The Danforth Foundation awards grants exclusively to
metropolitan St. Louis with an objective of economic development. The Stowers Institute for Medical
Research is a Kansas City-based group whose mission is to promote genetic research to prevent, treat or
cure disease.

In mentioning the foundations, Forsee reiterated a message of spurring economic development and seeking
new revenue sources through work in life sciences at the institution.

Responding to concerns about campus security, Forsee said he had asked for a review of emergency
response on the four campuses and said he again raised the issue during his first staff meeting yesterday.

"Are we prepared to respond?" Forsee asked. "The alert system is only as good as participation."




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Systemwide, UM’s new high-tech alert system has registered emergency contact information for just a
fraction of students, faculty and staff, who must agree to supply that personal information.

Forsee also addressed recent off-court transgressions of some MU basketball players, which resulted in the
suspension of four players and the removal of one from the team for missing class two weeks after a Jan. 27
scuffle outside Athena Night Club.

Forsee said such events amounted to "a setback in terms of image," branding the university. He also said he
supports Coach Mike Anderson’s disciplinary actions.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Former CEO Forsee stresses leadership experience
By KAVITA KUMAR
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

On his first day at the helm of the University of Missouri system, President Gary Forsee laid out some of
his initial priorities, which include boosting faculty salaries, expanding distance learning opportunities and
furthering the school's mission to be an economic development engine for the state.

Forsee started off Monday with some typical first-day tasks, such as getting acquainted with his new
computer and phone. But he also dug right into the thick of things with a discussion at his first staff
meeting about security plans in light of the recent shootings at Northern Illinois University.

"I came in ready to go to work this morning," Forsee said.

In a news conference with reporters Monday afternoon, Forsee lightheartedly referred to himself at one
point as the "phone guy." He spent his entire 35-year career in the telecommunications industry. Most
recently, he was CEO of Sprint Nextel, but was forced out in October amid the company's falling stock
prices.

Some faculty members have questioned if someone from the corporate world is well-suited to lead an
academic enterprise.

In a letter to the university community on Monday, Forsee asked faculty and staff for their support and said
he would work to earn their respect. He pointed out that his career has been in leading large, complex
business organizations.

"It's true that higher education is a new career field for me but higher education isn't a new passion for me,"
he wrote.

Forsee is a graduate of what is now the Missouri University of Science and Technology, in Rolla. He has
also been a prominent donor for that campus, giving more than $2 million to its capital campaign.

The university's Board of Curators appointed Forsee to the president's job in December at the end of a
nearly year-long search. Since then, Forsee has been doing his homework, visiting the four campuses,
attending a Board of Curators meeting, and speaking with faculty, staff, and state political and business
leaders.

While visiting the University of Missouri-Kansas City last week, he knocked on a half-opened door at a
residence hall, recalled university spokesman Scott Charton. Forsee chatted for a bit with a surprised group
of students, introducing himself and asking them about their weekend plans.

Forsee said he has asked Gordon Lamb, who served as interim president and is now staying on as an
executive vice president, to work on economic development and distance learning initiatives.



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In recent years, the university has had funding challenges from the state, Forsee said. So he plans to look
into developing new revenue streams, though he provided no specifics.

"We have to be sure that our business model, if I can use that term, that our funding model is going to
serve us in the future as it has in the past," he said.

Forsee said he would also work to keep tuition affordable, hammer out a strategic plan for the university,
and work with the pre-k through 12 education sector to make sure students are prepared for college when
they arrive on campus.

He and his wife are in the process of moving into Providence Point, the wooded estate in Columbia that is
the home for the university system president.

The Maneater
Forsee takes over as UM president
Forsee wants to focus on informing legislatures about MU.
By ELLIOT NJUS
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

On his first day on the job, UM system President Gary Forsee promised to advocate for the system in the
state and federal legislatures.

Forsee, a former chief executive at Sprint Nextel, took office Monday as the system’s 22nd president. The
UM system Board of Curators selected Forsee after a yearlong search.

Forsee said that since he was hired in December, he has prepared to assume the presidency.

“Over the last six weeks, I’ve had a chance to meet previously with all the staff,” he said. “I’ve been on all
the campuses. I came in ready to go to work this morning.”

Forsee sent an e-mail Monday morning to the entire system asking for support and pledging to advocate for
the university.

“Part of our advocacy is to constantly remind lawmakers, alumni, citizens, that the University of Missouri
has a unique mission,” he said at a news conference Monday afternoon.

Forsee said that he wanted to tell legislators in Jefferson City and Washington D.C., about the university.

“My role in that, and that of the chancellors and that of the staff is going to be sure that all of our elected
officials — and those running for office — know about the University of Missouri, know about our needs,”
he said.

Sen. Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, has not yet met formally with Forsee, Graham’s Chief of Staff Ted
Farnen said. In the Missouri Senate, Graham represents the district that includes MU.

“We’re just hopeful that he is successful during his term,” Farnen said.

Farnen said the two had met briefly, and that they are scheduled to meet to discuss university issues.

“I’m sure the senator and president Forsee agree on a lot of the same issues, like wanting to get enough
funding for the university and wanting to make sure the people teaching at the university have academic
freedom,” Farnen said. “Those are the issues that are both important to them.”




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Forsee said he would value the support of Gordon Lamb, who served as the UM system’s interim leader
during most of the search process. Lamb will stay with the system as an executive vice president. Forsee
said he would ask Lamb to take on specific university projects.

“I think we were so fortunate as a university to have someone of Dr. Lamb’s experience and stature to lead
our university for almost a year — nine months — as interim president,” Forsee said. “As I came on board
last fall as I was having discussions about the position, I really formed a very high impression and opinion
of Dr. Lamb’s background and his ability to assist not just me, but the university.”

He said Lamb would focus on distance learning, which offers classes to students who are not in a
classroom. He said Lamb would also work on programs for economic development.

“I have a feeling we’ll probably come up with a few others along the way,” he said.

MU Chancellor Brady Deaton said he had discussed a number of issues with Forsee while he prepared for
to take over the position. Deaton said he is confident that Forsee would work well with legislators.

“I think he’s got tremendous capability,” Deaton said. “He’s a great communicator.”

Deaton and Forsee discussed issues including economic development, faculty salaries and other strategic
and “abstract issues,” Deaton said.

“I’ve had really good discussions with him,” he said.

The Kansas City Star
Editorial: New leader offers constructive proposals for university system
Monday, February 18, 2008

Gary Forsee’s observations as he takes charge of the University of Missouri system are good news for
champions of a stronger university presence in Kansas City.

“I know and appreciate the high expectations” for the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the former
Sprint Nextel chairman told business and government leaders in Kansas City last week.

He said he wanted to see closer ties between UMKC and the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and a
continued connection between the university and the Kauffman Foundation.

The university system’s four campuses all must cultivate “centers of excellence” in selected academic areas,
Forsee said.

That’s an astute strategy. Pumping additional resources into promising programs can help universities draw
students and faculty. It can also deter unnecessary duplication of academic programs.

Forsee hit the right notes when he said he wanted to expand distance learning, use the universities to
encourage better educational opportunities from preschool through high school, and contribute to the
“animal health research corridor” that leaders are working to establish from Columbia, Mo., to Manhattan,
Kan.

To achieve those goals, Forsee will have to find ways to bolster school finances. Increased endowments and
new partnerships with the private sector are possibilities.

But Forsee must also convince a skeptical Missouri legislature to be more reliable about funding public
universities.




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A good start would be persuading lawmakers to fully fund the “Preparing to Care” initiative, which seeks an
additional $38 million to help public universities and community colleges educate more students in the
health professions.

That plan, which would greatly benefit UMKC, was conceived by Gordon Lamb, who has been serving as
the university system’s interim president.

Last week Forsee commended Lamb for making a strong public statement supporting freedom for
scientific research. As president of the university system, it’s now Forsee’s role to make that case.

Columbia Missourian
Former CEO takes helm of UM system Monday
By DANNY LAWHON
Monday, February 18, 2008

COLUMBIA — Gary Forsee’s first day as president of the University of Missouri System included some of
the formalities that come with a desk job: getting one’s initial calendar ironed out, successfully getting
logged into the company computer network and, yes, even learning how to work the phones.

Forsee, the former CEO of Sprint Nextel who said he needed to “get used to the new devices,” embraced
the irony.

And even though he was formally welcomed as the system’s 22nd president with an introductory press
conference Monday, his job effectively started soon after the Dec. 20 announcement of his hiring. With
visits to all four of the system’s campuses , conversations with alumni and attendance at the January Board
of Curators meeting all under his belt, the Missouri University of Science and Technology graduate said he
desired to hit the ground running.

“I wanted a chance today to be able to say more than just, ‘Gee, I’m excited to be here,’” Forsee said.

Those prior introductions enabled Forsee to lay out portions of his agenda on his official first day at work.
He pledged to be the bridge for both students and faculty between the state’s and nation’s educational and
political realms.

“I want to be their biggest advocate, their biggest supporter in Washington, Jefferson City and around the
state,” Forsee said.

To that end, Forsee said creating a continuous conversation about higher education in the state is one of
the system’s main avenues to progress.

Among his initial priorities, Forsee stressed both the protection of the university’s current assets through
esteemed foundations in life sciences and entrepreneurship and the new economic development that needs
to occur for the system to be the “engine for the state.” In light of challenges in funding at the state level,
the move toward increased funding through initiatives and foundations as future revenue sources is even
more important, Forsee said.

Forsee also said students’ needs within Missouri need to be met and realized as early as pre-kindergarten.
He said the preparation for learning and being educated has an effect on their post-secondary performance.

Frank Schmidt, MU’s faculty council chair, said Forsee’s initial agenda contained some good starting points.

“People often talk about barriers to higher education in purely economic terms,” Schmidt said. “But
another chief barrier to access is preparation. That part (of Forsee’s agenda) could be applauded.”




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Schmidt said that the majority of faculty have adopted the “wait-and-see” approach on Forsee’s hiring.
Although Schmidt said some faculty have questioned his overall interest in faculty concerns, he said a note
that Forsee sent through e-mail to all members of the system struck the right chords.

“Certainly he wouldn’t have gotten where he did (in business) without being able to relate to people of all
sorts. People skills are important,” Schmidt said. “But can he change what (former president) Elson Floyd
called a ‘culture,’ that’s hard to tell.”

That culture primarily involves the perception of state legislators about higher education as a whole,
Schmidt said. He said Missouri is on the wrong end of the curve.

“You’ve got to be a culture that values creativity and innovation — innovate or die,” he said. “Missouri has
a culture that has to change, or else we’ll be behind the rest of the country.”

Forsee said legislators need to be reminded of the unique mission of the university as a land-grant
institution. He said his position gives him a good opportunity to inform those without a wide
understanding.

Forsee said in his e-mail that one of his primary observations is that he needs to quickly engage with
students. He started by dropping into a residence hall room at the University of Missouri-Kansas City last
week for a quick visit.

Erin Moran, student affairs chair for the Missouri Students Association, said a committed rapport with
students would go a long way toward earning their respect.

“If he could just show us that he isn’t always in his office, if he were to go out there and actually get
involved at times in student government, that would definitely make a difference,” Moran said. “I think that
might catch parents’ attention, that he tries to know some of the kids.

“I’ve been in MSA for two and a half years, and I don’t think the last president even got involved. I don’t
even remember his name.”

The observations Forsee has made during the campus visits have made him aware of a statewide sense of
dedication to the university on several fronts, he said.

“I’ve concluded that there’s an incredible passion in the state of Missouri for our institution,” Forsee said.
“I’ll continue listening and learning to help me tell our story more broadly, to be an even louder voice.”

For more details on Forsee’s press conference, go to the Missourian’s higher education blog at
utownblog.wordpress.com.

KWMU News
Forsee to focus on lobbying and fundraising
By JANET SAIDI, KBIA
Monday, February 18, 2008

COLUMBIA, MO. (2008-02-18) Monday was President Gary Forsee's first day on the job at the University
of Missouri.

He took time from his first day's schedule for a press conference, where he emphasized some key goals.

Forsee says a top priority will be to advocate loudly for the University in Jefferson City and in Washington
D.C.




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"As the new president, that's going to be one of my key opportunities, is to continue that listening and
learning process, but also to be the spokesperson, the advocate, for the university and all the things that we
have going on and all the things that we need to be dealing with in the future," Forsee said.

Forsee also says he'll look beyond current fund-raising to help the university grow and to address faculty
salaries, which he called a critical issue.

The new president says he plans to visit each campus over the coming weeks to begin to learn more from
students, staff and faculty on all four campuses of the system.

The Rolla Daily News
Forsee takes office
Monday, February 18, 2008

Editor’s note: University of Missouri System President Gary Forsee assumed the position of president
Monday. Upon taking the UM System reins, Forsee, the former CEO of Sprint Communications, issued the
following statement. These are his words -- in first-person -- and we thought our readers would be
interested in those statements.

This is the first day of my presidency of the University of Missouri. I’m excited about working with you,
and for you.

Since my appointment was announced last Dec. 20, I have received so many enthusiastic expressions of
support. These expressions really reflect intense passion and deep devotion for our institution. It will be my
job to direct that passion and devotion, to ensure that the University is able to thrive and fulfill our critical
missions of teaching, research, service and economic development.

I need your support. Even as I ask for your support, I know that I must earn your respect, and I pledge to
work to deserve it. I come from a 35-year professional background that includes leading large, complex
business organizations.

It’s true that higher education is a new career field for me - but higher education isn’t a new passion for me.
The University of Missouri is my alma mater, and I have been an active supporter of its work and ambitions
to become world-class. In my new job, I have a unique opportunity to give back to the institution we love.

On Day One of my presidency, I pledge that there will be no bigger advocate and no louder voice for what
our students need, what our individual campuses need and what the faculty needs. I will be your advocate in
Jefferson City, in Washington, D.C., and wherever I can help tell the positive story of our institution and
build on its tremendous base of support and its successes.

I have already been on a learning curve - back to school, if you will. I’ve visited with many members of the
faculty, students, administrators, alumni and friends of the University. I’ve had conversations with our
chancellors about the needs and aspirations of our four distinctive campuses. I’ve conversed with many of
our state’s leaders in education, government, media, business and economic development.

I’ve been in the state Capitol and on each of our campuses - in fact, during a visit to UMKC last Friday, I
dropped into a residence hall room for a great impromptu visit with students (and I’m sure they’re still
wondering what THAT was about.)

From these conversations, I have begun to develop some observations. These include the need to engage
quickly with students, with faculty and with the campus staffs and administration.

I’ve learned more about the support we need from Jefferson City and Washington for our operating budget
and capital programs, and particularly for competitive faculty salaries. We need to maintain affordable



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tuition and strong financial aid programs, while extending the University’s teaching mission through
distance learning.

We need to search for and maximize opportunities to serve as an economic growth engine for our state
through the University’s groundbreaking research and encouragement of entrepreneurship. And we must
strengthen our public conversations about the unique role our University plays in Missouri.

I look forward to getting better acquainted with you.

For now, you can learn a bit more about the role of the UM president, and about me, by visiting
http://www.umsystem.edu/president.

To the students, faculty, staff, alumni and our worldwide family linked by passion for the University, I ask
for your help, and your support.

In return, I pledge my dedication and my best efforts on behalf of our institution.

Springfield News-Leader
New MU system president begins work today
The Associated Press
Monday, February 18, 2008

Columbia - Former Sprint Nextel chief executive Gary Forsee starts work today as the new University of
Missouri system president.

He replaces Elson Floyd, who left Columbia last year for the presidency of Washington State University.
                                                                 s
Gordon Lamb, who filled in for Floyd temporarily until Forsee� hire, will remain on board as executive
vice president.

Forsee, 57, is a Kansas City native and 1972 graduate of the University of Missouri-Rolla. He grew up in
Moberly, St. Joseph and Cape Girardeau, where he graduated high school, and has also lived in Hannibal,
Joplin, Springfield, Charleston and St. Louis.

Columbia Daily Tribune
The new boss
Gary Forsee says his UM leadership will show there is no bigger advocate for what the system
needs.
By ABRAHAM MAHSHIE
Sunday, February 17, 2008

Within a week of Elson Floyd’s announcement that he was leaving as University of Missouri system
president, Board of Curators Chairman Don Walsworth began conferring with Gary Forsee about finding a
successor.

Walsworth sought Forsee’s advice as the board began searching for a candidate with business experience.
But then, as the highly secretive search process ground on, Forsee moved from adviser to presidential
possibility when he lost his job as CEO of Sprint Nextel.

For Forsee and the UM System, “the sun, moon and the stars lined up,” said Walter Lamkin, a St. Louis
County attorney and longtime friend of Forsee’s.

“He has a great passion for the University of Missouri, and he understands that he may be uniquely
qualified,” Lamkin said.




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Forsee, 57, begins his new role tomorrow. He believes it’s the result of “timing and opportunity” that
started when the Sprint board of directors pressured him to resign in October. When Walsworth first asked
Forsee to consider interviewing for the system job, Forsee said he needed time to “digest” his departure
from Sprint.

“I tried to understand, you know, could I make a difference?” Forsee said. “Could my background and
skills be something that would be meaningful from the university’s perspective? I had to be sure that I
could have the passion for what this is about.”

Approaching the new job, Forsee did some checking. He called several people in similar positions, met with
Gov. Matt Blunt and state legislators, and spent time with Gordon Lamb, acting UM System president.
Walsworth, meanwhile, got the authority to continue courting Forsee up until the curators interviewed him
in Kansas City on Nov. 19.

“I wanted to be sure that the fire could be lit and the spark established, and obviously that occurred,”
Forsee said, discussing the process. “And the more I thought about it, the timing to give back and to help
and use what I had established in running great big organizations, very complicated organizations, for a long
time. I think it was a chance to give back and to provide that kind of support.”

Forsee has no advanced academic degree but brings 35 years’ worth of telecom executive experience to his
new job. He was in charge of 100,000 employees at BellSouth and 80,000 at Sprint. The UM System has
about 24,000 full- and part-time employees and serves about 63,000 students.

In his new role, Forsee hopes to make the university competitive. At the same time, he wants to generate
more state support for a top research institution that is slipping behind its peers.

As in his past roles as CEO of Sprint Nextel between 2004 and 2007 and as a top executive at BellSouth in
Atlanta and Global One in Belgium, Forsee believes the new assignment will be judged on “day-to-day
performance,” where “best-in-class” results are expected. He comes at a time of low faculty morale, when
the university’s state funding level is among the lowest in the nation, and rising tuition and fees.

In an interview with the Tribune at his new residence at Providence Point and in statements at his Dec. 20
news conference, Forsee laid out his plans for providing leadership and vision to the university while
quelling concerns that his lack of academic credentials will be a stumbling block to gaining faculty support.

“I’ve got to very quickly show them that there will be no bigger advocate, no louder voice for what the
university system needs, what the individual campuses need, what the faculty needs, than I will,” Forsee
said. “I told the chancellors, ‘I don’t just want to sit around a table and talk about it. I want to go in and do
a deep dive on programs at the campus level.’ ”

In announcing the curators’ selection, Walsworth stressed Forsee’s leadership qualities and capacity to bring
vision to the university and to articulate that vision in the Missouri General Assembly. Describing his
interviews with Forsee, Walsworth told the Tribune he also admires Forsee’s analytical mind and said he is a
“very intense listener.”

“That’s a level of respect I have to show, that I’m willing to learn about what they do,” Forsee said. “And at
the same time my responsibility is also to be sure that we have a very clear vision of our future, and that
vision will only be established by me working with faculty and students — all the key stakeholders.”

Sandy Price, a senior vice president at Sprint Nextel who worked closely with Forsee, said he led by
example and was effective at building strong teams behind a common vision.

“Gary believes that it’s important for leaders to be good role models,” Price said. “He talks a lot about the
shadow of a leader.”



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Asked how Forsee inspired her, she said, “Gary gives leaders a great deal of latitude to do their jobs. He
expects integrity in his leadership team.”

Frank Schmidt, chairman of the MU Faculty Council who helped select Forsee, said he will have to
understand that the university is not a profit-making corporation and that change comes from the base: its
professors.

“You’ve got to listen,” Schmidt said. “You get somebody who comes charging in like Napoleon on a white
horse, and you get caught in the mud. Successful people listen first; successful administrators listen first.”

Schmidt also said he will have to reward quality and immediately gain lost ground in terms of state support
by getting the message out that UM serves the entire state.

“I think that probably most faculty have kind of a wait-and-see attitude,” Schmidt said. “There are some
faculty that are suspicious of someone from a business background because it’s not clear that people like
that understand the business of the academic culture.”

                                              EAGLE SCOUT

Gary Forsee was born in 1950 in Kansas City, the middle child of three siblings spaced six years apart. His
father grew up in Millersburg and his mother on a farm outside Mexico, Mo. Forsee’s family moved often
with each new position his father attained with the Social Security Administration.

Though Forsee returned to Mid-Missouri in the summers and helped his grandparents on their farms,
family moves took him from St. Joseph to Moberly to Cape Girardeau, where he graduated from Central
High School in 1968.

Throughout his youth, Forsee was active in sports, especially basketball, which he would play for hours with
friends while living in Moberly.

Dennie Foster was Forsee’s basketball coach in junior high school, where Forsee played reserve forward.

“He was kind of quiet, and he did his job,” Foster said of Forsee at age 16. “He always wanted to make sure
when we ran plays he cared about how others played, too; he wasn’t individualistic.”

Forsee also loved the outdoors, camping with his father and excelling in Boy Scouts and achieved Order of
the Arrow. He also became chief of the lodge at Camp Thunderbird northwest of Moberly.

“Order of the Arrow is an honor group within Scouting,” said Terry Dunn, president and CEO of JE Dunn
Construction in Kansas City and a fellow board member with Forsee on the Boy Scouts of America’s
National Board. Forsee has served on the board for several years. “I know he is a very dedicated Scouter,
which I think speaks volumes. I think it really is one of the best character development programs for young
people in the country.”

As a Scout, Forsee achieved the highest rank of Eagle by completing a group project that made a
meaningful contribution to society. After taking his first job in Charleston, Mo., at 24, Forsee served as a
scoutmaster and was involved in training at the Boy Scout Council years later when he moved to Kansas
City.

“The basic values that go into becoming an Eagle Scout, there is a commitment to those values throughout
your life,” Dunn explained.

Forsee transferred to Central High School in the middle of his junior year, and though he said it was a “bit
traumatic,” in his year and a half there he made some of his best friends, keeping in touch with them for 40



                                                                                                               10
years.

“He was a leader in high school and had the same personality traits then, and people quickly gravitated to
his leadership skills and his personality,” said John Rigdon, a longtime friend and former classmate. “He is
quiet and thoughtful and reserved in his approach to problems.”

“He was always a studious, ethical kind of pillar in the class,” Rigdon added. “People kind of based their
behavior a lot of times on people like Gary that set the good example. People tended to want to be like
Gary.”

Rigdon’s wife, Betsy, grew up in Cape Girardeau and once dated Forsee, accompanying him to the St.
Patrick’s Day party his freshman year at UM-Rolla, which is now called Missouri University of Science and
Technology.

“Gary was always a gentleman; kind of quiet, I thought, and very smart,” she said. “He’s got a ready smile,
very down to earth and real.” She said Forsee and his wife, Sherry, come from “middle-class, good stock.

Same today even with all their exposure to a high-powered lifestyle.”

John Rigdon’s extended family even welcomed Forsee to Charleston when Forsee took his first job
managing 13 older telephone employees in Southwestern Bell’s management training program.

“It’s certainly not a glamorous place, but he loved it there,” Rigdon said. “He loved the people and got to
know my Aunt Dot and Uncle Pot. I was always surprised that he embraced that community the way he
did. When he comes back and sits at the dinner table, … it’s like the years just vanish and he’s the same
good friend when we were 20 years old.”

                                         MOLDING A LEADER

David Forsee said his older brother, Gary, was always able to set goals and stayed focused on them.

“Gary’s vision, even in college, was that he wanted to get out and do something larger and different,” David
Forsee said. He added that though Gary didn’t necessarily follow in his father’s footsteps, he wasn’t afraid
to keep moving to make his way up.

David Forsee also said Gary’s older sister’s enrollment at MU, the first family member to attend college,
had a profound effect on him, influencing Gary Forsee to enroll at UM-Rolla, where he received a degree in
civil engineering in 1972.

Jerry Bayless, interim chairman of the civil engineering department at the Missouri University of Science &
Technology, recalled having Forsee in class.

“He was always a high-energy type person, well organized, and he had a good personality,” Bayless said.

At Rolla, Forsee became the president and rush chairman of Kappa Sigma fraternity, served on the
interfraternity council and as circulation manager of the school paper, The Miner.

“I think as you grow up you want to do well,” Forsee said. “You want to achieve; you want to aspire. Those
are things at least, as I grew up — experiences I had in college. You had a certain idea about what success
looked like.”

Forsee credits Rolla’s strong reputation and alumni network with helping him to get a management
internship with Procter & Gamble. Upon graduating, he had offers from several companies that sought
Rolla grads.



                                                                                                             11
John Carney, Missouri S&T’s chancellor, has worked with Forsee for the past three years while Forsee
served on the UMR Board of Trustees and chaired Rolla’s $200 million capital campaign.
Forsee and his wife are also Very Distinguished Fellows in MU’s Jefferson Club, meaning together they
have donated at least $250,000 to the university.

“Gary doesn’t say as much as some of the folks, but when Gary does offer an opinion or a suggestion, it’s
usually wise to take him very seriously,” Carney said. “He shows excellent judgment. He has a very nice way
about him in terms of his interactions with people; he puts you at ease right away.”

Carney said Forsee was incisive in recommending UM-Rolla change its name to Missouri S&T. And
although Forsee chose to pursue a career in engineering management rather than engineering, the skills he
learned were highly applicable.

“His background in engineering taught him how to size up problems and analytically attack them,” Carney
said. “He started off from a very modest background. … You don’t advance the way he has without being
extremely talented, and you have to have an ability to deal and interact with people on a personal level.”

Price, Forsee’s former co-worker at Sprint, said Forsee will “encourage a lot of dialogue.”

“Gary enjoys field visits with employees,” she said. At Sprint, “he frequented the company cafeteria and
talked with people very comfortably.”

“He’ll seek to understand first,” she added.

Price said in Kansas City Forsee took an active interest in community issues such as transportation, health
care, jobs creation and education.

“He didn’t look at what you would think a normal CEO would look at,” she said. “He was very passionate
about improving the entire community.”

Pete Levi, president of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, said Forsee extended his personal
interest in civic activism to all of Sprint’s employees. Levi said Forsee became a force behind downtown
renovation by supporting the Sprint Center. As the CEO of Kansas City’s largest employer, Forsee
frequently interacted with Levi on behalf of Sprint for community projects.

“Gary very much realized the importance of the health and welfare of the community, working together
wherever they could,” Levi said. “He always made sure Sprint was involved.”
Even when rumors began to surface that Forsee’s job was in jeopardy at Sprint Nextel, he still was popular
in the community.

“Everyone was rooting for him to be successful, and even when times got tough Gary was always there as
part of the community,” Levi said.

Forsee said he got his civic-mindedness from his parents. Both were active in church; his father also was
president of the Lion’s Club and participated in Scouting activities.

Forsee’s oldest of two daughters, Melanie Bell, 31, said he passed that activism down to her.

“I think a lot of his work ethic has shown up as we’ve seen our careers start to develop and also our
leadership styles and our want and willingness to be involved in the community,” said Bell, an MU graduate
who is now a vice president for public relations with AMC Theaters in Kansas City. “You need to make
time to do both. It’s important to have your career, but also important to take time to foster and nurture the
community that you live in.”




                                                                                                            12
Bell characterized family life with her father as “like any family.”

“He definitely took time to do the things that most dads do,” she said. He coached the girls’ basketball team
and took her to a father-daughter camp. As far as his powerful corporate life, she said, “I don’t think that
growing up we really realized what he was doing necessarily.”

Bell said even after her father took a position in Belgium when she started college and her sister was still in
high school, the family remained close.

“It wasn’t difficult. We’re a close family,” she said, explaining that family circumstances required her father
to leave the family behind while he worked in Europe. Bell said she speaks to her mother daily and her
father about every other day and did so even when he was a top executive in Atlanta and Kansas City.

Forsee’s younger daughter, Kara, 28, graduated from MU in 2006 and is a veterinarian in Dallas.
Sherry Forsee, Forsee’s wife of 35 years, was born in St. Louis and met Forsee through a mutual friend
while attending Southeast Missouri State

University in Cape Girardeau. She serves on the board of directors of Starlight Theatre, the United Way and
the Rose Brooks Center, which is dedicated to assisting victims of domestic violence. She declined to be
interviewed for this report.

                                            CORPORATE FALL

Beginning in 1972, Gary Forsee worked his way up the telecom corporate ladder. He moved from
Southwestern Bell to its parent AT&T in 1981 and then to the front offices of Sprint from 1989 to 1999.
He left Sprint for four years to take top positions with BellSouth in Atlanta.

Then came a protracted court battle between the two companies over Forsee’s talents. Both wanted him to
lead their companies. Sprint eventually won the rights to Forsee and gave him a salary exceeding $21 million
per year. In court documents, Forsee said he wanted to return to Kansas City, and that’s what motivated
him to leave BellSouth and rejoin Sprint. He returned as Sprint chairman and CEO in 2003.

Sprint was in turmoil at the time. Two of its top executives were removed after questionable tax shelters
came to light in their personal finances. After Forsee rejoined the company, Sprint’s stock prices more than
doubled.

It was a time of rapid change and competition in the telecommunications industry. In 2005, Forsee led the
company in a $35 billion merger with the Nextel Corp. that would integrate two different networks and
customer bases.

Two years later, investors worried about the cost and time to integrate the two networks. Stock prices
dropped precipitously, and the company fell behind rivals Verizon and Cingular, losing more than 300,000
customers.

There were other problems as well. Sens. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass, and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., sent Forsee
and other telecom executives letters in 2006 requesting they turn over documents related to their
cooperation with the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic surveillance program. A court battle over
that issue continues.

When Forsee rolled out a $3 billion plan to build a new high-speed wireless network in August, the Sprint
Nextel board was already looking for his replacement.

“Gary was a capable executive, but he was too quiet for a company in a changing industry, and investors
had questions as to where to put their money,” said Jeff Kagan, a telecommunications industry analyst who



                                                                                                             13
closely follows Sprint. “I don’t look at it as a failure; it just didn’t work out.”

“The problem is we didn’t get enough communication from him to know the direction the company was
heading in, how successful those moves were, the changes, and when we could expect positive results.”

Kagan said Forsee was like past quiet CEOs at Sprint, but the company needed a louder leader for the new
directions it was taking.

“It’s partly a personality thing,” Kagan added. “Sprint needed a leader who would take the reins and ride the
company in the direction he thought the industry was headed. I think he was too quiet, and he wasn’t able
to rally the company in that direction.”

When Forsee stepped down on Oct. 9, he took with him a severance package of $54 million.

                                          CEO TO UM PRESIDENT

State Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin and the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was one of
the first to praise Forsee’s selection. Nodler knew Forsee from a time when both worked in Joplin in the
late 1980s.

“The university system president has the responsibility to serve as the CEO for this corporate entity
comprised of four different university campuses,” Nodler said. “The fact that Gary Forsee has a significant,
successful track record as a corporate CEO does bring additional credibility in resource issues that an
academic might not possess.”

The fact that Forsee has lived in several parts of Missouri helps, too, Nodler added. The appointment will
resonate with legislators who have no personal ties to the university, he said. Since the appointment, Forsee
and Nodler have been on the phone together talking over university budget issues.

In the days leading up to his taking the helm, Forsee has also been closely working with Lamb, who took
over for Floyd in April and will stay on this year at Forsee’s request as executive vice president.

“I think it’s a very good step,” said Craig Stevenson, an MU junior and the legislative director for
Associated Students of the University of Missouri, a student lobbying group. Stevenson said although most
students probably couldn’t name the president if asked, he should quickly reach out to them.

“I think that it’s very important early on that he fits in his schedule to meet and get to know the students,”
Stevenson said. Floyd was remembered as a president who connected with students.

“Forsee has a lot of support at the Capitol,” Stevenson said. “I think that as time goes on having a president
that can take the university’s case to Jefferson City is a key part of their role and what the university’s
function statewide is and is part of that mission.”

Like Lamb and Floyd before him, Forsee intends to use statewide visits to tell the UM story. He said he
would lay out his objectives in a “100-day plan” when he takes office. UM spokesman Scott Charton said
part of his plan will include visits to the four campuses, several agricultural operations and other
communities.

Walsworth said Forsee already is on board with the curators’ announced intention to focus their attention
this year on economic development through research, life sciences and technology. The objective was laid
out at the Feb. 1 curators’ meeting by new Board Chairwoman Cheryl Walker of St. Louis.

“He mentioned that he thought economic development was a sleeping giant for the University of Missouri
System through our research initiatives,” Walsworth said of the possible expanded revenue source for the



                                                                                                            14
university.

Victoria Johnson, a professor in MU’s sociology department and vice president of the local chapter of the
American Association of University Professors, said many faculty members worry that Forsee will govern
the university on a short-term business model and accept research dollars that tie the hands of faculty by
putting limitations on what they can publish.

“Market fundamentalism is seeping through into the university system and lowering standards,” she said.
“More funding by private organizations to universities in some cases undermines the whole idea of
academic freedom and engaging in the pursuit of research, the pursuit of truth without strings attached.”

Johnson and other professors who spoke to the Tribune said MU’s decrease in tenured positions
diminished faculty’s right to speak out against funding sources without fear of retribution. New regulations
passed by the General Assembly calling for rules governing intellectual diversity and professor evaluations
also infringe on faculty freedom, she said.

“The University of Missouri is getting the reputation as a place that really good faculty don’t want to come
to,” she said.

Forsee admits some might resist change, but he wants his leadership to bring the entire university
community on the same page and reduce the internal squabbles that “take energy out of an organization.”

Tenure suggests positive things, Forsee said, including the ability to attract high-caliber faculty and to make
the university more competitive.

“We have to be competitive on tuition,” he said. “That runs full circle to being competitive on faculty
salaries; it runs full circle to where is our source of funding coming from to run the university and provide
the services we need to our students.”

“Status quo would imply a continued degradation and support at the traditional levels,” Forsee said. “We
can’t thrive, and we can’t become world-class if we just maintain the status quo.

“What I have to do is go in and very quickly show that here’s my leadership style, here’s the respect, the
engagement,” Forsee said. “And that starts with a vision. It starts with respect. It starts with transparency. It
starts with ethics, integrity and diversity being worn up on the sleeve and being sure that the leader of the
organization is the great communicator of the vision and the strategy to the people.”

The Kansas City Star
Forsee ready for UM presidency
By MARA ROSE WILLIAMS
Saturday, February 16, 2008

On Monday, former Sprint executive Gary Forsee will take over as the 22nd president of the University of
Missouri system.

He replaces Elson Floyd, who left to become president of Washington State University.
Forsee, 57, sat down with The Kansas City Star on Friday on the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus.
Following is that interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.

You have a 35-year career as a business executive, so it’s no wonder when you were named
president, speculation was that you were chosen because curators wanted to focus on the
university’s business operation. Have you gotten that impression from curators? And if so, what
specific areas of the operation have they said needs attention?




                                                                                                              15
I think, first and foremost, they (curators) were looking for a leader that has experience in a very large,
complex environment that we operate in, whether it is operating a business or operating an academic
institution. … The requirements to support an institution like the University of Missouri, with 27,000
faculty and staff and associates and 65,000 students that we have responsibility for, is a very complex
organization. So I think the curators had in mind someone who had some of those types of experiences to
come in at this stage and be president.

Former president Elson Floyd started the unity tours around the state in an attempt to bring all the
universities, including those not in the system, together. Do you intend to continue those tours?

Of course today, we are here in Kansas City and just finished the third governors summit, and you get a
sense from that kind of a dialogue that there is a need for higher education collaboration. And that
collaboration certainly needs to start in the state of Missouri, and it needs to start with our own four
campuses, and it needs to start with all of the other four-year institutions and the junior colleges that are an
important part. But something else has become very apparent to me: If we don’t start that process to
include pre-K through 12, then … Right here, at UMKC, there is a great example of that with the Institute
for Urban Education, where we are tapping into high school students, bringing them into UMKC and
having them commit to go back into the community as teachers. … Whatever that collaboration needs to
look like, the University of Missouri should have a leadership role in that for the state of Missouri.

How much of what happens on the football field or the basketball court shapes a university’s
reputation, and how involved should the university president be in what goes on with major
intercollegiate athletics?

The brand of the university and the reputation of the university are just like in the business world. … There
is nothing more important than its brand and its reputation. That reputation is an accumulation of
experiences and an accumulation of the events that have occurred. It is an accumulation of great programs
and great innovations and great works done by its students and its faculty. It is the product of its students
going off into careers and becoming great representatives of the university. That reputation gets built from
a lot of different factors, and certainly one of those factors is the athletic departments of the four campuses.

One of those factors is the success on and off the field. One of those factors is incidents that take place. …
Certainly along the way, those incidents need to be dealt with and dealt with very directly, and my sense is
that they have.

Affirmative action has become a big issue for the nation’s public universities, with some people
pushing for legislation that would ban affirmative action policies used in public schools and
employment. What are your feelings about affirmative action?

We are a diverse society. We are a global economy, and we should be in a position of having programs in
the business world and programs in the university world that support what we are about as a society.

Ensuring that there is balance in the workplace just like there is in the communities that we serve requires
programs and efforts to do that. We are going to be more successful if those programs and efforts continue
in the business world. And we are going to be more successful if those programs and efforts continue in the
academic world.

When you were named president, you said your first challenge would be to gain the trust of
university faculty. What have you done to gain that trust, and what ideas do you have to make
faculty salaries more competitive?

My view on this is very strong. And my view is that the lifeblood of our university is our faculty and our
students. The students and the faculty need to hear me say that. But beyond that, they need to see me
engaged to show that support. And that is no different than in a work environment. That will be part of



                                                                                                              16
what I am about as long as I’m president of the university … to be engaged with the faculty. We have put
forth a request for additional (money for faculty raises). … I’m going to be the strongest advocate for
assuring that we take that issue very seriously.

What role can you play as president of the state’s largest public research institution in pushing for
state support in bioscience research?

We have to be the leaders in bringing that forward as an important economic development opportunity. I
can’t think of any more significant economic growth engine for the state than the broad category of life
science. … I talked extensively with the governor about this. I want to get a lot of energy going amongst the
four campuses and University of Missouri Health Care about this topic. No better opportunity than what is
already on the way with the animal-health corridor between Manhattan, Kan., and Columbia, Mo. No better
opportunity than we have right here with Stowers, with Kauffman, with Midwest Research Institute. We
have a unique opportunity in University of Missouri assets to lead that effort, and that is what we intend to
do.

In light of Thursday’s shootings at Northern Illinois University, what are your thoughts on campus
security?

We have to do all we can to have safeguards in place, and those safeguards include alert systems, proper
campus security and proper campus counseling for students who may be at risk.
All of us have a response system, but I think more importantly a preparedness system. One of the things I
did several weeks ago was I had a review of our capabilities at all four of our campuses. … I feel very good
about where we are. But they are never good enough if there is an incident, and I think we know that.

Columbia Missourian
A new plan
By MATT HARRIS
Friday, February 15, 2008

The December day Gary Forsee was introduced as the new University of Missouri System presidentseemed
to lack pomp and pageantry.

Outside the Reynolds Alumni Center, the sky was overcast and occasionally spitting snow. The MUcampus,
usually humming with activity, was shuttered and relatively dormant after the students left for the holidays.

Inside, a staid coronation took place. The only hints that a university-related event was in progress were the
podium and two gold banners featuring the seal of the UM System hanging behind it.

Members of the UM System Board of Curators and the usual academic and administrative heads were in
attendance. But the scene was subdued, especially given the media blitz and speculation that preceded it.

Since November, Forsee, 56, was well known as the front-runner and likely successor of Elson Floyd,
whose departure for Washington State University almost a year earlier caught many by surprise. A trip to
Jefferson City to meet with Gov. Matt Blunt and leaders of the General Assembly in November was an
implicit confirmation of Forsee’s likely appointment. Several days earlier, he had a not-so-secret meeting
with the Presidential Search Advisory Committee, a 19-member panel of faculty, staff, alumni and students,
for a couple of hours in Kansas City.

Inside the alumni center, the former executive of Sprint Nextel stepped to the podium to offer his remarks.
Don Walsworth, the curator from Marceline, sat to the right of Forsee, a slight smile gracing his face.

He knew the board of curators had attained the prize they sought.
“You know, somehow, the word got out,” he said jokingly. “I can’t imagine how that happened.”



                                                                                                            17
The process to find Floyd’s replacement had already taken a couple of detours. One candidate, Terry Sutter,
turned down the offer to take the position in May and instead became chief operating officer of a Florida
steel company. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Mo., briefly flirted with the notion of vacating his
seat in the House and considered the job.

In contrast to Hulshof, Forsee was a relative unknown.

The Kansas City native had a 35-year career in the telecommunications industry, the last five of which were
at Sprint Nextel. He resigned in October after a two-year struggle to overcome a beleaguered merger with
Nextel, which saw the company hemorrhage customers and struggle with network issues.

Despite his rough departure, Forsee had many of the attributes the board of curators said it was looking for:
Missouri roots, a graduate of the system’s Rolla campus, connections to legislators in the state and the
nation’s capital and experience running a large multi-division corporation.

In the end, the board chose Forsee, who officially starts as the 22nd UM president on Monday. The choice
rankled some faculty who worried about the implications of having a man versed in business leading an
academic enterprise. The traditional path to presidency of a university or university system is marked by a
rise through the ranks of various academic departments.

Yet, the curators, who ultimately had the final call on whether to hire Forsee, were committed to following
a different direction. The rationale was simple: The UM System acts as a holding company in charge of
overseeing operations of four campuses and needed someone capable of handling the financial, personnel
and political issues associated with that role.

Forsee could apply his business experience in a way that would help formulate a long-term strategy for the
system and execute it without interfering with academic autonomy.

“He obviously has experience leading large corporations at the executive level,” said Jay Dade, a member of
the search advisory committee and head of the MU Alumni Association. “And when you look at the
university system, at the system level, it is a very large organization that takes a person of great executive
skill to run that organization in an effective manner.”

With state funding shrinking and competition driving universities to seek donations from private
endowments and corporate partnerships, advisory committee members and curators said the UM System
looked increasingly like a large corporate entity that was guided by chancellors and provosts rather than
division heads.

Forsee’s job, the stakeholders said, is to ensure that there is a vision articulated for how the system will
operate and to advocate on behalf of the campuses for resources.

“If you think about ... how much we’ve lost in support from the legislature, the funding that we had
received previously was so much greater than it has been,” said Judith Haggard, the curator from Kennett.
“So we’re looking at someone who has those skills so we can look at those avenues to sustain ourselves and
be credible and better than we are today.”

The decision to pursue a nontraditional candidate has raised questions about the role of higher education in
Missouri. Although such hires are not new — former U.S. Sens. Erksine Bowles and Dan Boren are
running the University of North Carolina and University of Oklahoma, respectively — it highlights a
philosophical shift regarding the role higher education plays in American life.

Increasingly, business principles and leaders have been adopted by higher education as a means to improve
financial prospects and prepare graduates to enter the workforce. The change, though, is fairly recent.




                                                                                                               18
“If you were to look at higher education 30 years ago and you were to use the word ‘consumer’ to refer to
students and ‘product’ or ‘management’ to teaching, it would have been deeply distressing to faculty,” said
Judith McLaughlin, a Harvard professor who specializes in higher education leadership.

The curators were not looking to break new ground as they went about their search. Instead, hiring a
nontraditional candidate seemed to be a matter of necessity.

The UM System has seen a decline in total appropriations from the state over the past six years. In fiscal
year 2008, the state sent $461 million to the system, roughly $15 million less than it had in 2001, according
to the state Department of Higher Education. During the same time period, the system has raised tuition
rates by 47 percent for in-state students and 23 percent for out-of-state students. Two weeks ago, the board
of curators proposed a 4.1 percent tuition increase for the 2008-09 academic year.

Increasingly, the system has become more reliant on other sources of funding, including partnerships with
corporations. Members of the advisory committee and the board of curators said they were looking for a
candidate that could help the system streamline the process of finding other avenues for funding.

With Forsee, there were ready-made contacts in business and politics that he could tap into for greater
appropriations, corporate partnerships and further donations to endowments and fundraising campaigns.

Until he was appointed, Forsee was heading up an effort on the part of the Rolla campus to raise $200
million by 2010.

Richard Brow, an engineering professor at the Rolla campus and advisory committee member, said that
Forsee’s ties throughout the state and around the country convinced him that the former executive could
handle the task of expanding the sources of funding for the UM System.

“The guy’s got connections,” Brow said. “He understands Missouri. He understands Washington. He’s
been a salesman for his company for a long time, and that’s what the university president needs to be.”
Aside from an ability to fill coffers, Forsee was seen as someone who could get his arms around running a
diverse university system.

The St. Louis and Kansas City campuses act as a support apparatus for their urban centers. Rolla is tucked
away in the Missouri hills and serves as a haven for the empirical and scientific method. Meanwhile, the
Columbia campus is billed as the major research and land-grant institution. Each are home to groups of
faculty and staff who, while part of a system, strive to maintain their sense of autonomy.

Although the president is at the top of the organizational chart, there are checks on his or her control. Each
campus is run by its own chancellor and provost. Any action on the part of the president that is viewed by
faculty and staff as meddlesome has the potential to generate ire.

“The chancellors each have a certain degree of autonomy at their campus, and they are the chief academic
officer at each of those campuses,” said Warren Erdman, the curator from Kansas City. “We didn’t hire
Gary Forsee to be a fifth chancellor. We hired a president who can make our chancellors more successful.”

For their part, faculty members on the advisory committee said they think that Forsee has a high degree of
respect for their academic inquiry and freedom. They added that Forsee acknowledged he faced a learning
curve in terms of understanding the ins and outs of higher education.

“My sense is that he has no intention of being a chief academic officer,” said Joan Dean, an English
professor at the Kansas City campus.

McLaughlin said Forsee needs to assure those around him that he is not trying to make the system in his
own image.



                                                                                                           19
“I think there’s always a fear, understandably, that someone who doesn’t understand, appreciate or value
the traditional mission of higher education may try and make it into a business,” she said.

Forsee has stressed that he will not carry out his work with a heavy hand or in a Draconian fashion. He has
acknowledged that he must familiarize himself with specific tasks and roles of faculty.

He will have help, though. Forsee asked Gordon Lamb, the interim system president, to stay on as
executive vice president to help him work through his first year on the job.

Brow’s assessment said faculty can sometimes forget that the president’s job is an administrative position,
not an academic one.

“It’s not pedagogical,” Brow said. “This is probably part of the concerns on the part of faculty. We care
about pedagogical things, about academic curriculum. That’s not the president’s job.”

Meanwhile, Dean said she would not be surprised if Forsee received a chilly reception if faculty are offered
a forum to voice their views.

“I think the academics are going to be very upset,” Dean said. “Most faculty I’ve talked to are very
pessimistic.”

Although the overwhelming sentiment among those who were a part of the search was positive, the process
and the result leave room for questions.

The search advisory committee was convened to allow representatives of the system’s stakeholders to meet
with potential candidates and share their thoughts.

But the search advisory committee had no formal recommendation power to the curators, and its members
could only formulate their questions and submit their responses on an individual basis. Committee
members said the group did not generate a list of issues or questions to be presented to each candidate.

The advisory committee met with Forsee only once for a couple of hours in Kansas City. It did not receive
a formal resume, list of references or comments from the board of curators. Instead, it was sent a one-page
biography that briefly described Forsee’s career.

The curators’ meetings regarding the search and with all candidates were closed to the public. Because the
process is a personnel matter, almost none of the documents is a public record.

The process, though, is not unusual in the search for a president. The common theory is that qualified
candidates will be hesitant to apply out of a fear that they might incur the wrath of their current employer.

Despite a lack of prior knowledge about Forsee, most members said they were able to get a good sense of
his personality and that they received the same amount of information about each candidate.

“It wasn’t that different with any other candidates in the first round” of interviews, Brow said. “I don’t
think Forsee was treated any differently by the committee, from my perspective, than any of the other
candidates.”

Despite these circumstances, only Dean expressed displeasure with how the search was conducted.

“I will never serve on a committee like that again,” she said. “The faculty don’t have a say. So, that they
formed any committee, that they talked to any faculty, is probably a good sign. But it was all cut up into tiny
little pieces and put into a box.”




                                                                                                             20
As the advisory committee met with Forsee, one concern seemed to bubble up repeatedly: the possibility
that the former executive could be lured back to corporate America.

The transition from business to academia is a stark change in terms of duties and compensation.

Upon his departure from Sprint, Forsee received a $55.5 million severance package. While employed with
the company, his annual salary was $21.3 million, according to documents filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. The pay as president is far more modest: The base salary is $400,000 annually with
the possibility of a $100,000 bonus.

Dean said she asked Forsee how long he intended to stay.

“You know, I said to him, ‘You probably have better job prospects than a lot of us,’” Dean said. “He said
that he would know in three to five years if he was making a contribution.”

Curators have been unequivocal in their belief that Forsee is fully committed to the system and not just
waiting for the next board chairmanship or executive position to open up.

“You know with anybody you get, you don’t always know how things are going to work out,” Haggard said.
“But I perceive this man to have a lot of energy and a lot of integrity.”

Perhaps heightening concerns for some faculty and administrators was Forsee’s departure from Sprint.

His struggles at the company were not lost on the committee. Yet they said those facts needed to be placed
into context.

Overall, the curators and advisory committee members said there is a stark difference in the environment of
corporate America and the one awaiting Forsee at the UM System. The time frame in which decisions and
results are judged tends to be far narrower — quarterly or yearly — in the business community. In contrast,
the policy process at a university is more deliberate.

“In that case (with Sprint Nextel), it was just certain investor groups that became impatient,” Erdman said.
“In fact, I had Sprint board members call me and tell me they thought Gary would make an outstanding
president.”

One of those Sprint board members was Irv Hockaday. In an interview, he said that although Forsee had a
rough end to his time at Sprint, it should not be a barometer of his ability to run the UM System.

“The short-term pressures that exist in the corporate sector are hopefully less relevant in the educational
sector,” Hockaday said. “I think Gary’s strengths align with the longer time horizon that allow you to build
and execute a strategy.”

System leaders said the hesitation of some stakeholders may be a sign of hesitation in confronting the
unknown.

“The days of the president who sort of exists but you don’t really hear from him or her are gone,” Dade
said. “We’re in an age of advocacy, where you need to be an advocate for your institution.”

For Dean, the hiring of Forsee is a move to convince residents and politicians that higher education is
worth the investment.

“They view the expense the state has for the university as a drain,” Dean said. “I think he may be able to
sway them that the university does good things for the state, and I think that he believes that.”




                                                                                                             21
The Rolla Daily News
Forsee takes reins of the MU System
By JULIA MANGOGNA
Friday, February 15, 2008

Gary Forsee takes office Monday as the 22nd President of the University of Missouri System.

Forsee has been busy the past two months talking with faculty, staff and students in the Missouri System
listening to their expectations.

“I have to earn the respect of the faculty and the students, so that they are confident I am equipped to do
this, and that starts with my respect for what they do,” Forsee said.

“Gary Forsee shares my commitment to the University of Missouri and higher education in our state and as
an alumni of the Missouri University of Science and Technology’s prestigious engineering program, he
knows the University of Missouri system,” said Gov. Matt Blunt in a statement issued after the selection of
Forsee to president.

Forsee will be working with Blunt on projects outlined in his budget for the University system, including
Blunt’s plan to provide $100 million for needs-based scholarships, the University projects the Lewis and
Clark Discovery Initiative including the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center and UMKC’s Pharmacy and Nursing
Building and completion of the projects at Missouri S&T, UMSL and UMC’s agricultural-research facilities,
the $13 million Blunt announced for health care education and funding to support a joint engineering
partnership between Missouri S&T and MSU.

“The University of Missouri ought to be the growth engine of the state in developing the economy,” Forsee
said, in a telephone interview Friday with the Rolla Daily News.

Forsee visited UM-Kansas City Friday. MU students will have a chance to meet Forsee later this month.
From 3 to 5 p.m. Feb. 26, Chancellor Brady Deaton’s office will sponsor a reception for Forsee in
Memorial Union’s Stotler Lounge.

Scott Charton, UM system spokesman, said Forsee would attend similar events at the other three UM
system campuses, but that those dates have yet to be finalized.

“I will be in Rolla for the 100th St. Pat’s Celebration. I always enjoy visits to my Alma Mate,” said Forsee.

Forsee holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Missouri at Rolla, now Missouri
University of Science and Technology. The university awarded him an honorary Doctor of Engineering
degree in 2005.

Columbia Missourian
Gary Forsee to begin UM System presidency Monday
By MISSOURIAN STAFF
Friday, February 15, 2008

COLUMBIA — Fourteen months after Elson Floyd announced his resignation, the wait for a new full-time
University of Missouri System president is almost over.

Former Sprint Nextel CEO Gary Forsee will take office as the system’s 22nd president Monday morning
and will hold a 1 p.m. press conference at MU’s former alumni center at 1105 Carrie Francke Drive.




                                                                                                            22
Forsee will take over for Floyd, who now serves as president of Washington State University, and follows
Gordon H. Lamb, the system’s interim president since April. Lamb will remain the system’s executive vice
president through the end of the year per Forsee’s request.

The 57-year-old Missouri native has signed a three-year contract with a $400,000 annual salary, plus up to
$100,000 in annual incentive pay. The potential bonus will be deferred until he has completed the three
years of his presidency.

Forsee will also speak Thursday at the Missouri Press Association/Associated Press Day at the Missouri
Capitol.

For an in-depth look at the Forsee hire and an interview with the incoming president, see the cover story of
Saturday’s Missourian.

The Maneater
Forsee to take over Monday
By ELLIOT NJUS
Friday, February 15, 2008

On Monday, former Sprint Nextel executive Gary Forsee will take the reins of the UM system.
The Board of Curators selected Forsee in December, more than a year after former UM system President
Elson Floyd announced his intent to leave MU.

Since then, Forsee has prepared to assume the new position, UM system spokesman Scott Charton said.

“I know he’s been doing a lot of phone calls,” Charton said.

Charton said Forsee had talked to UM system students, faculty and alumni to prepare for the new position,
and that he had met with UM system campuses’ student leaders.

He said Forsee attended two meetings of The Missouri 100, the UM system’s advisory group, since the
Board of Curators approved him. One was held in conjunction with the January Board of Curators meeting
in St. Louis and the other was in Jefferson City. “Scores of lawmakers” attended, Charton said.

He said Forsee is scheduled to speak at the 2008 Governors’ Summit on Regional Economic Development
today in Kansas City. Charton said Forsee first developed the two-state conference in 2006 while working
for Sprint Nextel.

Forsee will also visit UM-Kansas City today, Charton said.

“He isn’t waiting until Monday to start immersing himself in all of that,” Charton said. “He started that
back in early December.”

MU students will have a chance to meet Forsee later this month. From 3 to 5 p.m. Feb. 26, Chancellor
Brady Deaton’s office will sponsor a reception for Forsee in Memorial Union’s Stotler Lounge. Charton
said Forsee would attend similar events at the other three UM system campuses, but that the dates hadn’t
been finalized yet.

Forsee attended his first regular Board of Curators meeting as president-designate Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.
Interim UM system President Gordon Lamb addressed the board at his last meeting in the position. He said
Board of Curators chairman Don Walsworth had asked him to take the position. He said he told Walsworth
he wasn’t suited to “caretaker work.”




                                                                                                             23
“Don said, ‘That’s not what I want.’” he said. “’I want a president of the university. If you’re going to be
president, you take over the responsibility and the authority.’”

Lamb’s UM-system career has only included interim positions. From February 1999 to March 2000, he
served as interim chancellor at UMKC. Then he worked as a private education consultant until the Board of
Curators appointed him interim president.

As interim president, Lamb toured the state to promote the university, formed The Missouri 100 and issued
a statement to defend academic research involving somatic cell nuclear transfer, a type of therapeutic
cloning.

Lamb said he was confident in the board’s choice for his replacement.

“The board has designated a new leader in Gary Forsee, and I’m excited about that,” Lamb said. “Gary’s
going to do a great job. I’ve worked with him somewhat, as we’ve talked about some of the issues, the
challenges and the opportunities, and I know that he has a vision for this university that I think is going to
be extraordinary.”

Forsee has requested that Lamb return as the UM system’s executive vice president.

Forsee will receive an annual salary of $400,000. Floyd was paid more than $382,000 annually.




                                                                                                               24
Columbia Daily Tribune
By JOHN DARKOW
Wednesday, February 20, 2008




                               25
The Kansas City Star
Students slow to sign up for text alerts
By MARA ROSE WILLIAMS
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

After the shootings at Virginia Tech last year, colleges and universities across the country rushed to put in
place several kinds of emergency notification systems.

One of them was text messaging.

But at many of the schools with the capability to send emergency text messages to cell phones, fewer than
half the students have signed up, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week. In Missouri and
Kansas, the percentages are even lower.

“I thought this would be a very simple thing that students would jump on,” said Matt Wagner, who has
been trying to get fellow Kansas State University students to sign up. “The only cost to students is the 10
cents or so their cell phone service would charge to get a text message. To me that’s not much, and it’s
pretty important if you’re going to get an emergency alert. … It could be a matter of life or death.”

Some students who haven’t signed on for the text message warnings said Tuesday they didn’t know it was
available, didn’t want to pay for it or worried that if they did sign up they’d end up also getting “junk”
messages. Others said they save text messaging for their friends and prefer the university call them in an
emergency.

Overland Park senior Jonathan Sullivan said he didn’t know the University of Missouri-Kansas City
offered the service. But, he said, “If I had to pay anything for it, it would be annoying. I wouldn’t sign up
for it unless they figured out a way so that we wouldn’t be charged for it.”

Universities point out that many students wouldn’t have to pay for their calls, depending on their cell phone
contract. UMKC promises on its Web site that the service would only be used for closing announcements
and campus emergencies.

Briana Goff, associate dean of Family Studies and Human Service at K-State, said she thinks students
haven’t been quick to sign up for the service because “most students, being the age that they are, think it is
not going to happen here. They have a sense of immortality.”

K-State is early in the process of getting students signed up and is optimistic its numbers will increase.
About 21 percent of students have signed up since the system was installed four weeks ago.

The system many schools are installing allows campus officials to reach students, faculty and staff by e-mail,
a telephone call that keeps calling until it’s answered or by text message. In most cases, students have to go
online and sign up for the service. They must indicate which service they want. They can sign up to get all
three and say which notification they want to receive first.

A California company, National Notification Network, provides the notification service to more than 100
colleges and universities, including many in this area. Many bought the service after the Virginia Tech
shootings.

School safety experts speculated that a mass text messaging service may have saved lives at Virginia Tech,
where a gunman shot and killed 32 people. The shootings began in a dormitory, where two people were
killed, before the gunman crossed campus and shot 30 others.

In the shooting last week at Northern Illinois University, campus officials posted a warning message on the
student Web site to warn students within 20 minutes after the incident. In news accounts, several students



                                                                                                                26
said that by that time they already had learned about the shooting from friends who sent text messages to
their cell phones. NIU administrators said the shooting happened so quickly that a text messaging system
would not have changed the outcome.

“Sometimes these things can happen so fast that by the time you get everyone notified it’s over, and what
you are sending isn’t a warning but a news report,” said Terry Robb, spokesman for the University of
Missouri’s Division of Information Technology in Columbia.

But, he added, in other circumstances such as in a hostage situation, a standoff or a shootout, a notification
system with several options including text messaging could be helpful.

Kansas and Missouri universities that already have invested thousands of dollars in these emergency
notification systems said they plan to do a better job letting students know the service is available and
encourage them to sign up.

That could prove to be challenging.

The University of Missouri ran a contest in which students could register to win an iPod when they signed
up for the text messaging system. Other campuses said they sent mass e-mails, advertised the service in the
student newspaper and started regular student Web page announcements about the system. They also plan
to make signup part of freshman enrollment.

Wagner said the K-State Student Government Association wants to put announcements about the service
on the scoreboard at K-State sporting events.

Still, “you can’t force people to get text messages,” said Todd Cohen, a spokesman at the University of
Kansas, where 9,311 of the 29,210 eligible students have signed up for the text message service.
At UMKC, which has had the service three months, 608 of the 14,685 students eligible for the service have
signed up for text messaging. Nearly 5,800 have signed up to get a cell phone call in an emergency.

Columbia Missourian
MU officials urge campus to sign up for cell phone alerts
By MATT HEINDL
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

COLUMBIA — In the wake of Thursday’s shooting at Northern Illinois University, MU Chancellor Brady
Deaton sent an e-mail to MU students, faculty and staff on Friday urging them to register for the campus
emergency Mass Notification System. University of Missouri System President Gary Forsee followed with a
system-wide e-mail on Tuesday, professing to register his first day on the job.

As of Friday afternoon, 3,726 faculty and staff and 4,382 students — or about 19 percent of the campus —
had registered their phone numbers with the notification system, which sends warnings to participants via
text message, e-mail, voice mail and fax.

The system debuted in December, and so far no alerts have been sent out, said Terry Robb, director of
Internet technology with the university’s telecommunications department. They could be, though, in the
event of bad weather, he said.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City has sent out two alerts so far, both weather-related. There was a
problem with one sent on Feb. 6, though: a 20-minute delay between when the message was sent and when
it was received.

“We’re trying to figure out why that was,” Robb said. “We’ll meet with the vendor (National Notification
Network) on that soon.”



                                                                                                            27
Robb said his department is evaluating ways the university can reach even more people if needed.

The Columbia-based company Purple Tree Technologies is currently developing a way to send a signal
from a campus tower to all cell phones within its range, which would allow visitors on campus to also
receive the warning. Another possibility is a private campus radio system, tested in November, or an
emergency television broadcast sent over the campus cable network.

The system would warn of violence; weather and geological calamities; fires; or biological and mechanical
threats.

Students can register their contact information on myZou, and faculty and staff can enroll through the
employee information database at webapps.umsystem.edu. A phone or pager number is all that is necessary
to register.

“We’re assuring people that we’re not going to use it in a mass mode except for emergencies,” Robb said.
“So there is no reason not to (sign up).”

Columbia College has a crisis action plan that faculty have been rehearsing during the last two weeks, but
the school does not have a campus-wide messaging system.

“We have a number of other communication plans in place using e-mail, using telephones, using other
systems,” said Faye Burchard, dean of campus life at Columbia College.

“We’re still exploring that option,” she said of a campus-wide cell phone messaging system.

Columbia Daily Tribune
MU alert system gets off to slow start
By The Tribune’s Staff
Friday, February 15, 2008

An emergency mass notification system at the University of Missouri is finding dismal participation rates
from students, faculty and staff despite recent high-profile campus shootings.

Campuses’ efforts to notify students and faculty of emergency situations are intensified in the wake of
events such as the shooting yesterday on the campus of Northern Illinois University.

Terry Robb, director of information technology for MU, said about 4,300 students and 3,700 faculty and
staff have input their cell phone numbers to receive a call or text message in case of a campus emergency.
MU has nearly 28,000 students and 27,000 full- and part-time employees.

Robb said advertisements in a student publication and an e-mail from the chancellor in November have
helped some, but most have not added complete contact information into their MyZou accounts.

Robb added that 100 percent of e-mails and business phone numbers are input for students, faculty and
staff. The mass communication system used by the university has been operational since November.




                                                                                                             28
Columbia Missourian
MU group identifies at-risk students
By JENN HERSEIM
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

COLUMBIA — In the wake of recent college campus shootings — such as the one at Virginia Tech that
left 33 people dead and, more recently, the one at Northern Illinois University that claimed six lives —
many have questioned whether there were warning signs that had been missed. But even if there are
warning signs, student confidentiality rules can make it difficult to flag troubled individuals.

Alexander von Schönborn, associate professor of philosophy at MU, said he had a student who was
performing poorly on tests. When von Schönborn confronted him, he learned the student was staying at
the Mid-Missouri Mental Health Center, a psychiatric facility located near University Hospital.

“I asked him why he didn’t come to my office for things he didn’t understand,” von Schönborn said. “He
said, ‘I only get three hours of release time from Mid-Mo, and I’m in your class for those hours.’ I called the
Student Health Center and asked, ‘Am I at risk? Are my students at risk?’ They would not say.”

Von Schönborn said that sometimes professors have to put their trust in groups like the At Risk
association, which was formed several months ago and aims to assess whether a student is in danger of
hurting themselves or others.

“Sometimes there are bad sides with confidentiality,” he said. “You have too little information and you have
to trust those people who have the information.”

Susan Even, the director of the MU Student Health Center, said that health care providers are not allowed
to release health information to faculty or anyone who calls about a student. Even said the health center
would contact police if a patient made a direct threat toward another person, or if they need police to check
on a person’s well-being.

“One of the reasons people are willing to confide things that are personal or maybe embarrassing is because
they feel they are safe,” Even said.

Identifying individuals who pose a risk to themselves or others depends mainly on people speaking up, and,
often, it’s not easy to recognize when someone needs help.

If a student breaks an ankle or gets sick with the flu, it’s easy to see something is wrong and how to fix it.
Because mental illness doesn’t always have physical symptoms, it’s harder for friends and family to know
when an individual needs help.

The Division of Student Affairs created the At Risk task force, which is designed to facilitate the exchange
of information on students about whom other students, staff or faculty are concerned.

Information about students who seem at risk is transferred to a select number of professionals from
different services on campus, including the MU Police Department, the Counseling Center, the Student
Health Center, student staff and academic advisors, said Christian Basi, a spokesman from the MU News
Bureau.

This group meets to evaluate concerns from students or faculty and assess what kind of help the student
needs.

Keeping the task force small assures that all concerns about a student are directed to the same group of
professionals, and that these professionals can keep a closer watch on students.




                                                                                                                 29
“We want to keep everything in the same group,” Basi said. “That way if a faculty member has concern
about a student or a colleague they can go to the same group.”

Rosean Bishop, interim director of the MU Counseling Center, said that students who are identified as “at
risk” are encouraged to go to the Counseling Center for consultation.

“Residential Life is fabulous about it — they will actually walk a student over,” she said. “They’ll say, ‘Hey
it’s not scary, I’ll walk you over.’”

In a situation where a student does not want to get help or refuses service, a professional can take further
action.

Bishop said psychologists are required under state law to report if someone needs to be hospitalized
because they are at substantial risk to hurt themselves or others. Bishop said they must identify a specific
person they want to harm and be capable and have access to a method.

“If a student reaches this threshold we would take the necessary steps to have them hospitalized,” she said.
“If someone says, ‘I am going to shoot my psychology teacher,’ that’s clear: they’ve identified a person and
a method, shooting.

“Then we would go further and ask if they have access to a gun.”

Although peer advisors in the residential halls have been trained on general signs of mental illness, they
must report concern about a student to their supervisors who pass it along to the At Risk association. The
group then decides if the situation requires immediate action, or if the student needs a professional to go
talk to them the next day.

“We’re careful; it’s not students talking about other students,” Basi said. “This group is cognizant of privacy
and will help any staff member.”

Faculty members are also involved with the At Risk program.

On a large campus, there is concern that, with thousands of students going in and out of classes, faculty
could be too busy or see too many students to identify a problem. Bishop said that the MU faculty she’s
dealt with have been very receptive to learning how they can help.

“I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a lot of faculty and staff about this,” Bishop said. “They are very
concerned. And when they do see something, they do intervene.”

Von Schönborn said taking care of students is a part of a teacher’s role.

“For one thing, their welfare and my welfare are not easily separated,” von Schönborn said.

The gunman who killed five people and then turned the gun on himself at Northern Illinois University last
Friday left no note or motive for the killings, but authorities said he had recently stopped taking a
medication. Before he walked into a classroom and opened fire, the shooter at Virginia Tech had been
identified by teachers as troubled and possibly dangerous. In both instances, erratic behavior was noted by
students or faculty leading up to the shootings.




                                                                                                               30
Columbia Missourian
MU students hold vigil for NIU shooting victims
By CHAD DAY
Sunday, February 17, 2008

COLUMBIA — The Memorial Union bells rang out across MU during a moment of silence at a candlelight
vigil Sunday night in honor of the victims of Thursday’s shooting at Northern Illinois University.

About 50 MU students and faculty, including Chancellor Brady Deaton, gathered to pay tribute to the
victims of the Feb. 14 shooting in Dekalb, Ill., a community about 45 miles outside of Chicago.

In his remarks during the vigil, Deaton called the shooting “unexplainable” and “unpredictable,” while
commending those in attendance for their show of support for the students and faculty at NIU.

“This is a tragic circumstance and your presence here is important,” he said.

The Missouri Student Association and the Graduate Professional Council began planning the vigil the
morning after the shooting.

“MSA and GPC spoke and felt like this was something important to do,” GPC President Jennifer Holland
said.

Some in attendance at the vigil had personal connections to the shooting.

Janai Norman, an MU freshman, said she was at her home in Dekalb the day before the shooting. One of
her friends was in the classroom where the shooting occurred but was not injured.

Norman said she was preparing to go to class when a friend told her about the shooting.

“I had to go to class, but I really couldn’t get it off my mind,” Norman said.

The shooting began around 3 p.m. Thursday, when former NIU graduate student Stephen Kazmierczak,
27, walked into a geology classroom with a shotgun and opened fire, killing five students and wounding 16
others before killing himself, according to news reports.

The incident comes after many universities across the country revised their crisis response plans because of
the shooting last year at Virginia Tech University in which 32 people were killed by a student. NIU has been
praised for its crisis plan that allowed law enforcement officers to be on the scene of the shooting 29
seconds after it began, according to The Associated Press.

The UM system adopted a similar crisis management plan in September 2007 that was modeled after the
revised Virginia Tech plan and followed guidelines suggested by Missouri’s Campus Security Task Force.
Deaton said that university officials held a meeting the Friday morning after the shooting to re-examine
emergency procedures at MU.

“We would hope that if any event were to happen here we would have a quick and effective response,” he
said.

Vigil participants were invited to sign a banner expressing sympathy that will be sent to NIU later in the
week. The banner will be in the Student Activities Office in Brady Commons for the rest of the week for
students and faculty who wish to sign.




                                                                                                             31
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Public colleges lack funds and strategies to help troubled students
By ELIZABETH F. FARRELL
Thursday, February 21, 2008

The fatal shootings at Northern Illinois University last week were shocking yet familiar. For the second time
in 10 months, a student with a record of mental-health problems went on a killing rampage at a large public
university.

Ever since a disturbed student murdered 32 students and professors at Virginia Tech last April, college
administrators nationwide have been pumping more money and resources into efforts to prevent a similar
tragedy on their campuses. But they cannot keep up with the rising demand for mental-health services. And
disagreements over exactly how to handle at-risk students have stymied college's efforts to allocate their
limited resources.

Administrators have updated their emergency-alert systems and refined their crisis-management plans. And
they are working more collaboratively with their mental-health staffs and other groups on their campuses to
identify at-risk students.

For years, directors of college health centers have bemoaned their understaffed offices and lack of money.
They have warned their colleagues in higher education that more students are coming to college with pre-
existing psychological problems. Depression, social anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, anger-
management issues, and self-injury are common plagues.

Some colleges have great mental-health centers, and, over all, support for students with a range of
disabilities and emotional issues has grown precipitously over the last 15 years.

"We're a lot better positioned to respond to students' needs and crises than most people understand," says
Vivian S. Boyd, director of the student-counseling center at the University of Maryland at College Park.

But it took the massacre in Blacksburg for many administrators to realize the potential influence improved
mental-health services can have on campus safety, according to Mary M. Gartner, director of the student-
counseling service at Texas A&M University at College Station.

Since last year, one-third of college counseling centers have added a new staff member, and 15 percent of
all centers have received a larger budget, according to the annual survey of the Association of University
and College Counseling Center Directors. Also, 63 percent of those centers now have psychiatrists on staff
in addition to counselors, a 5 percent increase over the previous year.

Those statistics show improvement, but inadequate mental-health resources at colleges are still the norm,
particularly at large public universities, many experts say.

"In discussions with my counseling-center-director colleagues, there's a consistent theme of being stretched
thin," says Mary C. Bolin-Reece, counseling director at the University of Kentucky. "At least on larger
public campuses where resources may lag behind demand."

The International Association of Counseling Services, a nonprofit accrediting organization, recommends
that colleges have a ratio of one counselor per every 1,500 full-time-equivalent students. The average ratio,
according to 2007 data, was one counselor per 1,969 students, and 85 percent of counseling centers
reported that more students were arriving at their centers with significant histories of mental-health issues.

Fred B. Newton, director of counseling services at Kansas State University, says that like many of his
colleagues, he worries that as services lag behind students' needs, more of them will fall through the cracks.



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Counseling Smarter, Not Harder

To stretch thin budgets, counseling-center directors have allocated their resources strategically. Following
the shootings at Virginia Tech, over two-thirds of college counseling centers reported an uptick in calls
from concerned faculty and staff members and students looking for advice on how to help troubled
students.

This heightened awareness created an opportunity for the centers to teach everyone on their campuses how
to recognize and help students who might be a danger to themselves or others. Workshops called "The
Distressed and Distressing Student" are now held regularly at institutions including the University of
California at Davis and George Mason University, in Virginia.

Students' increased demand for treatment cuts into the time counselors can spend on educational efforts at
many colleges, including Lehigh University, says Ian Birky, director of counseling and psychological services
at the institution, in Pennsylvania. Often, the only workshops that justify taking time away from treating
students are those intended to raise awareness of the warning signs students might exhibit.

"It takes the community of faculty, secretaries, fellow students, and staff to reach out and engage these
students," says Mr. Birky. "In doing so, they help minimize the risk of students harming themselves and
others."

Large institutions, including Texas A&M and the University of Kentucky, have been using a suicide-
prevention training program called QPR—which stands for "Question, Persuade, Refer"—to educate
students on the warning signs troubled students often exhibit. Texas A&M grants extra academic credit to
students who complete the program, and 3,000 have done so.

Counseling-center directors also report that other groups on their campuses are now keeping in closer
communication with their offices and working to identify problematic students. Threat-assessment teams,
which usually include mental-health professionals, academic deans, student-life officials, and faculty
members, meet regularly to discuss students who might be at risk.

Even with the extra help, many counseling centers are not structured to treat the growing number of
students who come to their institutions with complicated mental-health needs.

A recent study conducted by Mr. Newton, at Kansas State, analyzed mental-health statistics for 5,000
students in counseling at nine college campuses. It found that 28 percent of them had already undergone
significant mental-health treatment prior to entering college. At Texas A&M University at College Station,
about one quarter of students who seek mental help have been on medication previously.

Those students, who often need regular long-term care from a psychiatrist, cannot get the type of
specialized treatment they need from a college counseling center. Consequently, most college counseling
directors follow a protocol of referring the students to local doctors off the campus.

"We are trying to strike a balance between being a counseling center and being a clinic," says Emil Rodolfa,
director of counseling and psychological services at the University of California at Davis. "It's trying to
manage the resources to help the greatest number of students and the students most in need."

Even with that approach, the wait time at his center for a student requesting counseling for the first time is
three weeks.

"It's terrible," he says. That delay comes in spite of a jump in counseling resources at his institution over the
last few years. Since 2005 the ratio of counselors to students has improved from one per 2,700 to one per
1,800.




                                                                                                              33
Because students may be referred to outside doctors, the national average number of visits a student makes
to a college counseling center is only from five to six, according to various studies.

Another challenge centers face is dwindling health-insurance coverage among their student patients. Many
types of counseling and medication that were covered even a few years ago are no longer affordable for
students.

Assuming students in need can afford outside care, their options may also be limited by the resources
available in their college town. Mr. Newton, at Kansas State, says he routinely has difficulty finding available
doctors in the rural Manhattan area who can offer the type of specific treatment some of his students need.

Misguided Efforts

Some mental-health professionals worry that the efforts of administrators and policy makers to minimize
the risk posed by mentally ill students may be misguided.

In January, Virginia lawmakers proposed legislation that would require colleges to have all new students
sign a form authorizing the release of their mental-health records before they enroll. So far, the bill has not
made it out of committee.

On Wednesday a campus-security committee at Arizona State University recommended that university
officials require all students to disclose their mental-health histories to the institution. Other colleges and
universities are considering similar measures.

College mental-health experts fear that such record keeping could have a chilling effect on students'
willingness to seek help. They also question the efficacy of such policies.

"We know for a fact that the vast majority of successful suicide attempts have been people that never had
treatment or were no longer in treatment," says Mr. Newton. "So the difficulty is not usually with the
people you have records for."

Despite months of debate, mental-health professionals and other college administrators are still largely at
odds over what the appropriate protocol is for referring students for counseling, and when their parents
should be informed of their struggles.

In the same national survey of counseling directors, respondents were split almost evenly on the issue of
whether their centers should have policies in place to actively pursue students who were referred to
counseling but did not follow through.

Part of the reason some mental-health experts resist taking on a greater monitoring role is that they do not
have the staffs to meet their current demands. Before they can expand their efforts, many say they need to
have more financial support.

"We are telling our Board of Trustees, with greater urgency," says Mr. Birky at Lehigh. "That current staff
cannot stretch forever without hitting a point where they cannot adequately treat students entering our
school."

The Chronicle of Higher Education
What kind of notification system works best when crisis strikes?
By JEFFREY R. YOUNG
Monday, February 18, 2008

Walter L. Czerniak, associate vice president for information-technology services at Northern Illinois
University, was out of town when a gunman killed five students in a classroom last week.



                                                                                                                  34
Mr. Czerniak was attending a conference in Arizona where he was learning, among other things, about
emergency-notification systems that can send text messages to cellphones—a method that a growing
number of colleges have set up since the shootings last spring at Virginia Tech (The Chronicle, October 5,
2007).

But Mr. Czerniak still isn't sure whether such a system would have done much good in keeping people on
campus updated as the crisis unfolded if it had been in place at Northern Illinois.

For one thing, he said, he learned that other colleges have had trouble getting people to sign up for
emergency-alert services—a problem that college leaders discussed at a recent meeting in San Diego (The
Chronicle, February 12).

Most colleges leave the choice of whether to register for the services up to individual students or
professors, both because they want to respect the privacy of users and because, in many cases, universities
do not have any other way of learning the cell-phone numbers of people on their campuses. At many
colleges with the systems, fewer than half the students have signed up.

An added complication is that students change their cell-phone numbers frequently. And, of course,
someone has to keep the phone numbers up to date.

And, once installed, systems are not necessarily trouble-free (The Chronicle, December 17, 2007).

False Sense of Security

Mr. Czerniak said he was pleased with the technology Northern Illinois did use. Messages were sent via
campus e-mail and voice mail just minutes after the shooting, and officials posted information on the
university's Web site.

The first message the university sent on Thursday said: "There has been a report of a possible gunman on
campus. Get to a safe area and take precautions until given the all clear. Avoid the King Commons and all
buildings in that vicinity."

"What you don't want to do is create a false sense of security," and think that a system is working when it is
not, he said. "In any disaster, there's no one good way to get ahold of everybody."

Colleges are in fact looking to use as many different methods as possible to get the word out during
emergencies, and not all of them are high-tech. At Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before
committing suicide last spring, officials have installed a siren system on the campus that can blast audio
messages or high-pitched tones in the event of a crisis.

The siren system was developed for the Defense Department and is also used in biomedical facilities to
warn of hazardous spills, said John M. Dorney, manager of business development at Acoustic Technology
Inc., which makes a public early-warning system it says is used by Virginia Tech.
One prerecorded message in the system, Mr. Dorney said, is: "There is a shooter on campus. Seek shelter
immediately."

The technology isn't cheap. It costs $25,000 for each speaker set, and most campuses would want to install
sets at various locations. The systems are high-powered and so can be heard from far away, and they have
two separate connections to the campus network, in case one is knocked out, he said.

About a dozen colleges in the United States have purchased a system, said Mr. Dorney, though he would
name only Virginia Tech and Washington State University.
Like a Tornado Warning




                                                                                                             35
At Northern Illinois, conventional alarms sounded in some campus buildings just after the shooting last
week.

"It was not really clear whether what was meant was 'stay in the building' or 'get out of the building,'" said
Jim Killam, adviser to the university's student newspaper, the Northern Star. He described the sound of the
alarm as the same as ones used in a tornado warning. "It is the most obnoxious sound known to man," he
said.

Mr. Czerniak said that university officials did not trigger any audible alarms. "One of the students, I believe,
pulled a fire alarm on his way out of the building," he said.

Security on Campus, the campus-safety watchdog group that has criticized some institutions as responding
slowly to crises, praised Northern Illinois officials on Friday.

"They obviously were prepared and took lessons from the Virginia Tech tragedy and other incidents that
have occurred since then," said Jonathan Kassa, the group's executive director. The university's multiple
strategies for communication, he said, were particularly commendable.

Sara Lipka contributed to this report.

The Chronicle of Higher Education
College officials contest proposed 30-minute requirement for emergency notification
By SARA LIPKA
Monday, February 18, 2008

Clearwater Beach, Fla. – A proposed requirement that colleges warn students and employees of
emergencies within 30 minutes has yet to become law. But the prospect that it might prompted sharp
rebuke from campus police chiefs and other administrators here over the weekend, at a conference on
higher-education law sponsored by Stetson University.

Many college officials expressed extreme frustration with the proposed 30-minute rule, a provision in
legislation to renew the Higher Education Act that the U.S. House of Representatives passed this month.
As it stands, the measure would require institutions to "notify the campus community in not more than 30
minutes in the event of a significant emergency or dangerous situation." It defines such a situation as "an
immediate threat to the health or safety of students or staff."

The watchdog group Security on Campus lobbied Congress for the 30-minute rule, which is not a limit on
the "timely warning" already required of colleges under federal crime-reporting law, but a new obligation in
the case of a severe crisis. (The law would not change the way colleges report threats less immediate than,
say, an active shooter or an approaching tornado.)

The watchdog group's main concern is that campus bureaucracies result in slow responses. "We don't want
a committee to be deliberating something while lives are being lost," S. Daniel Carter, senior vice president
of Security on Campus, told college officials at a conference session here.

The administrators responded that the time limit was not only impossible to meet but also misguided. The
first priority in a crisis, several police chiefs said, is to be on the scene controlling the situation, not in an
office sending an alert.

Would it really be a good thing for campus safety, asked Dolores A. Stafford, chief of police at George
Washington University, if observers of a crisis could say, "Well, they got the notice out, but they really
screwed up the response"?




                                                                                                                36
"Your institutions give you the resources to do both," said Mr. Carter, to which the room responded with
laughter.

"Are you talking to the same people who are trying to cap our tuition increases?" one participant yelled,
referring to Mr. Carter's conversations with federal lawmakers.

Mr. Carter defended his position by citing Northern Illinois University's response to the shootings on its
campus last week. Officials there sent out an alert within 20 minutes, he said. "Don't say it can't be done."

"We're living in a different world now," Mr. Carter said. Students and parents' expectations of
communication are higher, he argued, and colleges must re-examine old notions of how — and how fast —
they can share information. An initial alert "doesn't have to be perfect," he said. But, he suggested, it has to
be fast.

A quick alert may not be useful if it does not provide students with well-informed advice, said Carey M.
Drayton, executive director and chief of public safety at the University of Southern California. "What do
you tell them in those 30 minutes to do?" he said.

Not all threats are immediately clear, some police chiefs said, doubting whether, in those cases, a warning as
simple as "be alert" would be of any use. Experts debated that question after a graduate student was
murdered near the University of Chicago this past fall (The Chronicle, November 28, 2007).

The proposed 30-minute rule, while setting a strict time limit, leaves some questions unanswered. When
does the clock start — at the first gunshot, or the first 911 call? And what has to happen in that time — a
college's sending of alerts, or all students and staff members' receipt of them? A large public institution that
recently tested its text-message notification system found that it took 50 minutes to transmit alerts to 40,000
people, one participant said.

Whether the 30-minute rule will become law is still unclear. The Senate's version of the bill to renew the
Higher Education Act, which passed last summer, does not set a time limit for colleges to warn their
campuses of emergencies. Instead it says such notification should be "reasonable and timely." In the
coming weeks, a conference committee of legislators from the House and the Senate will meet to hash out
their differences.

After the conference session here, Mr. Carter was willing to entertain some participants' proposed
compromises to the 30-minute rule. For one, they said, let the clock start not at the first report of an
incident, but when authorities have gathered pertinent information about it. And allow reasonable
exceptions to the deadline when a college has demonstrated a good-faith effort to respond, said Jesus M.
Villahermosa Jr., director of campus safety at Pacific Lutheran University and founder of Crisis Reality
Training, which consults with law-enforcement agencies.

Expectations differed on whether the provision, modified or not, would become law. But Mr. Carter was
certain of one thing. Even if it is not in the final version of the bill, he said, "we're not going to let it go
away."

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Colleges must create ‘culture of preparedness,’ campus-safety experts say
By ERIC HOOVER
Monday, February 18, 2008

Clearwater Beach, Fla. – Colleges and universities must empower their students to help prevent violent
incidents on campuses and prepare them to respond during emergencies.




                                                                                                                   37
So said several campus-safety experts here this weekend at the annual National Conference on Law and
Higher Education, sponsored by Stetson University's College of Law and NASPA— Student Affairs
Administrators in Higher Education.

"I can foresee the day when freshman orientation includes a video on the campus emergency-response plan,
as well as training," said Jesus M. Villahermosa, founder of Crisis Reality Training, a consulting business,
and a former director of campus safety at Pacific Lutheran University. "In these incidents, police are not the
first responders—students are."

During discussions of last week's fatal shootings at Northern Illinois University, administrators, lawyers,
and campus law-enforcement officials described students as a key component of campus safety. Mr.
Villahermosa cited a 2002 study of school shootings by the U.S. Secret Service, which found that students
could play an important role in preventing such attacks. In nearly all of the 37 incidents studied, the Secret
Service found that the attacker had told at least one peer about his plans for the shooting but that no one
had alerted an adult.

Mr. Villahermosa urged college officials to consider those findings as they develop their threat-assessment
strategies. "Students will tell you almost anything about another student," he said, "as long as they trust
you."

Increased outreach to students was just one component in creating what some speakers here described as a
"culture of preparedness." Such a culture was absent at Virginia Tech before April's massacre, according to
a review panel's final report on the incident, published last summer. That panel concluded that various
departments had failed to communicate crucial information about Seung-Hui Cho, who shot and killed 32
people.

"If there is one lesson from Virginia Tech," said Charles F. Carletta, general counsel at Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, in New York, "it is that information-sharing about potentially ill people is the critical
link in preventing a major incident."

High-level administrators who do not prepare for such incidents put themselves at risk of "punishing
humiliation"—from the media, the campus, alumni, and courts of law.

The key, speakers here said, was developing threat-assessment teams that are capable of gathering disparate
pieces of information and assembling them. "You can no longer disregard a bomb threat or strange
graffiti," said Regina G. Lawson, chief of university police at Wake Forest University, "and you've got to
have many different players involved."

Although the shootings in Illinois dominated conversations at the conference, some law-enforcement
officials said they perceived that some administrators still cling to the notion that such incidents cannot
happen on their campuses. Ms. Lawson's advice to colleges: Do not just develop emergency-response plans
but also practice them.

"You have to strike while the iron is hot," she said, "which is now."

The Kansas City Star
NIU shootings stir sense of helplessness
By SHARON COHEN
Saturday, February 16, 2008

Bloody students fleeing in terror. Bodies carried out on stretchers. Candlelight vigils and makeshift shrines.
Another campus, another deadly attack with a sickening senselessness that now borders on routine.




                                                                                                              38
Despite a national push to secure schools after the Virginia Tech shootings, the rampage at Northern
Illinois University this week proves a gut-wrenching reality: Unless colleges are willing to turn themselves
into armed camps, they're helpless against these kinds of attacks.

As word of the shootings rippled throughout the country, students and authorities alike reacted with
frustration and - tellingly - resignation.

"I don't think there's anything that could be done," said Brittany Dornack, 21, a sophomore at the
University of Minnesota.

"People do what they feel like they need to do, and I don't think anyone is going to be able to stop them.
People will just have to either learn to live in fear ... or they'll just have to not think about it."

The gunman this time, Steven Kazmierczak, a 27-year-old NIU graduate, opened fire Thursday afternoon in
a lecture hall, killing five students and injuring more than a dozen others in a rapid-fire assault that lasted
just a few minutes. He committed suicide on the stage.

Authorities responded quickly; the first 10 police officers were on the scene in 90 seconds. NIU launched
its emergency alert system - a carefully rehearsed plan developed after Virginia Tech - sending out e-mails
and messages on Web sites to notify students that a possible gunman was on campus and they needed to
find a safe area.

"We had a plan in place," said NIU President John Peters. "We did everything we could to ensure the safety
of this university ... Nothing is perfect, but I believe it did work."

The plan will be reviewed, he said, but it and others like it are response plans, meant to contain the carnage
rather than keep it from happening. As NIU Police Chief Donald Grady said, there is no foolproof way to
prevent this type of tragedy.

"I wish I could tell you that there was a panacea for this kind of a thing, but you've noticed that there's been
multiple shootings all over this country within the past six months," he said. "It's a horrible circumstance,
and as much as we do it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from
beginning."

That sober assessment weighed on the minds of NIU students who piled suitcases and laundry bags into
cars Friday and left the nearly empty, snow-covered campus, apprehensive about their eventual return.

"You're scared to go to school lecture halls and I'm going to be looking over my shoulder and skeptical of
people coming to class late," said Allison Warren, a 20-year-old NIU student. "You kind of think it won't
happen around here. It could happen anywhere. It could happen anywhere and there's no way of really
protecting yourself."

NIU, which is spread over 755 acres, illustrates the difficulty in protecting college campuses that have
scores, or hundreds of buildings. Locking them, installing metal detectors or putting security personnel in
each of them are not considered practical security measures.

The shootings, of course, have renewed questions about the availability of guns - Kazmierczak bought all
four guns legally from the same shop in Champaign, Ill. - and the tricky balance in keeping public places
accessible but safe.

"People ask the question, 'Can you stop it?' That demonstrates the bigger question: 'Can we stop it
anywhere?'" asked Jonathan Kassa, executive director of Security on Campus, a nonprofit group in
Pennsylvania. "College and university campuses are not perfect oases. This is not the ivory tower."
Kassa said NIU's plan appears to have prevented more deaths.



                                                                                                               39
"The lesson to be drawn from this is that it could have been worse if people were not prepared," he said.
"Colleges and university campuses are unique but they must be seen as communities like everything else."

Still, the freer environment of campuses also can pose security risks, said Ron Stephens, director of the
National School Safety Center in California.

"For the most part, college and university campuses are much more wide open to the public," he said.
"There's not a lot of screening done for students. There are probably few institutions that screen ... to see if
someone coming on campus has a troubled or checkered past."

Others pointed out that violence is not limited to college campuses. In the past two weeks, there have been
fatal shootings at a Louisiana vocational college in the urban setting of Baton Rouge, a Missouri city hall
and a clothing chain store in suburban Chicago.

"People go crazy whether it's at a school or at a workplace. ... You can't live your life not going to class,"
said Barbara Coons, a 21-year-old junior at the University of Pennsylvania.

That may be harder to say on campus ripped raw by violence.

"My dad was saying last year, 'I'm really glad you go to Northern where stuff like that doesn't happen,'" said
Bryce Lack, a 19-year-old NIU student, referring to the Virginia Tech massacre. "You look at everybody
differently now."

Desiree Smith was in the geology class when Kazmierczak opened fire. She dropped to the floor as he
squeezed off shots, grabbing another terrified student's leg as a show of support.

She crawled first, then got up and ran for her life.

She doesn't care how common such shootings have become - they make no sense to her.

"I don't understand why you'd want to go to a random place and hurt random people you've never met,"
she said. ... "I really hate it. I wish we could figure out how to solve this problem because it makes me sick."

Associated Press writer Elizabeth Dunbar in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

The Chronicle of Higher Education
University leaders grapple with a tragedy
By LIBBY SANDER
Monday, February 18, 2008

DeKalb, Ill. – At even the best-prepared universities, there is no playbook for handling the crush of tough
decisions that comes after a mass shooting rocks an otherwise quiet campus.

The police tape eventually comes down. But the decisions remain, often with few guideposts.
The key, said John G. Peters, president of Northern Illinois University, is to keep focused on the basics.

"The world wants answers to questions, and answers are always slow in coming, and confusing," Mr. Peters
said in an interview with The Chronicle Sunday afternoon in his office. Dressed in gray slacks and a black
sweater, with a red and black ribbon pinned to the shoulder, and his eyes red from fatigue, Mr. Peters talked
about his university's response to the fatal rampage last week.

The castlelike building that houses the president's office was the scene of a media frenzy after Steven P.
Kazmierczak, a former Northern Illinois student, burst into a crowded lecture hall and opened fire on a




                                                                                                                 40
class of 140 or so students. He shot 21 people, killing five, before turning the gun on himself. The
investigation is ongoing, and the police have yet to find a motive.

In interviews this weekend, Mr. Peters, faculty members, and administrators said their university was as
well-prepared as it could have been for the crisis that unfolded here last week, on a campus tucked amid
cornfields an hour west of Chicago. But even the best-laid plans don't cover everything, they acknowledged.

"One of the things I've realized is that not having an answer is not an option," said Brian O. Hemphill, vice
president for student affairs. "We're talking about people's lives, and them being able to move forward from
this point."

Managing a Crisis

Mr. Hemphill's office was bustling on Sunday morning, where a dozen or so volunteers answered phones
and handled random assignments. Almost everyone wore NIU sweatshirts or pins.

One volunteer sat at a table gluing together strips of red and black ribbon—Huskie red and black—to make
pins. But even that small task involved an unanticipated obstacle: "It's hard to find red and black ribbon in
town right now," she said.

It was just a tiny piece of a larger challenge university officials have faced in the days following the
shootings. For them, the aftermath has often boiled down to one thing: Details.

"The details are very important," Mr. Hemphill said. Those include contacting all of the students who were
in Cole Hall at the time of the shooting and finding accommodations for the dozens of counselors who
arrived late Thursday and Friday from nearby institutions. Campus leaders have also struggled over the kind
of language the university president should use when referring to the gunman—"evil" or "disturbed"? (He
settled on "disturbed.") And they also had to decide which university officials would attend which funerals,
as all five for Mr. Kazmierczak's victims are scheduled for this week.

The logistics can be overwhelming, officials said.

A scholarship fund was quickly created for the flood of donations from well-wishers. Classes held in Cole
Hall, a large academic building that will remain closed for the rest of the year, must be reassigned to other
locations. Belongings left behind in the lecture hall by fleeing students were returned to their owners. And
some funeral services were made and paid for using the death benefits from a university insurance policy.

"You shift into autopilot," said Melanie Magara, the university's chief spokesperson, who has fielded
inquiries from hundreds of news organizations from around the world. Decisions that seem so basic take
on great significance, she said.

"The majority of these details have been very mundane, and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way," she
said. "It is day-to-day, routine, detailed stuff. The huge amount of work, and much of it mundane, has been,
in a way, healing and therapeutic."

A Teaching Moment

Administrators are not the only ones scrambling to prepare the campus for the return of students next
week. Faculty members, who have been asked to return to work on Tuesday to receive three days of
training from counselors, are also concentrating on the details.

E. Taylor Atkins, the director of undergraduate studies in the history department, said he hoped to use the
tragedy as a teaching tool. Unlike some other disciplines, history offers lessons in human behavior, he said,




                                                                                                            41
and he hoped that by studying past calamities he might help his students come to grips with their new
reality.

It was an approach he took in class following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and he intended to use
it again later this month.

"We should look at this as an opportunity to put our historical knowledge to some really good use," said
Mr. Atkins, an associate professor. "It could help our students to put this incident in a longer perspective."

In the English department, one associate professor, Michael Day, said he anticipated having to manage a
broad spectrum of reactions from students when they returned.

"We will want to work on the balance between acknowledging some students' fears and emotions, and
other students' need to get on with their studies," Mr. Day said in an e-mail message.

Comfort Amid Chaos

If there is one institution familiar with all the questions Northern Illinois officials face, it is Virginia Tech,
where last April a gunman fatally shot 32 people before killing himself.

John Cleary, the men's golf coach at Northern Illinois, was having dinner with four members of his team
Saturday night at the home of Tim McMurray, a senior associate athletic director, when he received a
telephone call.

It was from the golf coach at Virginia Tech, who said that golfers there had decided to change the hats they
planned to wear during competition this spring. The new hats, the coach said, would feature a joint logo of
the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Northern Illinois Huskies.

Mr. Hemphill, in student affairs, said he was on the telephone late Thursday night, just hours after the
shootings, talking to his counterpart at Virginia Tech.

And the head of Virginia Tech's counseling services will lead the training workshops next week for faculty
members here.

"Virginia Tech has been with us," Mr. Peters said.

Other universities have reached out as well. On Saturday evening, Ms. Magara opened a large package to
find a boxful of potato chips, cookies, gum, and Pop-Tarts, as well as bandages and a toothbrush. It was
from the public-relations department at the University of Alabama, and included a handwritten card signed
by all members of that department.

"These are complete strangers," she said. "How sweet."

What's Next?

In the blur of the past several days, administrators and faculty members said it was difficult to predict where
the coming weeks and months would lead them.

Mr. Peters said the incident on his campus was just the latest in a string of events in recent years that have
tested the mettle of the academy.

"We've always had tragedies," he said, referring to colleges and universities around the country. "But what
has happened to us in the past few years is fundamentally changing the way we view things. We must think
about security at all times. And it's hard for us."



                                                                                                                 42
But, he continued, "We do it, and I think our campuses are doing it very well with infrastructures that are
open. That's the way we build campuses: Our buildings are as open as our discourse. And now we are
obviously, for safety purposes and security, rethinking that."

Northern Illinois's fast response to the shooting has been widely praised, but Mr. Peters said that at some
point in the coming months, he and his staff would "systematically" look at how the events unfolded.

"We have to sift through the results of this and make changes where necessary," he said. "It's a little hard to
say we could have reacted any better."

Although he has hardly had time to take stock of everything that has happened over the past few days, Mr.
Peters already had some advice for his peers: "Be serious about planning. Take advantage of the lessons
learned from Virginia Tech and NIU."

But when asked what the lessons from NIU were, he paused. His face wore a sad grin.
"I'm not sure yet," he said.




                                                                                                              43
Columbia Daily Tribune
MU: Reactor audit doesn’t apply here
Spokesman cites extensive security.
By ABRAHAM MAHSHIE
Friday, February 15, 2008

The security of nuclear research reactors is under question after a federal government audit released
this week, but the University of Missouri says its reactor is among the most secure in the country since
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Ned Woodward, one of the authors of the U.S. Government Accountability Office audit, told the
Tribune this morning that the study was meant to determine whether Nuclear Regulatory Commission
standards for research reactors should be changed.

The NRC approves the licenses for 33 nuclear research reactors, 26 of which are on college campuses.
MU’s reactor, the largest in the country, was not visited for the study.

Woodward said the NRC recently did a self-assessment to affirm its standards governing research
reactor safety were sufficient. Woodward said, based on the GAO study, the NRC self-assessment
"had a number of weaknesses."

"We think the assessment ... did not include the possibilities of what a well-trained terrorist attacking
force with some understanding of reactors might be able to do," Woodward said, adding that the study
did not review the security at specific locations, but targeted the NRC self-assessment.

MU spokesman Christian Basi said $100,000 in upgrades financed by a Department of Homeland
Security grant in 2003 include further limiting access to the facility, additional security cameras,
enhanced searches of vehicles and packages, additional concrete and fence barriers and improved
coordination with emergency responders.

"We really feel that the reactor is very, very safe, and we are doing everything we can to maintain that
safety, including reviewing that plan on a constant basis and continuing to make upgrades," Basi said.

Sudarshan Loyalka, a nuclear engineering professor at MU, said the MU Research Reactor, or MURR,
is a 10 megawatt thermal reactor and is about 300 times less powerful than the Callaway Nuclear Plant
southeast of Fulton. Nonetheless, he said, a direct explosive attack on the nuclear reactor’s core or fuel
could release radiation as the fuel melts, vaporizes and disperses in the air.

"It’s very unlikely, really," Loyalka said. "The fuel itself would not explode. It’s the explosive that
would cause the damage."

Woodward added that MU’s reactor uses highly enriched uranium, which could be used to make an
improvised nuclear device. The Department of Energy is developing a new low-enriched uranium
substitute to be in place at five nuclear reactors, including MU’s, by 2012.

Mike Cleary, communications executive with AmerenUE, which operates the Callaway plant, said it
underwent about $20 million in security upgrades since Sept. 11 to meet stricter federal standards.

"We have a defensive plan that we have put into place and practiced in drills and exercises," Clearly
said. He said high-tech surveillance, increased patrols, manpower and extending the perimeter of
vehicle barriers were part of an industry-wide $1.5 billion security overhaul.



                                                                                                          44
Cleary said as part of its regular training exercises, Callaway conducted a simulated terrorist attack with
the FBI in March of 2006. It was the first nuclear plant in the country to conduct such a test as part of
its routine emergency exercises.

Capt. Brian Weimer of the MUPD said the department conducts at least one practice exercise per year
at MU’s reactor, though there is not a 24-hour police presence on the site. He added that there have
been no break-ins at the reactor.

The NRC strongly disagreed with the GAO report, Woodward said, but Congress might choose to
take up the issue in committee hearings.

Basi insisted the criticism outlined in the GAO report does not pertain to MU, explaining that security
specialists from Sandia National Laboratories inspected and approved MU’s security standards in 2004
and 2005. The GAO report cites Sandia assessments as a source of some of the criticism of university
reactors.

"We feel there are several issues in the report that we have already addressed," Basi said, "and we go
above and beyond."




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Columbia Daily Tribune
County gives lab $1.55 million tax break
By SARA SEMELKA
Friday, February 15, 2008

The Boone County Commission yesterday passed a resolution to give ABC Labs Inc. a $1.55 million
break on its property taxes over the next 10 years on its new 90,000-square-foot facility in Discovery
Ridge. The concession is part of an effort to keep and attract manufacturing businesses.

Using a tax incentive known as the Chapter 100 policy, the county issued revenue bonds that would
allow the company to finance up to $15 million in equipment and real property. Because the agreement
means the county effectively owns the property and is leasing it back to ABC Labs, it is technically
exempt from taxes. ABC Labs will pay 50 percent of what it would have paid in taxes to taxing entities
in the county for 10 years.

The company will pay its full share of the county’s commercial property surtax, which is 61 cents per
every $100 of assessed valuation.

Estimated revenue to the county after the real estate and personal property tax abatement over the
next 10 years, assuming current tax levies, will be about $1.55 million, according to a cost-benefit
analysis created by Regional Economic Development Inc., or REDI.

Affected taxing entities include Columbia Public Schools, Boone County, Boone County Family
Resources, the Boone County Library District and the city of Columbia.

Representatives of the entities approved the project in June 2006, according to a memo from David
Meyer, marketing director for REDI.

The expanded laboratory facility is located at the Discovery Ridge research park owned by the
University of Missouri. MU is tax-exempt, so the property itself produces no revenues.

Boone County Southern District Commissioner Karen Miller said the absence of incentives has
spurred companies looking to expand to pass over Boone County and Columbia.

"We’re losing opportunities," Miller said. "Businesses that come to Boone County inquire and mark us
off when we say we have no incentives. They don’t give us a look, they don’t get into the community.
… There are other places making things happen and doing it quickly."

Miller said checks are built into the agreement. For instance, ABC Labs must create and maintain 50
new jobs beyond its original projections over the 10-year period to receive the full tax break. The jobs
must be of median salary according to community standards and must provide health insurance.

"We are not giving breaks to businesses that are not creating jobs that support families," Miller said.
REDI’s memo said the company projects the new facility would create 250 jobs.

Scott Ward, general manager of ABC Labs, said yesterday during the county commission meeting that
the facility should be completed in mid-March and that the process of moving in would begin in April.
Because of the complicated and fragile experiments and equipment, the move likely will not be
complete until the end of August, Ward said.




                                                                                                          46
Miller and Meyer agreed incentives such as the Chapter 100 policy are becoming necessary as the
global economy forces branches within the same company to compete with each other for expansion
opportunities. This tax benefit can make a particular branch stand out, Meyer said.

This county’s first Chapter 100 abatement, however, benefits Columbia-based ABC Labs, which was
founded here in 1968.

Miller said harnessing an expansion such as ABC Labs will enable Columbia and Boone County to
attract even more large companies.

"ABC Labs is a real jewel, spurring other businesses to look at Boone County that aren’t in our
community today," she said. "To piggy-back off of what ABC provides, that’s where you really
benefit."




                                                                                                  47
Columbia Missourian
Group hopes to unshelve history
By RACHEL HEATON
Sunday, February 17, 2008

COLUMBIA — Hidden in the State Historical Society of Missouri is a world that visitors never see.

A crowded storage room adjacent to the art gallery is full to the brim with art stacked on ceiling-high
wooden shelves in slim black cases. Prints of works by John James Audubon, 200 drawings by Thomas
Hart Benton, thousands of editorial cartoons and a larger than life painting by Benton make up a
handful of the works. The room is also a space for framing and planning new exhibits: There’s a scale
model of the gallery on a table with the plan for an exhibit of Benton drawings from the 1930s. Room
to move, to put it lightly, is limited.

In the small annex of MU’s Ellis Library, the society’s current home, there is simply no space to display
all this art. If growth continues at the current rate, there won’t even be space to store it.

“We have enough space that we can continue to acquire art for a few more years,” Joan Stack, art
curator, said. “But it’s time to move on to a facility where we could have room to continue to grow.”

One sentence in Gov. Matt Blunt’s proposed 2009 budget, if approved, would give the society that
opportunity. Blunt proposes $600,000 for planning and development of a new building for the society.
It’s one sentence, but its impact would be huge.

To Gary Kremer, the society’s executive director, it means being able to hire a consultant to begin
basic designs for a new building.

To Stack, it means a chance to make the gallery the society’s main attraction.

To Seth Smith, a reference specialist in the newspaper library, it means the prospect of enough space
to store microfilm of newspapers that date back as far as two centuries.

But legislators first must approve Blunt’s proposal.

Kremer said the outlook is good. He’s been working with lawmakers regularly to ensure the $600,000
remains in the budget when it’s approved later this session.

“We have support at the leadership level of the legislature, but we’re certainly monitoring it,” Kremer
said.

Society staff have already completed a wish list of sorts. Associate Director Lynn Wolf Gentzler said
each department put together a preliminary estimate of the space it will need.

By initial estimates, the society’s new building would be 172,989 square feet, about 140,000 feet larger
than its current home.

Katie Essing, the general manager of Columbia Mall, said a building that size would be comparable to
combining Columbia’s JC Penney and Sears.

“It took four to six weeks of people doing measuring and thinking about the direction their
departments were moving,” Gentzler said. “It’s hard to know.”



                                                                                                        48
What society workers do know is that $600,000 would open a wealth of possibilities.

Possibility One:

More Storage Space

Currently, about 1 percent of the society’s art collection is on display. The rest, including four Benton
paintings, is crammed in the storage room. Stack wants separate rooms for planning exhibits, preparing
art for display and preserving the collection.

“I worked at the Museum of Art and Archaeology, and they have an area for preparation and
conservation alone that is as big as (the society’s storage room),” Stack said. “They have an area for
carpentry, too. It’s all separate from storage.”

Stack said storage space also is too limited now, which is not surprising as art occupies every available
nook and cranny.

Smith, the newspaper specialist, said he also needs more space to store 200 years worth of newspaper
microfilm. In the library, 54,000 reels of microfilm are stored in metal cabinets. Most are arranged by
newspaper and date of publication, but limited space causes cabinets to overflow and destroys the
filing system.

There is also little to no room for growth. The library subscribes to 300 daily and weekly Missouri
newspapers, Smith said. The staff converts these to microfilm every two years. Last year, it produced
590 new reels and somehow found the space to file them with the older reels. Along with storage,
Smith said more work space is needed for tasks such as preparing newspapers for microfilm.

“This space crunch has been happening for at least a decade,” Smith said. “We’ll need about two or
two and half times more storage space.”

Possibility Two:

More Welcoming Space

A new building also would alleviate patrons’ frustrations. Regular visitors complain that recommended
parking lots are blocks away from the society and require them to put money in parking meters.

“If we had a parking lot, I think attendance would shoot up,” Smith said.

Society staff members think attendance would increase if a large welcoming station and lobby were
incorporated into the new building plan.

“One main lobby would give the society greater presence,” the society’s expansion prospectus says. “A
centralized main lobby of adequate size could also be used for traveling exhibitions, receptions and
fundraising events.”

The newspaper library staff also hopes to create better reading space for patrons, rather than cramming
30 microfilm readers into the over-illuminated room full of cabinets.

“Ideally, we’d have much less lighting in the reading room,” reference specialist Lauren Leeman said.
“We’d have footlights and lamps next to the microfilm readers, but not the overhead lighting we have
now.”


                                                                                                         49
Stack’s hopes are centered on a larger gallery in a more prominent location of the museum.

“The way it is now you have to walk all the way down the hallway,” she said. “Some people may not
know the gallery exists.”

Stack said she would like a place to display some of the society’s permanent collection, particularly its
works by Benton and George Caleb Bingham, as well as space for smaller galleries that would have
rotating exhibits from the permanent collection and traveling exhibitions.

“We would like higher ceilings and space that shows off the art,” Stack said. “The idea is that the art
gallery would be the public face of the society. It would be what attracts people.”

Possibility Three:

More Prominent Space

Staff members hope the move would mean a more prominent position in the city of Columbia. A
downtown vision produced by Sasaki Associates for the city, MU and Stephens College mentions the
MU parking lot at Seventh and Elm streets as a prime location that would strengthen the link between
MU and downtown.

Stack said a new location would give the society the ability to reach more people, giving more patrons
a better idea of Missouri’s history.

“A lot of people don’t realize how much art can tell you about history,” Stack said. “We have a lot of
interesting art that can bring history alive.”

Smith said he looks forward to showcasing the newspaper library’s collection through greater visibility.

“It’s great to see how people were writing at that time, what they were thinking,” Smith said. “It’s a
gem. It’s one of the great newspaper collections of the world in terms of completeness.”

Kremer recognizes that the $600,000 Blunt suggests would represent only the beginning of an eventual
relocation. After the consultant’s estimate, there would still be plans to draw, models to make and
ground to break.

“It’s still years before a move into a new building,” Kremer said, “but we’re closer than ever.”




                                                                                                          50
Columbia Missourian
Biochemistry department finds a single home
By BURK KROHE
Monday, February 18, 2008

COLUMBIA — The MU biochemistry department has been scattered around campus for more than
30 years because it is jointly affiliated with the medical school and the agricultural school. After years
of straddling two ends of campus, it has finally found a home in one building.

More than a year after work began, MU officials gathered Monday morning to mark completion of the
new biochemistry complex.

The $10 million, 26,000-square-foot addition to Schweitzer Hall has seven new laboratories spread
throughout three floors and 19 renovated laboratories. The addition also includes a bridge to the
Schlundt Annex.

The complex was funded by MU through a joint effort headed by Gerald Hazelbauer, chair of the MU
department of biochemistry; William Crist, dean of the MU School of Medicine; and Thomas Payne,
dean of the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. It will be used for research
purposes, specifically to help support research on life-threatening diseases.

“As we tour this new building, it’s important for us to remember that it was constructed to support
researchers focused on improving treatment for patients with diseases including cancer, cardiovascular
disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other major illnesses so common in our population,” Crist said.

The centerpiece of the addition is a facility on the ground level that houses a $2.3-million 800
megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. The instrument, described as a MRI machine for
molecules, is one of a few in the country and the only one in Missouri.

Marc Linit, associate dean of the MU College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, said he
hopes the new instrument will help attract new faculty to the campus.

MU’s department of biochemistry is nationally recognized and has an undergraduate program with
about 300 students, making it one of the largest undergraduate programs in the College of Agriculture,
Food and Natural Resources.

“The department’s external funding now ranks amongst the top ten biochemistry departments in
public universities,” Crist said.

The biochemistry department was started about 35 years ago and has been has been jointly affiliated
with medical school and agriculture school since the beginning. The dual affiliation was a great benefit
to the program but having two locations on opposite ends of the campus was a problem, Hazelbauer
said.

He said having the department under one roof will make the program “even more successful.”




                                                                                                         51
Columbia Missourian
Smart carpet senses falls
By VANNAH SHAW
Wednesday, February 20, 2008

COLUMBIA — It is not uncommon to feel light-headed after standing up too quickly to grab a
ringing phone across the room; the normal reaction is to regain composure and go answer the phone.

For some seniors, a situation like this could result in a fall, which can lead to broken bones or other
injuries. Falls are the leading cause of injury death for older citizens, according to the Centers for
Disease Control.

An MU professor is working on a monitoring system that could alert health professionals sooner when
a fall occurs. The system, called “smart carpet,” is designed to help electronically monitor the location
of seniors and alert a computer or other system in the event of a fall.

Harry Tyrer, professor of electrical and computer engineering at MU, received a $200,000 grant from
the Alzheimer’s Association for the development of the carpet. The project uses electronic devices,
which are a little smaller than the head of a pencil eraser, and spread across a sheet of fabric. The
project uses a sensor printed on flexible, thin sheets with an organic ink.

Tyrer got the idea for the carpet after seeing electronic sensors developed by Annalisa Bonfiglio, an
electrical engineer from Italy.

Tyrer hopes to expand the censors to hardwood floors. Touch-sensitive floor monitors already exist,
but Tyrer said they use vibrating signals that don’t exclusively define falls.

The study to assist senior living is part of a partnership between the School of Nursing and the School
of Engineering known as Eldertech. It is under The Center for Eldercare and Rehabilitation
Technology, a group of faculty, staff and students from many disciplines devoted to furthering
technology for older adults.

Eventually, researchers hope to market the carpet to elderly people who live alone. But first the device
will be tested at Tiger Place and The Bluffs senior residences.

“We are interested in understanding the needs of the people,” said Marjorie Skubic, an associate
professor of electric and computer engineering who is president of Eldertech.

Myra Aud, associate professor in the nursing school, is working with Tyrer to develop the technology.

Aud said the importance of this new technology is that it can reduce damage to people who are not
helped in a timely fashion after falling.

There have been stories of seniors who have fallen and not been helped for hours or even days, she
said. Both Tyrer and Aud say the significance of the “smart carpet” is that it provides care for seniors
without being invasive.

“They don’t want to be watched any more than you want to be watched,” Tyrer said.




                                                                                                          52
Columbia Daily Tribune
Research seeks roots of autism
Project takes aim at genetic markers.
By T.J. GREANEY
Sunday, February 17, 2008

Like many parents, when Myles and Lora Hinkel discovered that son Blake had autism, they hoped for
answers.

Unfortunately, they learned that answers about autism are tough to find.

No one in either of the parents’ extended families had the disorder or any other severe learning
disability. As for the possibility of environmental causes, the parents have heard many things, including
mercury used in the measles and mumps vaccine, could have been a trigger.

To combat the effects of autism, doctors have recommended eliminating wheat and corn from the diet
of Blake, now 5, and giving him B-12 shots to boost his immune system and help with language
development.

"I like to tell people Blake is the hardest-working person I know," Myles Hinkel said of his son’s
regimented diet and 40 hours per week of behavioral therapy.

Autism affects about one of every 150 children in the United States, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. It has very clear characteristics - limited ability to communicate and
impaired social skills - but its roots remain a mystery.

That’s where new research comes in at the Thompson Center for Autism on the University of
Missouri campus. The center announced last week it will receive a $1.6 million grant to take DNA
samples of children who, like Blake, are an only child in an extended family exhibiting signs of autism.

Over the next two years, MU will be one of 13 schools around the country funded by The Simons
Foundation to collect DNA samples from 3,000 families fitting that description. MU will be asked to
find and test 100 families a year from Missouri and surrounding states. Children must be between 5
and 17.

"We’re really looking for kids who just kind of out of a clear-blue sky have autism," said Judith Miles,
principal investigator for the project at the Thompson Center.

Miles said past research has mostly focused on families with multiple autistic children, and the research
has been inconclusive probably because in those cases, several genes work together to cause the
disorder. She hopes the new research can highlight DNA mutations or deletions that are strong
enough to cause autism on their own.

These days, she said, researchers understand autism as a number of different disorders under one big
umbrella.

"Autism is a spectrum disorder. It’s not one disorder; it’s a spectrum with a lot of different causes.
There are up to 100 specific genes or chromosome deletions or duplications associated with autism.
Some are pretty rare, but we’re looking for the ones that are more common," Miles said




                                                                                                         53
This type of genetic research has only become possible in recent years. After the federally funded
Human Genome Project successfully mapped more than 20,000 genes in a human being in 2003, the
cost of doing genetic research significantly fell.

Local researchers will do a simpler version of the genome sequencing called micro-array testing that
examines about 5,000 pieces of DNA to determine whether nucleotides - the DNA building blocks -
are in the correct order.

The hope is that this massive database of information will help to identify persistent mutations that
crop up in multiple patients. It won’t be clear cut, Miles said.

"We’re looking for the genes where we can then say, ‘Aha, we can mess around with that. We can
modulate that to come up with a treatment,’ " she said.

For families such as the Hinkels, the new information can’t come soon enough. They realize that
unlocking autism might be far off but feel if more is known about "subgroups" of population with
autism, treatment could be specialized.

"It kind of puts the onus on the parents to drive the treatment plan. Physicians can recommend things,
but everything is so new there’s no set treatment," Myles Hinkel said. "They’re beginning to come up
with some best practices, but they still can’t say for certain, ‘Oh, OK. He falls into this subgroup, so
this works best.’ "

Hinkel said he sees a world of difference between his son and other autistic children. Blake loves to
give big bear hugs and bounce up and down on a rubber ball. Some autistic children can hardly stand
to be touched and scream at small pressures. Traits vary so much across the autism spectrum that it’s
hard to imagine one disorder can be the source of various manifestations.

And what, genetically, causes autism in so many children still is a puzzle.

"That’s kind of the million-dollar question," Myles Hinkel said. "I think we’re just hitting the tip of the
iceberg from the genetic angle."




                                                                                                        54
Columbia Missourian
MU to offer winemaking curriculum in fall
By BURK KROHE
Sunday, February 17, 2008

COLUMBIA — The wine industry is growing in Missouri. This fall, MU will offer a food science
degree with an emphasis in enology and a plant science degree with an emphasis in viticulture.

Enology is the science and study of wine and winemaking and viticulture is the science and study of
grape cultivation.

Courses will be phased into the fall 2008 semester, but right now there is only one enology course
offered at MU.

“Essentially, at this point we only have one course on the books, Food Sciences 2195: Grapes and
Wines of the World,” said Ingolf Gruen, associate professor of food sciences at MU.

Gruen has taught that class in the past and said it is a very popular course. Many students wanted to
learn more about wine and winemaking but no additional curriculum was offered, he said.

The details of the program have not yet been decided but there are some courses in mind. There will
likely be courses on wine production, cellar operation and wine merchandising. A course in enology
for freshmen will likely be offered, too.

It will be one of few such programs in the country and the only one in the Midwest.

“The unique feature of the program will be the vineyard-to-table aspect,” said Keith Striegler, director
of the Institute for Continental Climate Viticulture and Enology and associate professor of food
sciences at MU. Students will not only learn how to raise grapes and make wine, but they will also learn
the business side of running a winery.

“What we’re looking at is integrated wine education, Striegler said.”

There are also tentative plans for an Institute for Continental Climate Viticulture and Enology building
on campus and a vineyard close to campus for students’ lab work.

The program stemmed from a demand from the growing wine industry as well as from students. “The
industry has a need for food science students with specific knowledge in viticulture and enology,”
Gruen said.

The wine industry in Missouri has shown significant growth in recent years. The state has grown from
50 wineries to 70 in the last five years, according to a report by the Missouri Wine and Grape Board.

“The wine industry in Missouri has steadily increased,” said Jim Anderson, the executive director of
the Missouri Wine Board. “Since I started here 10 years ago, it’s more than doubled.”

Anderson said the total estimated economic value of wine and grapes on the Missouri economy in
2007 was more than $700 million, about a 9 percent increase from $640,000 million in 2005. Missouri
wineries sold 295,000 crates of wine in 2005, and in 2007 they sold an estimated 352,000 cases,
according to the report.




                                                                                                        55
Part of this growth is due to wine- and grape-related tourism. In 2005 the state received 758,000 wine-
related tourists and in 2007 the state received an estimated 812,000 wine-related tourists, according to
the report. Anderson said agri-tourism will be key in overall tourism in Missouri. He also said that
wineries are an economic development tool for more rural areas by creating jobs and bringing in other
industries to the area.

The hope is that an enology and viticulture program at MU will continue to fuel the growing wine
market in Missouri by providing individuals with specialized knowledge of the region. “The wine
industry is investing in the fact that programs at MU will help the industry grow,” Striegler said.

MU’s program aims to benefit smaller wineries in Missouri as well. Anderson said that smaller wineries
cannot afford to go abroad and hire enology and viticulure experts, so a local labor force is essential in
helping them grow.

“The more local people trained, the better it is for them,” he said.

MU’s program also aims to create a regional identity for Missouri wines.

“The strategy in Missouri is to develop a regional identity in the face of a global economy,” Striegler
said.

Anderson thinks in the past people would associate France and Italy, and more recently California,
with wine but that could change in the future. “I think, hopefully, in the next five to ten years we can
get people to think of Missouri wines.”




                                                                                                          56
Columbia Daily Tribune
MU teaching assistant sentenced for stealing
Thursday, February 21, 2008

A former teaching assistant at the University of Missouri has pleaded guilty to stealing laptop
computers from the school’s German department and selling them to Columbia pawn shops.

Police say Marina D. Somers, 28, of 3504 Oakland Gravel Road, stole 16 laptop computers from the
university and tried to pawn them at Family Pawn, 2416 Paris Road, and Tiger Pawn, 1209 Business
Loop 70 E. An online pawn shop database was used to find Somers, police said.

She pleaded guilty Tuesday to causing the loss or theft of more than $100,000 from an institution, a
class B felony, and forgery, a class C felony.

Somers, who told Boone County Circuit Judge Kevin Crane she used to have a drug problem, was
sentenced to a three-year suspended sentence and five years’ supervised probation.

Columbia Missourian
Former MU teaching assistant sentenced for stealing computers
By SEAN SPOSITO
Thursday, February 21, 2008

COLUMBIA — A former MU teaching student who stole 16 computers from the university in
October was sentenced to probation Tuesday.

Marina D. Somers, 27, of 115 West Blvd., attempted to pawn the stolen computers at Family Pawn,
2416 Paris Road, and Tiger Pawn, 1209 Business Loop 70 E., police said. She was arrested after
investigators received records of three of the stolen computers from an online pawn shop database,
Leads Online.

Somers, who taught elementary German, pleaded guilty to forgery and causing loss to or theft of over
$100,000 in December, according to online court records.

She was sentenced to five years supervised probation and a suspended sentence of three years,
according to court documents.




                                                                                                       57
The Kansas City Star
Former Mizzou star running back runs for Congress
By CHRIS BLANK
Saturday, February 16, 2008

HERMANN, Mo. | The Republican race to replace Kenny Hulshof in Congress is taking shape as a former
University of Missouri football player has joined the campaign and two lawmakers say they are closer to
deciding whether to run.

Brock Olivo, a star running back whose college jersey number is retired, told a crowd of about 200 at a
Gasconade County Republican Party dinner on Friday that he wants to go to Congress.

"Put the ball in my hands. I want to be the citizen's politician," he said.

He told reporters he was still working out a platform but has always been a hard worker with a passion for
American government.

Olivo, who grew up in Hermann, played four years in the National Football League for the Detroit Lions,
getting seven rushing yards and 12 tackles. He then moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked for the
National Italian American Foundation, and has also lived in Italy.

"Not only was I football player, but I also was in social studies class, and I have a passion for how this
country works," Olivo said.

Watching the announcement were Reps. Danie Moore, of Fulton, and Bob Onder, of Lake St. Louis, who
each said they're also nearing a decision.

Hulshof is not seeking re-election because he is running for governor. The vast 9th congressional district
stretches across northeastern Missouri and the western St. Louis suburbs south to the Lake of the Ozarks.

Moore, who is term-limited, said in an interview with The Associated Press that she is just about finished
setting up the organization needed for a run. But she would not say definitively that she plans to seek the
Republican nomination.

"I'm putting together a team," Moore said. "I want to be the trusted voice of the 9th district, but I'm still
managing ... putting together a campaign is quite a job, and I want to make sure I have all my ducks in a
row."

Onder plans to soon begin a districtwide tour to visit some of the larger cities in the district, including
Columbia, Hannibal and Kirksville.

"I will spend every available minute that I'm not in session talking to party leaders and community leaders,"
he said.

The Democratic side also remains muddled.

Steve Gaw, a former House speaker and Public Service Commission member from Moberly, has
announced he is running. Marion County Presiding Commissioner Lyndon Bode has, too. And Rep. Judy
Baker, of Columbia, started fundraising before Hulshof's announcement.




                                                                                                                58
Columbia Daily Tribune
Charges filed over bar fracas
Horton, Hannah accused of assault.
By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER
Saturday, February 16, 2008

Missouri guard Jason Horton and his former teammate, Stefhon Hannah, were charged with third-degree
assault yesterday in connection with a January fight at a nightclub.

Boone County prosecutors charged each with third-degree misdemeanor assault for allegedly scuffling with
two employees of the Nikai Mediterranean Grill. The fight left Hannah who was kicked off the team
Tuesday for missing two weeks of classes after the incident - with a broken jaw.

A probable cause statement provided to The Associated Press sheds additional light on the Jan. 27 incident,
which led to a two-game suspension for Horton and forward Darryl Butterfield and one-game suspensions
for forwards Leo Lyons and Marshall Brown. The three forwards were suspended for violating curfew.

According to the statement, Hannah confronted an unnamed restaurant employee over what he considered
poor service around 1 a.m., hours after the team returned from its first road victory of the season at
Colorado.

The employee told police and prosecutors that Hannah then pushed him from behind while the worker was
locking the door at closing time. Horton then approached the pair as if to break up the disagreement, but
before he could intervene, Hannah punched the employee in the face.

The employee then grabbed Hannah by the shirt collar "and pulled himself into Hannah so as not to be
struck again," the statement reads. At that point, Horton hit the employee on the right side of his neck,
above the shoulder.

The employee said he held onto Hannah while avoiding additional punches thrown by Horton. The two fell
to the floor. An unnamed co-worker then came to the employee’s assistance. The co-worker said he
punched Hannah only after the player attempted to hit him.

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Richard Hicks said he didn’t file criminal charges against the employee who
broke Hannah’s jaw because the man was defending his co-worker, who suffered a cut near his eye and
scrapes on his elbow from the fall.

Neither Horton nor Hannah could be reached for comment late yesterday. An MU basketball spokesman
said that the prosecutor’s decision will likely not affect Horton’s status with the team.

"The situation has been dealt with, and we have moved on," spokesman Dave Reiter said.

The restaurant altercation is the latest in a series of off-court incidents involving Missouri players since
coach Mike Anderson was hired less than two years ago.

Butterfield was suspended at the start of the season for one exhibition game after an arrest for punching a
former girlfriend. He pleaded guilty and received a suspended sentence and six months’ probation when the
charge was downgraded to peace disturbance.

DeMarre Carroll, Anderson’s nephew, was shot in the ankle outside a downtown club while trying to break
up a fight. Mike Anderson Jr., the coach’s son and a backup guard, was arrested for a DUI last year and
suspended for a game.




                                                                                                               59
And Kalen Grimes, the school’s leading rebounder and starting center last season, was dismissed from the
team after being arrested for hitting a man in the face with the butt of a shotgun in July in St. Louis.

The Kansas City Star
Missouri guards charged with third-degree assault
By MIKE DEARMOND
Saturday, February 16, 2008

Missouri guards Jason Horton and Stefhon Hannah were charged Friday with third-degree assault with
bodily harm stemming from a Jan. 27 fight outside the Athena Night Club in Columbia.

Horton’s misdemeanor charge was listed for the first time Friday on the Missouri courts Web site. The
Associated Press confirmed with the Boone County court record’s office that Hannah was charged with the
same misdemeanor offense.

Hannah, whose jaw was broken in the nightclub incident, was dismissed Tuesday from the MU basketball
team by coach Mike Anderson for lack of commitment to academics.

A probable-cause statement provided to the Associated Press provides additional details on the incident.

What follows is according to that statement:

Hannah, over what he considered poor service, confronted an unidentified restaurant employee around 1
a.m.

The employee told police and prosecutors that while he was locking the door at closing time Hannah
pushed him from behind. Horton then approached the pair as if to break up the disagreement, but before
he could intervene, Hannah punched the employee in the face.

The employee then grabbed Hannah by the shirt collar “and pulled himself into Hannah so as not to be
struck again.” At that point, Horton hit the employee on the right side of the neck.

The employee said he held on to Hannah while avoiding additional punches thrown by Horton. The two
fell.

An unidentified co-worker then came to the employee’s assistance. The co-worker, who broke Hannah’s
jaw, said that he punched Hannah only after the player tried to hit him.

Assistant prosecuting attorney Richard Hicks said he didn’t file criminal charges against the co-worker
because the man was defending the unidentified employee.

“This individual was acting in lawful defense of another,” Hicks told the Associated Press.

Neither Horton nor Hannah could be reached for comment late Friday.

Hannah went home to Chicago after being released from University Hospital, where he underwent surgery.
He missed 12 days of classes before being dismissed from the team while being allowed the opportunity to
continue his education at MU with athletic scholarship assistance.

Horton served a two-game suspension but will be in the playing rotation when the Tigers take on Kansas
State today in Manhattan, Kan., according to MU assistant sports information director Dave Reiter.

“As far as we’re concerned, our side of it is done,” Reiter told The Star on Friday.




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Meanwhile, Missouri has no doubt what awaits in what cannot be a very happy Manhattan, Kan. A packed
Bramlage Coliseum united by the singular thought that the Wildcats owe these Tigers one.
“I think they do,” forward Marshall Brown said. “They know they do.”

“We beat them (in Columbia), and it was a game where a lot of people didn’t expect us to win. And a lot of
people are not going to expect us to win on Saturday.

“But everybody in our league is very beatable on any given night. It’s been proven throughout the whole
conference.”

Columbia Missourian
Horton, Hannah charge
Third-degree assault charges stem from Jan. 27 altercation outside Nikai restaurant
By MISSOURIAN STAFF and WIRE REPORTS
Friday, February 15, 2008

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:05 p.m. with new information.

COLUMBIA — Missouri guard Jason Horton is still with the basketball team and is expected to play
against Kansas State on Saturday after being charged with third-degree assault Friday in connection with a
January fight at a late-night restaurant, team spokesman Dave Reiter said.

His former teammate Stefhon Hannah, who was dismissed from the team on Tuesday, was also charged.

Both men will be arraigned at a hearing scheduled for March 3, according to Assistant Prosecuter Richard
Hicks.

When reached on Friday night, Reiter said Horton is with the team in Manhattan, Kan., adding: “The
situation has been dealt with and we have moved on."

When asked on Monday what would happen if the players were charged, Missouri Coach Mike Anderson
said: “They have not been. Right now, what is it, misdemeanor right now? I can’t say. We’ll deal with that in
the future."

Boone County prosecutors charged each with third-degree misdemeanor assault for allegedly scuffling with
two employees of the Nikai Mediterranean Grill, which is housed in the same building as Athena Night
Club. The fight left Hannah — who was kicked off the team Tuesday for missing two weeks of classes
following the incident — with a broken jaw.

A probable cause statement sheds additional light on the Jan. 27 incident, which led to a two game
suspension for Horton and forward Darryl Butterfield and one-game suspensions for forwards Leo Lyons
and Marshall Brown. The three forwards were suspended for violating curfew.

According to the statement, Hannah confronted an unnamed restaurant employee over what he considered
poor service around 1 a.m., hours after the team returned from its first road victory of the season at
Colorado.

The employee told police and prosecutors that Hannah then pushed him from behind while the worker was
locking the door at closing time. Horton then approached the pair as if to break up the disagreement, but
before he could intervene Hannah punched the employee in the face.

The employee then grabbed Hannah by the shirt collar “and pulled himself into Hannah so as not to be
struck again,” the statement reads. At that point, Horton hit the employee on the right side of his neck,
above the shoulder.



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The employee said he held on to Hannah while avoiding additional punches thrown by Horton. The two
fell to the floor.

An unnamed co-worker then came to the employee’s assistance. The co-worker said that he punched
Hannah only after the player attempted to hit him.

Hicks said he didn’t file criminal charges against the employee who broke Hannah’s jaw because the man
was defending his co-worker, who suffered a cut near his eye and scrapes on his elbow from the fall.

“This individual was acting in lawful defense of another,” Hicks said.

By 9:30 p.m., Friday, Hannah's charges had yet to be filled on Missouri Case.net, the state's electronic court
filling system. Hicks confirmed that Hannah had been charged.

"I can't comment at this point," Hicks said when reached by the Columbia Missourian. "Both these guys,
young men, are presumed innocent. There is nothing I can say about the facts of this case."

Neither Horton nor Hannah could be reached for comment late Friday.

The restaurant altercation is the latest in a series of off-court incidents involving Missouri players since
coach Mike Anderson was hired less than two years ago.

Butterfield was suspended at the start of the season for one exhibition game following an arrest for
punching a former girlfriend. He pleaded guilty and received a suspended sentence and six months
probation when the charge was downgraded to peace disturbance.

DeMarre Carroll, Anderson’s nephew, was shot in the ankle outside a downtown club while trying to break
up a fight. Mike Anderson Jr., the coach’s son and a backup guard, was arrested for DUI last year and
suspended for a game.

And Kalen Grimes, the school’s leading rebounder and starting center last season, was dismissed from the
team after being arrested for hitting a man in the face with the butt of a shotgun in St. Louis in July.

Missouri (14-11, 4-6 Big 12) visits No. 18 Kansas State (17-6,7-2) Saturday. In their first contest this season,
a short-handed Tigers team stunned the Wildcats in a 77-74 home win one week after the fight.




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Columbia Missourian
MU students get new free, legal music downloads
By GREG WASSERMAN
Wednesday, February 20, 2008

COLUMBIA — “Free” and “legal” are normally two words not used in the same sentence when talking
about downloading music. However, those words describe a new media downloading program available to
MU students: Ruckus.

“Ruckus is the world’s only free, legal and ad-supported music discovery service for college students,” Chris
Lawson, director of corporate development for Ruckus Network, said via e-mail. “We have over three
million tracks from all of the major record labels as well as thousands of indies that can be downloaded
safely in seconds.”

The idea is to get students to stop illegally downloading and sharing music through peer-to-peer programs
such as LimeWire or Morpheus.

“In the past, there has been a problem with file sharing,” said Terry Robb, director of information and
technology at MU. “What we’re doing is offering an alternative to illegal downloads.”

The difference between peer-to-peer, also known as file sharing, programs and Ruckus is that Ruckus
downloads songs to users’ computers from a central database, whereas a program such as LimeWire relies
on users sharing files among personal computers. Although file sharing itself is not illegal, when used to
share copyrighted material it violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

MOREnet, an Internet provider for the four-campus University of Missouri System as well as other state
universities, established a contract with Ruckus Network that allows Ruckus to put its servers on
MOREnet’s network, said Megan Gill, MOREnet’s marketing and communications manager. That will
lighten traffic on MOREnet’s network, or ease its bandwidth usage.

No money was exchanged as part of the contract.

Although Ruckus is available to all MOREnet clients, Gill said it is up to each school to grant access to its
users.

Lawson said Ruckus was started in 2004 under the premise that college students are the most engaged users
of digital media.

“We knew we could help students, universities and the record labels by providing a legal, safe and free
service,” he said.

After registering, students must download the Ruckus Music Player. Because of the music encryption
required by the Recording Industry Association of America, Ruckus files will only work with Ruckus Music
Player or Windows Media Player, which are not compatible with Macintosh computers.

However, “Ruckus is currently working on a Mac solution as we speak,” Lawson said. “We will be making it
available in the coming weeks.”

MU is working on marketing Ruckus to its student body. The division of information technology has
included information about Ruckus in its e-mails to students as well as in its technology newsletter. Robb
said that Fall and Summer Welcome leaders will talk about Ruckus and that future student literature will
include information about it.




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Springfield News-Leader
Op-ed: U.S. students should consider engineering
By JOHN F. CARNEY III
Monday, February 18, 2008

It is a sad fact of life in the United States that fewer than 5 percent of our high school graduates who
go on to college are choosing to major in an engineering discipline. While some 70,000 American
students graduate with engineering degrees each year, emerging economic powers like China and India
are producing hundreds of thousands of new engineers annually. This alarming trend must be reversed
or as a nation we risk losing our innovation leadership position in the world.

"Engineers Make a World of Difference" is the theme for this year's Engineers Week, held Feb. 17-23.
This slogan holds true not only for engineers, but also for our nation's engineering campuses.

Missouri University of Science and Technology, one of only 16 technological research universities in
the country, is addressing many of the critical engineering challenges facing our country and the world.
Two of the most critical challenges relate to energy and the environment.

The United States currently spends more than $500 billion annually on energy, and demand is
projected to rise by more than 30 percent by the year 2020 — a rate much higher than the projected
increase in the nation's energy production. Missouri S&T is hard at work pursuing the key goals of the
U.S. Department of Energy strategy. We are part of the solution in diversifying America's energy
supply by:

   developing alternate and renewable sources of energy;
   preparing for the expansion of nuclear energy in a safe and secure manner;
   developing new techniques to increase the domestic production of conventional fuels.

Missouri S&T is the only university in the country with more than 90 percent of its students majoring
in engineering, the sciences, mathematics or business. We are the only university in the United States
that offers 16 different bachelor's programs in engineering. We are training our students to be leaders
in the social, political and technological activities associated with building a sustainable future for the
planet.

Here are some other specific examples of how Missouri S&T's researchers are working to find
solutions to some of the world's most daunting problems:

   An associate professor of geological engineering is developing an emergency drinking-water
    system that runs on wind and solar power. The system utilizes ultraviolet rays to remove bacteria
    from water. In the future, it could be deployed to areas where a disaster has taken place.
   Faculty members in our electrical and computer engineering department are helping the city of
    Kansas City, Mo., implement a plan designed to put plug-in electrical vehicles on the road. Under
    the program, the plug-in cars will be used for city business in the downtown area.
   Other researchers are busy equipping public buses with hydrogen power, developing fuel cells
    capable of providing incredibly efficient energy and figuring out ways to extract crude oil from
    algae that is cultivated in an underground laboratory.

Meanwhile, Missouri S&T is building a solar village on campus. Already, three solar homes designed
and built by students have been put on foundations in a neighborhood on university property. The
houses are used for research, but they are also available for rent to students and faculty members.




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Many of the technologies being developed on university campuses like ours aren't readily available to
the general public yet. But soon, those technologies will be the norm.

There are a lot of pressing reasons to be concerned about issues related to energy and the
environment. But as engineers, we should be optimistic about the future. The big challenges in front of
us are great opportunities to find new solutions. Engineers do make a world of difference.

John F. Carney III is chancellor of Missouri University of Science and Technology, formerly the University of Missouri-
Rolla.




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St. Louis Business Journal
Washington U. replacing student loans with grants
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Washington University in St. Louis said Wednesday it is eliminating need-based loans for undergraduate
students whose parents' annual income is less than $60,000 and will instead give grants to those students
that will not have to be repaid.
The grants will be offered to incoming freshmen and returning full-time undergraduate day-school students
beginning this fall and is designed to increase the ability of students from low- and middle-income families
to attend the university.
"This new initiative and its goal of helping families with the most need will not lessen our desire,
responsibility or ability to work with all of our families to ensure they have the financial resources they need
to send their sons and daughters to Washington University," Chancellor Mark Wrighton said in a statement.
"We remain committed to a flexible and independent approach to delivering financial aid to those who need
it most."
The grants will be funded by the increase in spending from scholarship and unrestricted endowments in the
university's four schools with undergraduate programs, as well as from unrestricted university resources.
Washington University said the commitment to these grants is in addition to the $60 million the university
already has committed to its financial aid programs that about 60 percent of the school's undergraduate
students receive.
In January, the school announced it was increasing undergraduate tuition for the 2008-09 school year by
4.9 percent along with increases in the charges for graduate school, housing and meals.
Undergraduate tuition at Washington University will be $36,200 this fall. The full price to attend the school,
when coupled with a full-meal plan price of $4,276 and on-campus, double-occupancy housing ranging
between $7,360 and $8,140, will be around $48,000.
Washington University in St. Louis is a private teaching and research university.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Student loans to become grants for many
By KAVITA KUMAR
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Washington University is the latest elite, wealthy school to announce that it will make the cost of attending
school much less burdensome for its neediest students.
On Tuesday, the school said that, starting in the fall, it will eliminate all loans for its students from families
that make less than $60,000 annually. In the place of need-based loans, students will get grants, which do
not have to be repaid.
Qualifying students will be able to graduate debt-free, but they will still likely have to contribute some
amount toward tuition.
"We are concerned about assuring that students of all backgrounds have the opportunity to study here,"
said Chancellor Mark Wrighton. "We think this policy will encourage people who have modest
circumstances to apply."
Wrighton said the new program will affect about 600 students, or 10 percent of the undergraduate student
body. Entering freshmen and full-time undergraduate students will be eligible.
The full sticker price to attend Washington U. by this fall, including tuition, fees, room and board, will be
around $49,000.


                                                                                                                66
Wrighton said the program will cost the university about $2.5 million the first year — and more in
subsequent years. He said the Board of Trustees' approval in December to increase spending from the
school's $5.7 billion endowment by about 8.1 percent helped free up some of the money. But he said it also
will be paid for by reprioritizing in other areas of the university.
"It will slow down the pace of some initiatives we have planned, and belt tightening in some areas where we
see opportunities to reduce expenses," he said.
Faith Sandler, executive director of the Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis, said she welcomes anytime an
institution increases its need-based aid.
"Washington University is doing a wonderful thing because those students (who qualify for the program)
should not be saddled by high levels of debt," she said. "I think our next question is, 'Can Washington
University and schools like it admit more needy students as well?'"
According to data compiled by the Institute for College Access and Success, only 5 percent of Washington
U.'s undergraduate student body in 2005-06 received federal Pell grants, given to students whose families
make roughly $40,000 or less.
Robert Shireman, the institute's president, said it's unusual for any school to have less than 10 percent of its
students receiving Pell grants.
"Keep in mind it's easier for colleges that do not enroll very many low-income students to make this kind of
commitment," he said.
But he added that Washington U.'s announcement was good news and that it was focused in an area where
there is the greatest need.
"This is the type of commitment that a number of other colleges around the country have been making in
recent years to send a strong message to families, especially from working-class and lower-class incomes,
that college is affordable, that they will not need to overload themselves with debt in order to attend
college," he said.
In December, Harvard announced it would spend $20 million more on financial aid and would move
dramatically to help students from middle and upper middle incomes as well. Yale has pledged to spend $24
million more in financial aid.
Last year, Missouri State University in Springfield came up with the Missouri State Promise, which gives its
neediest students a free ride, plus $800 a year for books. The income threshold for that program is much
lower, however, set at the poverty level, which ranges from $9,800 for an individual to $23,400 for a family
of five.
Wrighton said Washington U. would like to expand its financial aid programs further. The school already
spends $60 million on financial aid, which reaches about 60 percent of its undergraduates.
Neil Patel, a senior and president of the student government association, said students have been asking
administrators for relief to cushion the blow of annual tuition increases. So he was pleasantly surprised to
hear of Tuesday's announcement.
"I think it's a great move," he said. "I didn't realize we had the funding available to do that."




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Springfield News-Leader
Students allege discrimination
Complaints made against MSU social work program.
By STEVE KOEHLER
Friday, February 22, 2008

A day after a major shakeup was announced in the social work program at Missouri State University, the
school confirmed that a student has filed a civil rights complaint against the program.

And a second student said she has filed a similar complaint.

The complaint confirmed by MSU was filed by Ronda Thompson-Beckman, 55, with the U.S. Office of
Civil Rights, according to her attorney. It alleges that she was a victim of age discrimination and that one of
her grades was ordered lowered by one of four faculty members who were removed from the department,
according to Wednesday's announcement.

Paul Kincaid, chief of staff for MSU President Mike Nietzel, said the university received the complaint in
January.

Thompson-Beckman's attorney, Jay Kirksey of Bolivar, declined to name the faculty member who allegedly
lowered the grade but did confirm the teacher was one of the four reassigned.

Another student, Kim Kasper, 41, said she also has filed an age discrimination complaint against the
program.

MSU Provost Belinda McCarthy said she has not seen any complaints or knows of any filed. The civil rights
office in Kansas City did not respond to repeated phone calls seeking information.

The new complaints come less than two years after a complaint by another student triggered an extensive
review of the school's social work program, which led to Wednesday's actions.

Emily Brooker accused the school and faculty member Frank Kauffman of violating her First Amendment
rights in 2006 when she refused to sign a letter supporting homosexual adoption.
Kauffman, who is not reassigned, did not return a phone call to the News-Leader on Thursday.

Brooker's complaint touched off a series of investigations in which outside examiners found the department
rife with problems, including a lack of production by faculty and complaints from students that their
concerns weren't being addressed.

On Wednesday, the program announced its choice for a new director and the reassignment of four faculty
members.

Kirksey said his client was told by a graduate assistant that her grade was lowered on orders from a faculty
member.

"She was making A's and B's and she went to that department and started getting F's and incompletes," he
said.

He said his client is seeking academic equality and to have her grades reviewed.

Kasper's complaint contends that she was subjected to age and gender discrimination by certain faculty
members. She does not have an attorney and filed the complaint herself 10 days ago.

"I want the program to be successful. I just want the problems against older students to stop," she said.



                                                                                                             68
Kasper alleges that faculty sabotaged her efforts to succeed in class and that they "started picking on me
from the day I walked in to apply for the program," which included failing her in a class before the class
was finished and changing meeting times with her adviser without notifying her.

McCarthy said the reassignments will cut the faculty from 12 to eight, and replacements will not be hired.
That will not impact the quality of the program, McCarthy said, and the cuts were recommended by the
program's department head and dean.

An outside examination of the department in the spring questioned the use of adjunct instructors and
criticized the productivity of some faculty.

That report, in addressing that issue, said in part: "Given the small class size and small advising load that
they carry (compared to other Schools of their size) the faculty should be much more productive. It seems
that their time is spent in meetings and endless processing rather than productive activities which could
move the School forward."

McCarthy said the enrollment in the program may drop 5 to 10 percent from its current number of about
200 and that course offerings may have to be altered and offered at certain times or in specific sequences.

"There are a whole lot of things that you can do," she said.

She sees the social work staffing issue as an anomaly at MSU. "It's an ongoing thing, reviewing faculty
numbers," she said.

The new director, Susan Dollar, will be in charge of implementing changes that will make the faculty and
program more efficient, McCarthy said.

Dollar's salary will increase from $64,000 to $89,000 annually.

The four reassigned faculty members, all tenured, will move to as-yet undisclosed duties. They are:
 Anne B. Summers, associate professor and program coordinator for the social work bachelor program.
    The MSU fiscal year 2008 budget lists her pay as $66,640, including a $10,000 stipend for directing the
    master's department of the program.
 Mary Ann Jennings, associate professor, $55,964.
 Joan McClennen, professor, $56,933.
 Gregory J. Skibinski, professor, $59,652.

(Amounts listed in a Thursday story were not current.)

Nancy Ross, a graduate assistant in the program, said she was shocked to hear Skibinski was being
reassigned. She has him for a class.

"He never let on that anything was going on. I don't understand it. Every faculty member had their fan
base. For me it was Dr. Jennings and Dr. Skibinski," she said.

Springfield News-Leader
MSU shakes up social work faculty
Beleaguered program hopes for image boost following scandal.
By STEVE KOEHLER
Thursday, February 21, 2008

A new director has been named and four faculty members have been removed from Missouri State
University's School of Social Work as the university continues its extensive overhaul of the beleaguered
program.


                                                                                                             69
Susan Dollar, who has been in the department since 2001, will take over as the school's director July 1.

"I'm enthusiastic about the job," Dollar told the News-Leader. The move was the latest in a series of
actions to try to bring stability to a program that has been under fire after a student sued, faculty was
accused of being aloof and a report cited internal bickering.

Dollar replaces Etta Madden, who was named the interim director in August 2006, when the overhaul
began. Madden will leave the post in June. She was named after Lola Butler retired in June 2006 after three
years at the post.

Dollar's new pay was not listed in a university news release about her new job. A database of state employee
salaries lists her current pay as an assistant professor at $46,810.

The four faculty members, all tenured, are being reassigned "to other duties and positions within the
university," according to the release. Their new jobs have not been decided. The four:

   Anne B. Summers, associate professor and program coordinator for the social work bachelor program.
    The database lists her pay as $54,807.
   Mary Ann Jennings, associate professor, $54,146.
   Joan McClennen, professor, $55,680.
   Gregory J. Skibinski, professor, $56,095.

MSU Provost Belinda McCarthy said the four are not being replaced except for the program coordinator's
position.

That will leave the department with eight full-time faculty, staff and administrators.
None of the four returned calls to the News-Leader.

"We are going to emphasize quality over program size. We are also going to rearrange the curriculum and
enhance the sequencing of courses so that we can operate more efficiently," McCarthy said.

There are about 215 students in the bachelor's and master's programs.

The moves, McCarthy said, create "an opportunity for the program to remake itself and get off to a healthy
start."

McCarthy said the reassignments are "more complex" than a simple removal of four faculty who didn't fit
into the program anymore.

The four "are a mix of people who were not able to create an environment, a learning environment for
students. I wouldn't reassign someone if I didn't think they could make a contribution to the university,"
she said.

"They were individuals I felt who could take a break and contribute to another part of the university."

The overhaul of the program began after a review last spring by outside examiners found a "long history of
inner conflict and dysfunction."

The review was prompted after an MSU student, Emily Brooker, accused the school and a faculty member
of violating her First Amendment rights in 2006 when she refused to sign a letter supporting homosexual
adoption.

MSU President Mike Nietzel called the outsiders' report "as negative a review of an academic program as I
have ever seen."


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Last May, a department-produced plan for improving its academic environment was released.

Among the report's major recommendations were an outside oversight board that will review the
department's work and actions, a student liaison to attend faculty meetings and a program to increase
faculty productivity in teaching, research and service.

Last fall, McCarthy told the Board of Governors that the work to change the program was beginning to
show results.

"It is fair to say that we are making progress," McCarthy said in a news release issued Wednesday, "but we
still have much to do. We believe it is necessary to re-invent the social work program along a number of
dimensions and we are committed to doing so in order that it can proudly serve our community and state
for many years."

Dollar said that her job will be to implement changes and restructure the program.

A number of changes have already taken place, she said, with new communication efforts between students
and the department, changes in curriculum and better evaluations of courses.

She said that her experience made her the right choice for the position.

McCarthy said two outside candidates were interviewed.

"I have an understanding where the program is going. It's an advantage having an insider," Dollar said.

Students interviewed Wednesday were happy to hear Dollar was the choice.

"I love her," said Dannica Fetters, a senior. "She's a wonderful teacher and very friendly. She's open to take
suggestions. She's always ready to talk to us. I'm excited."

Sandra Parisi, another senior, said Dollar will help students grow.

"I think it will be a good change," she said. "Dr. Dollar will do fine."




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The Kansas City Star
Drury University to offer animal ethics with gift from TV personality Bob Barker
By MARA ROSE WILLIAMS
Monday, February 18, 2008

When a droopy-faced beagle graces the cover of newspapers across the country for being the Westminster
Kennel Club best in show, it’s clear: America loves animals.

Now a Missouri college, with the help of a famous graduate, hopes to spread the love further by teaching
students about how animals have been mistreated.

Thanks to a $1 million endowment from Bob Barker, Drury University in Springfield soon will be offering
students an undergraduate class in animal ethics.

Patricia McEachern, an associate professor of French who came up with the idea for the course and pitched
it to Barker in December, said the university already has received inquiries from students who want to take
the course.

“People love animals and care about how they are treated,” McEachern said. “But unfortunately some
animals are treated really cruelly, in ways that most people don’t realize.”

Last week, before an overflow crowd of students, faculty and some pets, Barker handed Drury President
Todd Parnell a $1 million check to establish the course, which will begin in either fall 2009 or spring 2010.

The semester-long course will be team-taught by professors of religion, criminology, philosophy, biology,
law and environmental science.

Barker, a 1947 Drury graduate well known for his long television career and animal rights advocacy, told the
crowd that he hoped the course would be a model that is duplicated across the country.

He has donated millions of dollars to law schools for the study of animal rights law, but this is the first time
he has given money for an undergraduate program.

McEachern, an animal lover, said the course is about “the ethical and moral dimensions of relationships
between animals and human beings.”

She wrote in the course description that “an important goal of the course is to develop students’ empathy
for animals and encourage the humane treatment of animals through an understanding of the ways in which
they are often mistreated.”

“We are not going to try and force any agenda on students,” McEachern said.

Religion professor Peter Browning said even wonderful pet owners don’t think about some of the cruelty
done to animals “in the process of moving animals from the farm to our plates.”

As part of the course, for two weeks Browning will teach about the role of animals in Eastern and Western
religions.

“We want to open a conversation with students about the meaning of animals in our lives,” said Browning
who, since he started preparing for the course, has cut back on the amount of meat he eats.




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Springfield News-Leader
Board votes to increase university tuition
Saturday, February 16, 2008

The Missouri Southern State University Board of Governors voted Friday to increase tuition to $143
per credit hour for in-state students, an increase of $8 per credit hour.

The tuition increase will become effective for the fall 2008 semester, according to a university release.




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Southeast Missourian
Southeast Missouri state regents OK more than $10 million in projects
By LINDY BAVOLEK
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Greek students at Southeast Missouri State University will receive up to $2 million for dorm improvements,
the Board of Regents decided Monday. Administrators are currently meeting with students to determine
needs, which could include modernizing bathrooms and creating more private space. The upgrades are part
of seven Residence Life bond projects totaling $10.23 million approved Monday.
Other projects include switching from key access to card access in dorms, building a parking lot for a new
dorm being constructed at Henderson Avenue and Broadway, and completing elevator, fire sprinkler and
window work. Costs for the projects are $1.1 million, $2 million and $4.2 million, respectively.
Projects will be funded with bond proceeds, to be paid off with Residence Life revenue.
"This is the first time in a long time we've come back to Greek group housing for something so major," said
Dr. Dennis Holt, vice president of administration and enrollment management.
A "Greek Village," which would have created townhouse-style housing for Greek students near the Show
Me Center, was proposed over the summer but dropped in favor of the new dorm at Henderson and
Broadway.
Holt said it has been eight to 10 years since Greek students have seen updates to their housing. Other major
dorm work during that time includes switching some rooms at Towers into suites and renovating Rowdy's,
the grill at Towers, he said. Towers Cafe will receive $930,000 for new furniture and equipment under the
bond plan approved.
Administrators and consultants will hold forums with Greek students in March as part of a strategic
planning process, and expect a clearer idea of how to allocate the $2 million to Greeks afterward. Specific
projects will be brought back before the regents for approval before construction.
Southeast president Dr. Ken Dobbins said converting dorms to card access is part of a long-term security
plan. Holt said the plan will reduce vulnerabilities because it is much more difficult to change locks than it is
to "recard."
At the meeting regents also approved raising room and board rates by 2.67 percent next year. Rates will
range from $5,430 for Dearmont to $7,498 for Vandiver. While board rates did not increase, room rates
rose by 4 percent, for the combined overall increase of 2.67 percent.
In comparison, rates range from $6,360 to $11,950 at the University of Missouri and from $5,480 to $7,314
at Truman University in Kirksville, Mo. Last year, rates increased by 5 percent at Southeast. In 2006 there
was a 3.1 percent increase.
Regents approved a plan by the St. Louis charter school Lift for Life, which Southeast oversees, to expand
from grades six through eight to grades six through 12, adding one grade each year over the next four years.
"The first sixth-grade class graduated in 2007. Following up with students, administrators were concerned
about students' success as they dispersed to St. Louis high schools," said provost Dr. Jane Stephens.
Dr. Sue Shepard, dean of the College of Education, said that as enrollment increases the school will be
receiving additional state funds, and does not expect the additional costs to fall back on Southeast.




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Columbia Missourian
Missouri Senate send MOHELA appropriations bill to governor
By MATT TILDEN
Monday, February 18, 2008

JEFFERSON CITY — Money for a new Ellis Fischel Cancer Center took a legislative step forward
Monday after the Missouri Senate sent the governor an appropriations bill with the project as its
centerpiece.

The bill, originally proposed in the House by Budget Chairman Allen Icet, R-St. Louis County,
includes more than $31 million for Ellis Fischel and $15 million for a new nursing building on the
University of Missouri-Kansas City campus. The proposal, which cleared the House earlier this month,
passed the Senate without change by a 30-3 vote.

The money for the projects would come from the sale of assets held by Missouri Higher Education
Loan Authority under a plan proposed by Gov. Matt Blunt and passed by the legislature last year.

Last year’s MOHELA proposal originally included the two projects, but after lengthy protests by Sens.
Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, and Jolie Justus, D-Jackson County, Republicans stripped the two
projects from the appropriations bill. That came after Senate Republicans used a rare parliamentary
procedure to shut off debate and force a vote on the sale of MOHELA’s assets.

Sen. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington, was one of three senators to vote against the bill Monday —
shouting his dissenting vote in the Senate. He said that he thinks Graham and Justus had been warned
the projects would be stripped if they didn’t end their arguments.

“We told them finally, hey, we’ll give you another three hours to talk about it, then vote no, and we’ll
keep the money in,” he said. “But if you don’t, this money will be taken out and never returned. And
he (Graham) wouldn’t shut up. Neither would Senator Justus, because they were people of principle.”

Engler said he thinks that “if you tell somebody you’re going to do something, you’re going to take the
money away, it should be taken away.”

Graham said he was happy the money will still be coming to Columbia.

“Well, obviously we’re very pleased to be able to get $31 million for Ellis Fischel Cancer Center and to
have that approved without any restrictions on research that were part of the conversation last
session,” Graham said. “If Sen. Engler doesn’t want to vote for a comprehensive cancer hospital that
treats people from every corner of the state over a petty partisan issue, that’s fine. That’s his right to do
that.”

Another one of the three dissenting votes came from Sen. Matt Bartle, R-Jackson County, who was the
lone Republican in the Senate to vote against the original MOHELA bill last April.

“There are better ways for Missouri to spend money than to build more buildings,” Bartle said.

The legislation passed the Missouri House last week and only needs the governor’s signature before it
would take effect.




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St. Joseph News-Press
Plan would help vets with college costs
Bill would help veterans with costs of college
By ALYSON RALETZ
Monday, February 18, 2008

A bill before Missouri lawmakers could change the life of a 26-year-old veteran at Northwest Missouri
State University.

“I’d have more of one,” Nathan Schmitz said of a having a life if a proposal to limit tuition of combat
veterans passes.

It’s also the same proposal a St. Joseph Republican took some heat over when he tried to change it.

Originally from Parnell, Mo., Mr. Schmitz joined the U.S. Navy at age 18 but left the service after six
years, specifically to pursue higher education. Many of his friends opted for government contract work
after their active duty service ended, but Mr. Schmitz is going after a bachelor’s degree to make himself
more attractive in the job market.

The geology major now is in his second year of study at Northwest, where tuition runs $148.60 per
credit hour plus fees for in-state undergraduates.

He’s one of 83 students who uses the G.I. Bill to pay for tuition at Northwest, according to fall
enrollment figures.

The G.I. Bill covers most of his tuition and fees, but the full-time student had to get a part-time job at
a Maryville lumberyard and move into low-income housing to make ends meet. This is the same
soldier who was maintaining decoder equipment for the Navy in the Persian Gulf in 2002. His unit was
sent there in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy in New York.

Senate Minority Floor Leader Maida Coleman, D-St. Louis, for three years has been trying to help men
and women like Mr. Schmitz with a bill that would make college more affordable.

Ms. Coleman’s SB 830 would cap tuition Missouri institutions could charge veterans to $50 per credit
hour.

“So many veterans don’t have marketable job skills after leaving the military — and they’ve been killing
people,” she said. “This gives them the opportunity to learn job skills so they can improve their lives.”

The veterans would have to maintain a 2.5 grade-point average and have served in armed combat since
9/11.

Senate Majority Floor Leader Charlie Shields, R-St. Joseph, attempted to amend the bill last week by
making the effort subject to state appropriations each year.

At the request of the University of Missouri, Mr. Shields argued that the state and not the colleges
should bear the financial burden of the tuition breaks. He eventually yanked the amendment after
encountering staunch criticism. MU’s hourly tuition is closer to $250 per credit hour.

Ms. Coleman said she saw the attempt as an attack on the bill and could have killed it.




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Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, criticized Mr. Shields and MU for not affording veterans the
tuition relief similar to the discounts faculty family members receive. Mr. Crowell accused Mr. Shields
of “yielding to the gimme, gimme, gimme university.”

“All they gotta do is plop another chair in the classroom,” Mr. Crowell said. “... Do you want to vote
for the University of Missouri or vote for Missouri veterans?”

Mr. Shields said he didn’t believe his amendment would’ve killed the bill, which he supported. “We all
want to be patriotic. The question is, who are we going to be patriotic with?” Mr. Shields asked.

The entire University of Missouri system would have to eat $2.4 million under the original proposal,
which would have covered graduate courses.

Now that the bill only limits undergraduate tuition, Ms. Coleman said she believed the MU system
would absorb less than half of a million dollars.

MU lobbyist Jim Snider said he believed the university system would have to foot more than that, but
didn’t provide a figure he deemed more accurate.

“We support the bill. There’s no question about that,” Mr. Snider said. “The question comes down to
whose responsibility is it to pay?”

At least 135 veterans used the G.I. Bill to pay for tuition at Missouri Western State University in 2007,
but President Dr. Jim Scanlon said he didn’t believe the $50 tuition cap would have a dramatic effect
on university finances.

He pointed to another stipulation of the bill, which requires that any other financial assistance be
applied using true tuition rates before the $50 cap kicks in.

Veterans can’t receive more than the actual cost of attendance when the limitation is combined with
any other financial assistance made available to them.

“This is not a substantial issue for us,” Dr. Scanlon said. “I recognize and applaud the desire of folks in
Jefferson City to reward combat services of veterans.”

So, it doesn’t look like Mr. Schmitz will be moving into a luxurious apartment anytime soon, even if
the bill goes through. But with any extra assistance in paying the remaining tuition and fees his G.I. Bill
doesn’t, he might be able to “have a life.”

“I wouldn’t have to work all the time,” he said.

For the ex-soldiers who chose more expensive universities, “This would help them so much,” he said.

The Senate gave the bill first-round approval last week. It needs a successful third reading before
moving to the House of Representatives.




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Columbia Missourian
Q&A: An American education abroad
By STUART LOORY
Sunday, February 17, 2008

Loory: Private and public U.S. organizations have been exporting billions of dollars in goods and services
to countries around the world to make money in rapidly growing local economies. What started years ago as
study abroad programs for American students, mainly in Western Europe, have developed into huge
projects, including U.S. universities building actual campuses abroad. There, schools can educate students in
their home countries rather than bringing them into the U.S. An American higher education is valued
around the world, in much the same manner as entertainment, music or computer technology. American
educators abroad helped to spread this country’s ideals, techniques, scientific methods and its belief in
democracy. It’s one area where the U.S. can do well for the world, and do good for itself at the same time.
Journalist Tamar Lewin detailed all of this in two recent New York Times articles. The growth of American
education abroad has been going on for years. What made this a front-page story now?

Tamar Lewin, correspondent, The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The establishment of American
universities is accelerating in a lot of places. Many universities are trying to go to India, and hundreds have
joint programs in China. Mostly because of money, we’re seeing a fantastic growth of American programs
in the Gulf.

The Gulf isn’t a logical place to spread to because it doesn’t have a big enough population, but it has to do
with money and with how much support the universities get there.

Loory: Why is there interest in an American-style communications and journalism program in Dubai?

Richard Gross, associate professor of communication and information studies, American University in
Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Like many overseas universities, when the American University in
Dubai opened, its standard curriculum was business. Since then, there’s been a move to make media studies
more prominent, to make this a production site for film and to expand television and radio. When the MBA
program started here, it took three years to achieve a population of 50 students, but this major had 50
students when we opened the door. In part, it’s instantly popular because it offers a window to
opportunities that have long been available to Western students.

Loory: Generally, why is there a rapidly expanding system of American Education abroad, particularly in
the Middle East?

Abdallah Schleifer, professor emeritus, American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt: After Sept. 11, many
parents became concerned about the environment their children would go into inside America. They feared
that it would be unfriendly, so many parents looked for an alternative and enrollment rates went up in
existing schools. That was an incentive for American universities to reach out. Also, places like Doha
(Qatar) have tremendous wealth. In the past, there were universities like the American University in Cairo.
Those universities are established, have an American administration and a high percentage of American
faculty. They offered an American education, but they weren’t branches of specific universities. Now there’s
this model that would bring an entire faculty or be representative of a school like, for example,
Georgetown.

Loory: How did Education City in Doha develop?

Rachel Morris, managing editor, The Peninsula newspaper, Doha, Qatar: Several years ago, Amir Sheikh
Hamad said, we’re going to set aside land for Education City. Then he went to universities around the
world and invited them to set up in Doha and make Qatar the education capital of the Gulf. The
government paid for, and therefore essentially built, the infrastructure. All the universities had to do was tell
the government what they wanted. So it’s quite an incredible piece of land operation.



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Loory: Don’t five American universities have campuses in Education City?

Lewin: Yes, and four are coming. I went to an annual college fair and hundreds of families showed up.
Most of the families weren’t applying to Qatar University. They wanted Education City, which is seen as
better education. One woman said it’s like being colonized but it’s voluntary colonization because every
family wants their kid to have an American education.

Morris: For many years, citizens of Qatar traditionally sent their children overseas to be educated in places
like the United Kingdom and the U.S., so to have these universities in Qatar is important because the family
is number one in Arab society. To be able to keep the children in Qatar and to keep the family unit intact is
important.

Loory: What are the implications of setting up universities abroad for the U.S.?

Phillip Altbach, director, Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, Boston, Mass.:
American higher education, unlike American foreign policy, remains popular around the world. The U.S.
has an important name brand, and the U.S. needs to guard that name brand and to make sure it’s offering
high-quality products around the world. It’s possible, with the rapid expansion overseas in the Gulf, in
China and in India, that the U.S. isn’t sufficiently worrying about quality control.

Gross: At the American University in Dubai, we’re getting more highly qualified applicants than before.
Previously, we may have gotten more applicants who were curious about living overseas, and that can still
be the case. But more often than not, we get highly educated people. So the quality of the faculty won’t
diminish.

Altbach: One hopes that’s the case. This mini industry is growing rapidly, and one wonders whether there
are going to be enough high-caliber people to go around. One also wonders whether there are enough
bright students to maintain the selectiveness over the long run of these top-quality U.S. institutions.

Lewin: Finding students who have the SAT and the TOEFL scores, and who speak English well enough,
has been a problem. In Doha, they offer a bridge program for kids whose qualifications aren’t quite enough
to get in otherwise.

Altbach: Lastly, there’s concern about U.S. faculty members making longer-term commitments to working
overseas. If a person wants to make his career abroad, he can do that, but if he wants to come and go, there
are problems of earning tenure, getting promoted and remaining in the scientific mainstream. The question
is, will universities be able to recruit enough regular faculty to have, for example, a “real Cornell” rather
than an institution that is labeled Cornell but really consists of faculty members from other places?

Loory: What is the impact of all this on the globalization of education?

Altbach: American higher education is extremely popular around the world and could be called an aspect
of U.S. “soft power,” which is valuable for the U.S. Particularly, the elites in many countries want a U.S.
higher education. There’s also the prospect of students getting jobs in the U.S. or coming to the U.S. for
graduate study once they finish their undergraduate degrees. What could be slightly problematic are the
long-term implications of an American higher education on the curriculum, on the mind-set and on various
aspects of the cultures, not only in the Gulf, but also in India, China and other parts of the world.

Loory: Clearly, the export of higher education is a great success story for this country, but equally clearly,
its continued development has to be watched carefully or serious problems can develop.

Stuart Loory, who holds the Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies at the Missouri School of Journalism, is the moderator for
the weekly radio program “Global Journalist.” It airs at 6:30 p.m. Thursdays on KBIA/91.3 FM or at
www.globaljournalist.org.



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Columbia Daily Tribune
College giving sets record in 2007
Economic slump could slow fundraising growth.
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Donations to colleges and universities rose solidly last year, to a record of nearly $30 billion, with the
wealthiest universities again attracting a hugely disproportionate share, a new survey shows. But the
economic downturn means the fundraising pace for 2008 could slow.

Private donations to higher education rose 6.3 percent last year to $29.75 billion, according to the
annual Voluntary Support of Education survey, scheduled to be released today by the Council for Aid
to Education.

The survey tracks donations by fiscal year, so the report for 2007 essentially covers the 2006-2007
school year and doesn’t reflect the economic slowdown that began last fall.

The already wealthy schools - with leading faculty researchers and the most sophisticated fundraising
operations - had the most success attracting new donations. The top 20 fundraisers raised at total of
$7.66 billion, $518 million more than the previous year. They account for just 2 percent of survey
respondents, but accounted for more than a quarter of all contributions to colleges and universities,
and nearly one-third of the total increase in giving.

Stanford University raised $832.4 million, the most of any institution, though its total was down from
the $911 million it raised in the previous year - the largest one-year haul ever for a university. Next was
Harvard, which has the largest total endowment, followed by the University of Southern California and
Johns Hopkins.

Washington University led Missouri schools with $158.21 million in fundraising. The University of
Missouri was second with $89.27 million. The University of Missouri System ranked fifth among
systems with a total of $133.80 million. It came in behind systems in California, Texas and Illinois.

Next year’s survey could mark the end of an extraordinary run for higher education that has let at least
76 institutions build endowments of $1 billion or more, according to the most recent figures from the
National Association of College and University Business Officers.

During the last economic slowdown, in fiscal 2002 and 2003, fundraising growth was stagnant for two
straight years.

"Anything to do with the economy, when people don’t feel good, whether it’s justified or not, it
doesn’t put them in a philanthropic mind-set as easily, there’s no question about it," said Paul Robell,
vice president for development and alumni affairs at the University of Florida. "It’s just really a state of
mind more than anything else."

Historically, economic conditions do affect giving to colleges, but not necessarily dramatically, said
Ann Kaplan, who directs the survey.

"It tends to be fairly stable once someone has a habit of giving to a college or university," she said. "It’s
a fairly reliable connection people make to an institution they attended or some of the other
institutions."




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Florida raised $182 million last year, up from $161 million in 2006. A one-month record of $47 million
came in during December alone.

"The biggest predictor of fundraising success is generally the stock market - if stocks are doing well
fundraising does well," Robell said. But "we try to point out to people even if the market’s down, most
of their holdings are still vastly appreciated." Because of tax deductions, "it’s still a good deal to make a
gift with appreciated securities," he said.

The figures come as colleges have faced increasing demands from the public and in Congress to spend
more of their endowments, particularly to keep tuition rises in check. In recent months a string of
institutions such as Harvard, Dartmouth and Swarthmore have announced significant expansions of
financial aid.

The changes vary from school to school, but have generally involved giving out more grant money so
low-income students can graduate with little or no debt, and expanding at least some need-based aid to
higher-income families - in some cases those earning well into six figures.

Foundations accounted for the highest share of giving - 28.6 percent - edging slightly ahead of alumni.

Donations from alumni fell slightly from last year but remain almost 17 percent higher than in 2005.
The percentage of alumni who donate also fell slightly, to 11.7 percent on average.

The Chronicle of Higher Education
Private donations t o colleges increase for 4th consecutive year
By BRAD WOLVERTON
Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Backed by a strong economy and a growing stock market, American colleges and universities raised an
estimated $29.8-billion in the 2007 fiscal year, the highest total ever recorded, according to a report
scheduled for release today by the Council for Aid to Education.

But the country's recent economic troubles have some fund-raising experts concerned that the high
times might be coming to an end.

Private donations to colleges and universities climbed by 6.3 percent in 2007, the fourth consecutive
year of growth, according to the report, which describes results from the council's annual "Voluntary
Support of Education" survey.

Bigger Share for Wealthy Institutions

Large donations to the nation's wealthiest colleges accounted for much of the increase. The top 20
recipients (see table), which represent just 2 percent of the survey's respondents, raised more than a
quarter of all the contributions.

"The top 20 historically have controlled a lot, and they're controlling a bigger and bigger share of
private donations," said Ann E. Kaplan, the survey's director. "It's large gifts to large institutions that
drive national trends."

Foundation giving is also playing an increasingly important role. Gifts from foundations increased by
19.7 percent, reaching $8.5-billion, with more than a third of that money coming from family
foundations.



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Gifts from family funds climbed by 31.5 percent between 2006 and 2007, according to a sampling of
more than half the 1,023 institutions surveyed.

Alumni and other individual donors contributed just under half the total amount raised. But the
percentage of alumni who made gifts dropped, continuing a decades-long trend. Over the past five
years, however, alumni giving has increased by more than 25 percent.

Institutions of all types reported higher fund-raising totals. Liberal-arts colleges that responded to the
survey saw a 9.8-percent increase in private support, raising $2.8-billion. Two-year colleges that replied
raised a total of $250-million, up from $197-million in 2006.

The top 20 institutions in the survey raised $518-million more than they did in 2006, accounting for
nearly 30 percent of total growth in private donations during the 2007 fiscal year, which ended June 30
at most colleges.

Top Universities

Stanford University raised the most of any institution, $832.3-million, followed by Harvard University
($614-million), the University of Southern California ($469.6-million), the Johns Hopkins University
($430.5-million), and Columbia University ($423.9-million).

Megagifts continue to reshape higher education. (See tables of charitable contributions to colleges in
2006-7, listed by state.) According to the report, 80 large contributions made in 2007 accounted for
$2.2-billion.

Southern California's donations increased 15.7 percent between 2006 and 2007, the most of any
institution in the top 10, largely because of a $100-million foundation grant.

Ambitious campaigns continue to help many institutions thrive. Over the past five years, two large
campaigns have helped Stanford's fund-raising income grow by 83 percent. The university raised $1.1-
billion in a campaign that ended in 2005. And it is partway through a five-year, $4.3-billion campaign
for which it has raised more than $3-billion.

While Stanford is conducting the largest campaign of any college, more than two dozen other
institutions have set a goal of raising more than $1-billion each.

As all that money has come in, some members of Congress have called for wealthy colleges and
universities to distribute more of it to needy students. But, Ms. Kaplan said, federal lawmakers should
look at the totals carefully before making any judgments.

"There's been a lot in the news about higher education and all the wealth that resides there and the
responsibilities of wealth," she said. "We're not talking about most colleges. What is happening in the
typical institution is different from what is happening in a handful of institutions."

Looking Ahead

Over all, though, private donations to the nation's colleges and universities continued a decade-long
rise. From 1997 to 2007, the average annual increase in contributions has been 6.5 percent.

John Lippincott, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, commended
colleges and universities for continuing that "nice upward trend," attributing it in part to an increase in
the number of fund raisers.


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"The single greatest predictor of fund-raising success is the number of times you ask," he said. "And
the number of times you ask is in great part based on the frontline fund raisers you have to do the
asking."

Growth May Slow

Despite the gains, Mr. Lippincott and other fund-raising experts are concerned that the good times
may soon end.

The stock market has fallen sharply in recent months, and some observers fear the economy may be
heading into a recession. Sharp fluctuations in the stock market and a decline in the gross domestic
product can negatively affect capital giving and annual gifts to higher education.

"I think there is every reason to expect that when we look at this study a year from now, we would not
see a 6.3-percent growth rate," Mr. Lippincott said. "I don't know if we will necessarily see an absolute
decline, but I would not be surprised to see a slowing of the growth rate."

Robert F. Sharpe Jr., a fund-raising consultant who works with many colleges and universities, agreed.
"If the market falls and people's wealth shrinks, then you start seeing a slowdown, or people
postponing capital contributions," he said. "But the big donors, who drive these numbers anyway, tend
to be stable."

The report is available for purchase at the council's Web site.




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The Chronicle of Higher Education
Scientists worry that not enough nuclear engineers are being trained for a nuclear-powered
future
By JOSH FISCHMAN
Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Boston – Visions of a rosy nuclear future were on display here this past weekend, as a panel of
scientists laid out a research program for a new generation of safer, more efficient, and more
environmentally friendly nuclear reactors. At the same time, they expressed concern that universities
had not trained enough nuclear engineers to operate the proposed plants.

"A little bit of uranium goes a long way," said Jacques Bouchard, chairman of the Generation IV
International Forum, a consortium pushing the development of the next, or fourth, generation of
nuclear reactors. One of those reactors "gives off the same amount of energy as two tons of oil," Mr.
Bouchard, a nuclear physicist, told an audience at the annual meeting of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science.

The 441 nuclear-power reactors in 31 countries around the world produce 17 percent of the electricity
generated and used on the planet, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. But by 2050, Mr.
Bouchard estimated, the need for electricity will increase by a factor of four.

So, he said, we will need new power plants, but as they produce more power, they will have to generate
much less radioactive waste than the plants operating today.

"If they use uranium more thoroughly, there will be less waste," he said.

Fast Neutrons, Fast Reactors

Scientists hope that so-called fast reactors will play a major role in accomplishing that goal, said David
J. Hill, deputy director for science and technology at Idaho National Laboratory, near Idaho Falls.
Those experimental designs use "fast neutrons" for the fission reactions that generate energy. (Current
reactors, which are either second- or third-generation, use slower neutrons.) Fast, fourth-generation
reactors could limit the thermal mass in the reactor, which has important safety implications. It reduces
the chance of an uncontrolled temperature rise, said Mr. Hill, a physicist.

Mr. Bouchard said that advanced reactor designs also used "partitioning technology" to treat cooling
and recovery systems. Partitioning essentially filters still-usable radioactive elements from wastewater
and returns them to the reactor. That technique reduces the volume of radioactive waste, Mr.
Bouchard said, which means there is less to be stored in underground repositories. And that means the
underground holding areas can be smaller.

But it will not be until 2030 that one of those reactors can be built, Mr. Bouchard said. Designs have to
be tested for power output, safety, and economic viability, and that can take decades in the highly
regulated nuclear industry.

New Nuclear Families

The time frame raises concerns about the nuclear work force. A member of the audience pointed out
that no reactor had been built in Britain for 20 years, and so there is a dearth of nuclear physicists and
engineers at universities, making it hard to train a new generation. Similarly, in the United States, 37
nuclear programs at universities have been shuttered in the past 30 years. High-profile institutions such



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as Cornell University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign closed their research and
teaching reactors recently (The Chronicle, November 17, 2006).

But that trend is slowly turning around. Energy companies have applied for licenses to build new
reactors, indicating a future job market. And a few universities have started new programs in nuclear
studies. The University of South Carolina at Columbia is one, and the University of Nevada at Las
Vegas is another. Nevada touts what it calls "the fastest-growing nuclear-science-and-engineering
program in the nation," and offers a new doctoral program in radiochemistry in addition to a master's
program in materials and nuclear engineering.

"I believe in markets," said Mr. Hill. "There will be a demand, so you will see a resurgence of academic
departments. And that will supply more engineers."




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The Chronicle of Higher Education
Disputed plan would let Congress weigh in on state budgets for colleges
By SARA HEBEL
Thursday, February 21, 2008

Washington – Some federal lawmakers are trying to press states to provide consistent spending
increases to their higher-education systems, saying they recognize that the level of state aid colleges
receive plays a critical role in how much institutions are able to rein in tuition increases and spend on
improving their quality.

The proposal would insert the federal government into state decisions about higher-education budgets,
a new role that some colleges would welcome but that governors and state legislators call a dangerous
precedent that might actually lead to less spending on higher education.

The proposal, which was included in the version of legislation to renew the Higher Education Act that
the U.S. House of Representatives passed this month (The Chronicle, February 8), would ask states to
increase spending on higher education each year by at least as much as they increased it, on average,
over the previous five years.

States that failed to do so would not receive any new matching funds from the federal government
under the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership program, which matches funds that states
commit to provide grants to financially needy students.

The Senate version of the higher-education bill does not include the proposal, and House and Senate
negotiators are now meeting to hash out that difference and others between their two bills.
As Congress seeks to apply pressure on colleges to keep costs down, proponents of the House-
approved measure say states need to be held accountable, too, for the role they play in driving up the
price of college when appropriations falter.

"There's been so much attention on the institutions themselves, and they are taking the hit" as
Congress and the Bush administration raise concerns about rising college costs, said Daniel J. Hurley,
director of state relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and
Universities, which supports the proposal. "We're pleased that Congress, for the first time, is looking
to states and tasking states with some responsibility."

Too Much Meddling?

But the idea of the federal government meddling in state budget decisions does not sit well with
governors, state legislators, and state-budget officers, who are vigorously lobbying against the measure.
Moreover, they say, the approach would end up hurting students and colleges because states would be
pressured to curb increases for higher education when their economies were strong, for fear that they
could not keep up with federally required levels of spending if their fiscal circumstances weakened.

An analysis by the National Association of State Budget Officers found that the new provision might
result in states spending close to 10.6-percent, or $197.8-billion, less than they otherwise would on
higher education from the 2008 budget year through 2012.

The analysis assumed that, if the provision were not enacted and current law did not change, state
spending would continue to grow annually at the same 5.7-percent rate as it has, on average, over the
past 10 years. For its calculations of how state spending would increase if the measure did take effect,
the group assumed that states would limit their growth in aid to colleges to the minimum increases
required under the federal provision.


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"While this mandate would reduce the cyclical nature of state higher-education funding, it would have
the unintended consequence of slowing the growth of state higher-education funding over the long
run," the National Governors Association argued in a statement laying out its opposition to the
provision.

Raymond C. Scheppach, executive director of the governors' group, said the House-passed measure
employed a "whole new use of the word 'maintenance of effort.'"

Congress has appropriately imposed such a minimum-spending requirement on states before, he said,
in cases where the federal government was taking over more responsibility from states for financing a
particular government program and wanted to make sure states didn't shirk their obligations in
response. Such a requirement was imposed, for instance, in 2003, when Congress temporarily changed
the rules of the Medicaid program so that the federal government paid a greater share of the costs
when states' economies were weak, he said.

But it would be inappropriate for the federal government to dictate how states spent large portions of
their budgets in a general area, Mr. Scheppach said. On average, 11 percent of state budgets go to
higher education, he said. When combined with current federal requirements of states to spend certain
amounts on Medicaid, that would mean more than one-third of state budgets would be tied up in
priorities set by the federal government, he said.

Potential Harm Minimized

Advocates of the House-passed provision, though, argue that the fears opponents have raised about
tying the hands of state lawmakers are overblown.

Preventing states from receiving new funds from the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership,
or LEAP, program, would not be a particularly strong punishment, Mr. Hurley argued.

LEAP, he said, is relatively small when compared with many other federal student-aid programs,
providing a total of $170-million to states this year. States would be able to make do without that
money, if they had to, he said, at times when they struggled economically and might not be able to
meet the federally required level of spending.

One of the main proponents of the measure, Rep. John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, wrote
in a January commentary for The Chronicle that he and other supporters specifically did not want to
threaten states with losing "fundamental student-aid monies," such as those the federal government
provides through Pell Grants.

LEAP grants, he wrote, "were selected because they are presumably important enough to garner the
attention of the states, yet are not part of the existing base student aid—and thus a better incentive
than other punitive proposals suggested."

The bill also provides a waiver for states that are experiencing especially severe economic downturns.
Nevertheless, RaeAnn G. Kelsch, chairwoman of the standing committee on education of the National
Conference of State Legislatures, wrote in the same issue of The Chronicle that the choice of LEAP
funds was problematic and counterproductive to the goals of improving college affordability. "The
penalty for a state facing a fiscal crisis would be to deny poor students access to need-based grants and
work-study assistance," she wrote.

More broadly, she and other opponents of the House plan also worried about the new ground the
House plan might break.


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"It would set a dangerous precedent for federal intrusion into state policy and appropriations
authority," wrote Ms. Kelsch, who is a Republican legislator in North Dakota.

Mr. Scheppach, of the governors' association, argues that mandating spending levels is the wrong
approach to accountability anyway. State officials, university regents, and private businesses in the local
communities need to be at the table together to discuss standards and financing if meaningful changes
are to take hold, he says.

He is encouraged, he said, by what he is hearing so far from senators who have been meeting this week
with their House counterparts to reconcile their differences over the higher-education bill. His group
and other opponents seem to have significantly more support from negotiators on the Senate side, Mr.
Scheppach said.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the
Senate Education Committee, said that Mr. Kennedy was continuing to examine the proposal.
House members appear to feel pretty strongly about the provision, however, having adopted it despite
the outcry from their governors and legislators. That, Mr. Hurley said, "is quite striking."




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The Chronicle of Higher Education
Panel discusses how colleges can stem the rising cost of higher education
By BECKIE SUPIANO
Thursday, February 21, 2008

Washington – If colleges want more financial help from state and federal governments to combat
rising college costs, they must be willing to approach government officials with solutions of their own,
such as improving their efficiency and reallocating their use of aid.

That was one of the main messages from a panel discussion at George Washington University on
Wednesday, where college leaders and policy experts focused on the reasons for rising college costs, as
well as possible solutions for curtailing them.

The increase in tuition and other costs has been well documented, and experts here described several
reasons for it. Besides covering the growing expenses of salaries and energy needs, many colleges are
financing multimillion-dollar facilities to stay competitive as they try to recruit top students.

But the very nature of higher education makes cutting costs difficult, panel members said. Teaching is
still a costly, labor-intensive task. And while technology is used in the classroom, it hasn't
revolutionized how teaching works. "Technology hasn't increased productivity," said Jared Bernstein,
an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Despite the conventional wisdom that rising expenses are inevitable, speakers on the panel said
colleges could take steps that would make significant progress in curtailing them.

In recent months, Harvard and Yale Universities have grabbed headlines by deciding to dip into their
endowment assets to help make college more affordable for students from lower- and middle-income
families.

Using endowment income to support financial aid is not feasible for many institutions, panelists said,
but institutions without enormous endowment assets do have other options.

After the State of Maryland slashed $20-million, or 2 percent of its budget, the University System of
Maryland made major cuts to various programs and services, said William E. Kirwan, the system's
chancellor.

The 13 institutions of Maryland's system centralized their use of energy, goods, and services and
required faculty members to spend more time in the classroom. That allowed the system to decrease its
use of adjunct faculty.

"When people in higher education say costs can't be controlled, there are lots of things that can be
done," Mr. Kirwan said.

In addition to cutting costs, the Maryland system re-evaluated its use of student aid, making provisions
to ensure that the neediest students received more of the money.

That has helped Maryland's relationship with the state. If an institution comes to the table with plans
to reduce expenses and use aid to help low-income students, Mr. Kirwan said, government officials
will be more likely to help out if they have the money to give.




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