MSU president reflects on 13 years in office

Missouri State University President Clif Smart is experiencing a lot of lasts as he prepares for his June 30 retirement.

One example happened on May 6, when Smart, 63, served his last President’s Finals Breakfast. A finals week tradition held in a campus dining hall during the unlikely hours of 9-11 p.m., the event allows the ultimate big man on campus to don an apron and serve up sausage patties to some 2,000 students gearing up for an all-night cram session.

This year, as the students made their way through the serving line, several took a moment to snap a selfie with the president, and a handful asked for his autograph.

Smart said he didn’t originate the tradition, but he was excited to keep it going throughout his administration.

“It’s frequently unnecessary to reinvent the wheel if things are going well,” he said. “You can tweak things or add things, or if stuff stops being interesting to people, you can roll it off.”

Smart did tweak the tradition at the end of the fall 2020 semester, when goodie bags – dubbed Smart Snack Bags – were offered in lieu of the large-scale get-together as a pandemic precaution.

Flexibility and willingness to adapt were characteristics that helped Smart steer MSU through the COVID-19 crisis – something he says the university did in close consultation with Springfield officials, like Mayor Ken McClure and former Director of Health Clay Goddard.

He said he recalled January 2021, when arrival of the vaccine coincided with another large outbreak of COVID-19. Many communities were nervous about college students coming back to in-person classes.

“I remember Ken McClure and Clay Goddard coming to see me and saying, ‘Hey, whatever you all decide to do on how you open up, just know the city of Springfield is going to be standing right there with you; we’re going to do it together.’”

Smart described the moment as reinforcing.

“Our relationship with the community is as good as any university anywhere,” he said.

McClure said he agrees that MSU and the city of Springfield have a special relationship, with none of the town-versus-gown attitudes found in some communities. That’s due in large part to Smart, he said.

“If you look at the relationship, it’s not like in a smaller community, where the university is the major player,” he said. “Yes, Missouri State is a major player, but in a larger city, we all get along just great. In my view, almost without exception, what’s good for the university is good for the city, and you can almost apply that across the board.”

Right person, right time
Smart became president at a critical moment for the university, succeeding James E. Cofer Sr., who held the post for only 11 months. Smart was tapped for the interim role in 2011 and took the permanent position in 2012.

Hotelier Gordon Elliott was chair of the MSU Board of Governors when Cofer resigned, and he said he had two other people in mind to serve as interim president, but both suggested Smart – then the university’s general legal counsel – instead.

Elliott had his doubts.

“My concern was that as an attorney, he’d only supervised a couple of people, maybe three or four, in his office,” he said. “I thought, ‘This may not work out.’ But I trusted the guys who told me he’d be a good fit.”

Smart turned out to be a great fit, Elliott said.

“I told him after the interim that he should not rule out the fact that if he liked it, he could be the permanent president,” he said.

Elliott said the search committee’s choice was clear.

“He promised me that he’d stay there 10 years – I think people ought to stay in a position for a while – and he stayed 13,” he said. “I’m really proud of him. That’s the luckiest, best pick I’ve ever made.”

Elliott said one of Smart’s chief accomplishments was entering a bad situation and turning things around.

“The thing about him: He listens,” he said.

He added that Smart’s background is not in academia, so he does not come to situations with preconceived ideas of desired outcomes.

“He doesn’t know, so he’s fair. He gets the picture right and gets everybody running in the same direction,” said Elliott.

Under Smart, faculty and staff went from feeling extremely dissatisfied with Cofer to being engaged and happy again, Elliott said.

Jim Anderson served as co-chair of the search committee when Smart was selected.

“I have unbelievable admiration and respect for him, both personally and professionally,” he said. “I’m convinced if we would Google the ideal university president, Clif Smart would come up. He has embraced that role like I’ve never seen before.”

One thing Smart brought to the table was an understanding of the importance of brand recognition, Anderson said.

“He has worked hard to improve that, and it has worked in spades,” he said. “The way he has embraced the community is like no other university president I’ve seen.”

Added Anderson, “I’ve heard him say so many times, ‘So goes the community, so goes the university.’ Of course, you can flip that coin. They truly are intertwined, from economic development to quality of life, and he’s really advanced that cause.”

Accomplishments
While it is a season of lasts, Smart is also responsible for quite a few firsts during his time as president.

Under his leadership, the university set multiple enrollment records, with a Springfield campus high of 24,390 students in 2018 following a system high – including the West Plains campus – of 26,216 the year before, according to MSU figures that include all students, graduate and undergraduate. With the current academic year’s fall class, the university had its largest-ever class of first-time students with 2,685 and its largest graduate student enrollment of 4,288.

Smart’s presidency also coincided with the largest fundraising campaign in the university’s history, with the Onward Upward campaign bringing in a total of $274 million from before it was announced in 2019 until its conclusion in 2022.

Under Smart, MSU became a doctoral granting institution, recognized by the Missouri Coordinating Board of Higher Education and the Higher Learning Commission, and began offering doctoral degrees in occupational therapy, psychology, and defense and strategic studies.

Reflecting on his time in office, Smart said opening and expanding the Efactory – the university’s business incubator, founded in 2013 – is among the best things to have happened in his time at MSU.

“I think the Efactory is really the home of young entrepreneurship,” he said. “It’s a hub of activity. People can start businesses there and fail quickly and try again, or grow them and move out and other people come in.”

He also takes pride in embracing economic development through IDEA Commons Research Park, Brick City and the Roy Blunt Jordan Valley Innovation Center.

“That whole area north of the square was just starting when I came in,” he said. “We just had the beginning of JVIC, and most of that growth has occurred since I’ve been here, and I think that’s a major accomplishment for the university and our city together.”

Smart is also proud of changes that have occurred on campus grounds over his term of office.

“We completely renovated many of our facilities to bring them up to standards, and some to really cutting-edge kind of standards,” he said.

Glass Hall has been renovated into a state-of-the-art business facility, he noted, and new campus facilities include the Davis-Harrington Welcome Center, the John Goodman Amphitheater and the Magers Health and Wellness Center, among others. A new residence hall, Heitz House, also was built during his administration through a public-private partnership with Bryan Student Housing LLC.

Plans
Smart said he is looking forward to his retirement. He plans to spend time with his wife, Gail, and spend time with their two sons, Murray and Jim, and their grandchildren.

“It is mostly the goal is to see family and travel and read all the things I didn’t have time to read,” he said.

He said he also intends to be more engaged with his church and continue with service on various boards.

Gary Gibson, president and CEO of City Utilities of Springfield, said Smart is a valuable member of the CU Board of Public Utilities.

“He’s almost always the first one on our board to ask what’s the impact going to be on all of our customers,” Gibson said. “He does that while also challenging us to be bold and make sure we’re doing what we need to do to support Springfield.”

Brian Fogle, Smart’s friend for over 30 years, said he has enjoyed watching Smart on his journey as president.

“It’s been really great to see that opportunity and how he took advantage of it – and what it’s meant for MSU and the community,” he said.

Fogle said some people lead by telling others what it is they need to do, but that’s not Smart’s way. Rather, Smart outlines options and gives people a sense of the possibilities in front of them.

“What people appreciate from Clif is that he is willing to just be present,” he said. “He always asks, ‘How can we work better together?’”