Bottom line: you are making investments and sacrifices to send your student to college and you want to make sure that theses investments will pay off for your student. Rest assured, Missouri Western State University has the kind of outcomes that you and your student are looking for. We call these outcomes our "Points of Pride", and we add new points every month to the Points of Pride website.

Here are just a few points that show the great things our students, staff and faculty are doing as well as initiatives that lead to these great outcomes:

• Western offers 13 learning communities, including three residential learning communities, where students can take classes and live together. In 2004, the university was one of only 19 colleges and universities selected to participate in a National Learning Communities Project Summer Institute.

• One hundred percent of the health information technology graduates who took the licensure examination passed, compared to a 73% national average.

• Students in education continue to perform well on the Coordinating Board for Higher Education's recommended National Teacher Exam Exit Goal. The percentage of Western students in education who met the goal was well above the average of four-year institutions in Missouri. In addition, 100% of teacher education candidates passed the PRAXIS II exit exam.

• Western was the only public university in Missouri and one of seven schools to enter into an agreement with a medical school that allows early admission for two Western juniors. In an agreement with a second medical school, Western was one of 11 institutions nationwide to enter into an agreement that guarantees admission for two sophomores.

• A student in English won second place for Yearbook Organizational Writing in the National Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Awards Competition 2005 presented in New York City.

• A student in criminal justice won first place in the undergraduate division for his research poster session at the annual American Correctional Association conference in Phoenix.

• A professor in biology had a cave-dwelling invertebrate named after him. He was honored because of his several years of work in monitoring the ecosystem of the cave.

• Faculty members published books and articles or made presentations 214 times in regional, national and international forums in their profession in 2005.

• A professor of music and director of percussion studies is a recipient of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Award. The awards are based on the unique prestige of each writer's original compositions and recent performances.

• In the past year, 79% of our graduates completed an applied learning experience. This exceeds Western's strategic plan goal of 75% of graduates completing applied learning experiences. Applied learning includes faculty-student research, internships, and clinical experiences.

• A student in criminal justice and legal studies was one of only seven students in the nation selected to present a paper at the Academy of Legal Studies in Business conference in Ottawa, Canada.

• Students engaged in more than 29,000 hours of community service during the past year in projects like Habitat for Humanity, tutoring, mentoring and Second Harvest Food Bank.