The year 2005 is significant for Missouri Western – that was the year legislation was signed to designate Missouri Western State College as Missouri Western State University.
Missouri Western officially became a university on Aug. 28, 2005, and the new University celebrated with an unveiling of a changed entrance sign, bands, a carnival, fireworks and an ice cream social. There was even a ceremony to unveil the “U” that had replaced the “C” in the gravel MWSC sign on the hillside facing the interstate.
On Aug. 31, a formal ceremony to mark university designation was held in the Looney Complex. Former presidents Dr. M.O. Looney and Dr. Janet Murphy McCarthy attended the academic convocation, and they were the first to receive honorary degrees from the now-University.
Dr. James Scanlon, president from 2000-2008, said university designation was not on his agenda when he arrived to begin his tenure, but he wasn’t president very long before it became very important to him.
“We were already a university in fact, just not in name,” he said at the time. “When I saw what the potential of university designation could be, I realized it was necessary.”
The issue of university designation was brought before the state General Assembly several times before it became a reality, and the initiative entailed many discussions, legislative bills and hard work by many legislators, Missouri Western administrators, faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members.
Talk of university designation for Missouri Western actually dated back to the late 1980s, when local legislators brought up the issue in the General Assembly, but it quickly died out for lack of support.
In 1997, Dr. Alice Chandler, former president of State University of New York at New Paltz, was hired as a consultant at Missouri Western, and one of her recommendations in the report was to change the name of the College to Missouri Western State University. Dr. Murphy McCarthy, who was president at the time, noted to the Board of Regents, “That is a topic that the legislature does not want to hear.”
A year later, Rep. Charlie Shields filed legislation to change the “College” in Missouri Western’s name to “University,” but it was not supported by the Coordinating Board for Higher Education.
Dr. Scanlon reported at the February 2002 Board of Regents meeting that several name change bills had been introduced in the state’s General Assembly, and one or more of the bills could allow Missouri Western to be a university. The House approved one of the bills, and so did the Senate’s Committee on Education, but the full Senate did not vote on it. Dr. Scanlon later reported at a Board of Regents meeting that the Senate was too busy focusing on the deterioration of state finances to vote on the university designation bill.
More name change bills were introduced in the 2003 legislative session, which would have allowed Missouri Western and Missouri Southern in Joplin to become universities. One bill got as far as being considered by the full Senate, but faced opposition and didn’t pass.
In 2004, for the third year in a row, a name change bill emerged in the State Legislature. That year, State Sen. Charlie Shields introduced the bill for university designation for Missouri Western. Dr. David Arnold, who was vice president for academic and student affairs, and Ryan Sevcik ’04, Student Government Association president in 2002-03, testified in the Senate committee. The bill was approved by the Senate committee, but before it went to the full Senate, it became connected to proposed name changes for other higher education institutions in the state.
Although there was no opposition voiced for Missouri Western’s name change, there was opposition to other institution’s name changes, so the bill did not pass. “In the ‘all or nothing at all’ environment that developed in the Senate regarding name changes,” Dr. Scanlon told the Board of Regents at its May 2004 meeting, “‘nothing at all’ prevailed.”
When the 2004 Legislature closed with no university bill passed, Dr. Scanlon noted at the May Board of Regents meeting, “Western has the profile of a university. In most other states, Western would long ago have been designated a university. Only the politics of Missouri and Missouri public higher education stand in the way of university designation for Western. We will continue to work with the politics to bring justice to Western and the region that it serves. Without question, university designation for Western is fundamental to the economic future of this region.”
As the State Legislature prepared for its 2005 session, the Alumni Association Board of Directors passed a resolution supporting Missouri Western’s efforts to obtain university designation, and the College developed a web page where alumni could express their support. When the legislators were in session, students delivered 1,600 letters to them requesting support for the designation.
The session opened with a lot of activity regarding name change bills. The Senate’s committee on education held hearings on two different bills, one that addressed only Missouri Western, and one that addressed Missouri Western, Missouri Southern, Harris Stowe in St. Louis, and Southwest Missouri State in Springfield.
On Feb. 15, after 14 hours of debate, the Senate passed an omnibus bill – Senate Bill 98 – that included the name change provisions for the four institutions, and the bill moved to the House. There it passed on March 1, and Gov. Matt Blunt signed it into law March 17 in Springfield, Mo. A ceremonial signing was held on Missouri Western’s campus March 19 in the Kemper Recital Hall in Spratt Hall.
Several students traveled with Beth Wheeler, director of External Relations, to Jefferson City, Missouri in late March, visiting offices to thank the legislators for their support.
“The signing of the bill passed by the Missouri General Assembly is the result of many years of effort by many individuals,” Dr. Scanlon said. “The university designation effort was mounted by individuals in the Western family and well beyond the Western family.”
“Dr. Scanlon’s leadership in communicating Western’s accomplishments to the State Legislature and community helped promote this change,” Vice President for Institutional Advancement Dan Nicoson said in 2005. “He put a lot of pieces in place for that to happen.”