FORMER SOUTHEAST PRESIDENT FOSTER TO INTERIM JOB AT SOUTHWEST BAPTIST

A former Southeast Missouri State University president has accepted a position as interim president of Southwest Baptist University at Bolivar.

Robert W. Foster, who served as Southeast's 13th president from July 1989 to July 1990, is scheduled to begin his duties at Southwest Baptist today.

"I am very excited," he said Monday night. "I obviously look on it as an opportunity. You are always pleased when someone seeks you out. Hopefully they need some of the skills I have."

Foster has handled interim duties before; he served as Southeast's president while the university searched for a permanent replacement, filling the gap between former president Bill Stacy and current university President Kala Stroup, who took office in July 1990.

Foster spent 24 years in administration at Southeast, many of them as executive vice president.

He retired from that role at the end of last year. But his affiliation with the university continued as he took a position as executive director of the Southeast Missouri University Foundation, the institution's fund-raising arm that he helped establish in 1983.

Fittingly, Foster's acceptance of the job at Southwest Baptist was the biggest news to come out of Monday's meeting of the foundation's board of directors.

During his tenure at Southwest Baptist, Foster will continue to function as executive director for the Southeast Missouri University Foundation, although in a more limited way and without pay.

Foster said he and his wife plan to live in Bolivar during his approximately six-month tenure as interim president of the school.

Foster said he's not interested in becoming the school's permanent president. He said he and his wife plan to return to Cape Girardeau once his job as interim president is completed.

A tireless promoter of Southeast, Foster spent his last few hours in Cape Girardeau Monday night attending a dinner celebrating the university's 1943 National Association Intercollegiate Basketball Championship.

Ahead of him was a lengthy drive from Cape Girardeau to Bolivar, which has a population of about 5,000. The school has about 2,000 students, Foster said.

In some ways, the job of interim president will seem like a homecoming to Foster; he grew up in Weaubleau, a town of some 300 people 30 miles from Bolivar.

His father, Walter Foster a rural mail carrier served as chairman of the Southwest Baptist University board 35 years ago. Robert Foster's grandfather was the first layman to receive the school's Life Beautiful Award, similar to Southeast's Friend-of-the-University award.

"My two sisters graduated from there," Foster said.

"I've been active in Baptist work at the state level for many years. This is a continuation of that," he said.

Foster said school officials approached him about the job, and he couldn't refuse. "If you're given a talent, you are expected to use it," Foster said, referring to the Bible.

He declined to disclose terms of his compensation. Southwest Baptist is a private school and not required to disclose such information.