STROUP OPTIMISTIC ABOUT EDUCATION TAX HIKE

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Southeast Missouri State University President Kala Stroup expressed optimism Wednesday that the Missouri House will pass tax-hike-for-education legislation.

"It looks okay," Stroup said at a meeting of the Faculty Senate. "I'm not really worried yet. I think that it (the legislation) is getting there."

Stroup said she has been spending a lot of time in Jefferson City lobbying legislators on the need for placing such a tax measure before Missouri voters.

"I spend at least one day a week in Jefferson City on this issue alone," said Stroup.

Several weeks ago, the Missouri Senate passed a $462 million tax plan that would provide increased funding for elementary and secondary, and higher education.

On the House side, Speaker Bob Griffin recently outlined a $671 million plan to provide additional funds not only for education, but other areas of state government as well.

Stroup said a group called Missourians for Higher Education (MHE), representing both public and private higher education institutions in the state, has been stating the case for increased funding for three years.

"We've got a lot of supporters out there," she added. "I hate to lose it by not taking this to the voters."

Wednesday's meeting marked the last regular senate meeting for the 1990-91 academic year.

"I think overall we have had a productive year," said Alberta Dougan, Faculty Senate chairperson.

Among the senate's accomplishments this year, said Dougan, was passage of a faculty merit pay proposal.

The Faculty Senate celebrated its 25th year of existence with a birthday cake and by honoring former senators who served on the first senate.

Seven of the 14 original senators were on hand for the celebration Wednesday. One of them, Harold Dugger, said that then-university president Mark Scully "invited" the faculty to form the organization in April 1964.

Dugger said that action occurred at a time when "faculty members had grown restive" in wanting to play a role in decision-making matters at Southeast.

It took two years to develop a faculty constitution, which was ratified in April 1966, Dugger said. Elections were held in the spring of that year and the senate convened for the first time in September 1966.

Dugger said the Faculty Senate dealt with a number of issues in its first two years, including faculty welfare. "Faculty welfare was an area of concern as I gather it continues to be," he said.

In 1968, the Faculty Senate failed in an effort to keep eight faculty members from being terminated. "It was quite a flap in 1968," remembered Dugger.

But out of that controversy, a committee was formed that led to adoption of university policies regarding academic freedom, tenure and due process, Dugger said.

In other business, Provost Leslie Cochran reported in a letter to the senate that $115,000, which in past years has been earmarked for awards for faculty, will be used to provide additional funding for professional development, and grants and research for faculty.

Of that amount, $80,000 will be added to the annual professional development budget. The remaining $35,000 will be added to the funding for grants and research.

As a result, annual funding for grants and research will increase from $40,000 to $75,000, Dougan said. The money is allocated through the Grants and Research Funding Committee of the Faculty Senate.