University group foresees meeting student demand in courses

Since its first meeting in spring 2013, Southeast Missouri State University's Academic Visionary Committee has generated many health-related degree and certificate programs that will be offered in spring, with more to come.

Heather McMillan, faculty associate, Office of the Provost, said the 10-member panel is considering a potential public health interdisciplinary program and a clinic at the River Campus Center, where students in the athletic training program could provide support to the performing arts students in case of injury.

"The performing arts students theater dance music, they all need the same types of services [as athletes]. ... It gives different experience options for students on the athletic training side, so if they wanted to go work for performance arts companies, or traveling theater groups ... it's just a whole different area for them to go practice in," she said.

The public health piece would be based from the biology department, but the concentrations will be from the various colleges on campus. "That's going to be a learning curve for us to figure out how we manage those programs and advising and that type of thing, but it's great for the university. It not only makes people work together, but it really allows us to recognize the value in different disciplines," McMillan said.

The visionary committee is a way for the university to build new programs, maximize existing classes and leverage them so they can be integrated, McMillan said.

The degree programs go through the Southeast Missouri State University Board of Regents and on to the Missouri Coordinating Board of Higher Education for approval before they can be offered. The visionary committee is not an approving body, but McMillan said it can help with research, financial resources and mentor faculty members through the process creating a new program.

One of the committee members is director of admissions Lenell Hahn. With her on board, McMillan said, the committee can keep track of what students are looking for and what they want to study.

When students take the ACT and SAT exams, a demographic piece asks what they want to study and where they want to go. There also is a website that looks at what students want to study and what universities are offering in that field, among other things.

"A lot of it is just digging through course programs [at] different colleges, looking at our peer institutions and our aspirant institutions to see what they're offering and where we can fill the gaps," McMillan said. Aspirant institutions are those the university would like to emulate.

President Kenneth Dobbins got the concept rolling for a visionary committee, which is fairly unique among Southeast's peer institutions, McMillan said. The idea was to break down silos across the university and have people from across the disciplines work together.

"We're really looking at the degree programs and what the student where demand is, keeping an eye on the industry and really moving from a reactive stance to a proactive stance," McMillan said.

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