We believe the international mission at Missouri Southern State University is a critical component of the school’s educational experience. We also believe the international mission helps set MSSU apart from other Missouri universities.
It is, after all, the very thing that put the U in MSSU. After the mission was recognized by the state in 1995, the university has received state money annually to specifically further the mission.
That’s why we’re glad to see a task force recommend the continuance of the mission as a central focus for its future.
However, there is more to having an international mission than just saying you have an international mission. It has to be funded, supported and constantly improved. For instance, we’d be interested in knowing what international studies students do after leaving MSSU. Are Joplin businesses and industries reaping the benefits of the university’s mission by hiring some of these graduates?
Funding is currently an issue for the mission. In its list of complaints against Speck, the MSSU Faculty Senate said cutting the Institute for International Studies’ budget by 40 percent was an example of failure of leadership.
MSSU has enough challenges ahead of it, even when you discount the controversy between the president and faculty: University officials are working to keep enrollment increasing. Campus groups struggle to get a mostly commuting student body interested in on-campus activities. The school’s athletic facilities, when compared to conference opponents, are lacking.
But shortchanging the international mission won’t help the university. It, more than anything else, has the power to attract future students and make those students incredibly valuable members of society.
The university experience is or should be about a lot more than pure academics. Ideally it should provide a good early glimpse of the real nature of the world, the world beyond the local cocoon in which we were raised. The opportunity for a semester or two of study abroad is an invaluable adjunct to proper preparation for a fuller and more rewarding life and for greater understanding and tolerance of differences that exist and that we must learn to work with.
We can’t think of a more apropos use of the French phrase, “raison d’être,” or “reason to be.”
Opinion
In Our View: Don’t undercut mission
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Beth Meeker, guest columnist: Same-sex marriage battle a quest for equal rights
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