Across the country, the picture for state universities is bleak: rising tuition and fees, falling state funding, budget cuts, pay freezes and more students in need of financial aid.
Despite these pressures, officials at Missouri State University – which last month passed the 107-year mark and absorbed its fourth yearly cut in state funding – still has an eye out for growth.
“We hope this is the last year of reductions,” says Clif Smart, MSU’s interim president, noting the long-term plan is growth in enrollment and employment.
The university employed more than 3,200 faculty and staff in the 2011-–12 academic year, and enrollment has held steady at about 20,000 for the past three years.
In June, the MSU Board of Governors approved a fiscal 2013 budget with projected operating revenues of $164.8 million, against budgeted expenses of $228.2 million. On the same day, Gov. Jay Nixon signed the state’s higher education budget with a 1 percent reduction. As a result, MSU will receive about $78.5 million from the state, an amount that’s roughly $5.2 million more than expected, but still $800,000 less than its fiscal 2012, which ended June 30. As a result of the unexpected funding boost, university officials plan to amend the budget in the fall.
Financial wrangling aside, MSU has been pumping energy and resources into the local business community.
“It’s our duty as a public institution to create jobs in the local community,” says Allan Kunkel, MSU’s associate vice president for economic development and director of the Jordan Valley Innovation Center.
JVIC is just one piece of the university’s IDEA Commons, an ongoing development project billed as an urban research park that brings together innovation, design, entrepreneurship and the arts. It began with the construction of JVIC in 2007 with support from the city.
Located downtown just south of Chestnut Expressway and east of Campbell Avenue, the commons eventually will cover 88 acres of space.
The idea, Kunkel says, is to lay the groundwork for a thriving partnership between university resources, students and Springfield residents looking to start or grow a business or gain real-world experience.
“The university’s just trying to take the lead,” Kunkel says.
“Anything we do down at IDEA Commons, we want to have that private-sector relationship, either because we can support their business opportunity or they’re using our students or faculties.”
The commons’ three anchors are already in place. JVIC, for its part, is “virtually complete,” Kunkel says, and is home to research efforts in nanotechnology, energy and other high-tech areas. Lockheed Martin and Mercy are among the companies signed on as center affiliates.
Brick City, a six-building complex on Mill Street and Campbell, is home to tenants such as MSU’s Department of Art and Design and related business tenants, including advertising company Marlin Network Inc.
Finally, the Robert W. Plaster Center for Free Enterprise and Business Development – in the former Willow Brook Foods building – will be home to the E-Factory business incubator, an adaptable “one-stop shop” for startups to form plans and benchmarks, Kunkel says.
Both are expected to come fully online early next year, Kunkel says, and will house other business tenants as well. Other departments, such as engineering, could become involved.
“It’s going much faster than I expected it to, and I think in the next 10 years there’s going to be a lot of activity down there,” Kunkel says. “You’re going to see some unique energies or synergies.”
While IDEA Commons continues growing, other university development projects will have to wait until the budget stabilizes and the state commits more aid, Smart says.
“There’s some other buildings we have in mind,” he says. “We’re still working on what our priority list should be.”
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