Zoë Pixler, Family Orientation Coordinator, sat down with President Clif Smart to ask the question “What does Student Affairs mean to you?” (Fourth in a series of articles about the Division of Student Affairs at Missouri State.)
What do you think is the first reaction people have to the term student affairs?
If you are not familiar with the university, you may not know what that is. However for me, I think of the student experience and how do we connect students to the university and how do we make the student experience meaningful, exciting, engaging.
Missouri State University’s student affairs vision statement is “champions for student success.” Can you define that in your own words?
Student success has got lots of levels of meaning. On the one hand, it means that students do well in class, they are retained and come back for a second and third and fourth year, and they ultimately graduate, preferably on time. And then that they’re prepared for meaningful life after college, which includes a career but being ready to be a good and involved citizen. All of that I think is important. The student affairs piece has ‘champions’ because they are a huge piece of helping students do those things. Beginning at SOAR, family programs, the residence halls and all of those things that help students get involved and understand what is going on and ultimately be successful at the university.
Do you think Missouri State successfully meets this vision?
Yes, you know we are striving to do better every year. You are never fully there, you never cross the finish line, it’s a continued excellence. I think we work every year to improve our programming. The Living Learning Communities is a great example where we’ve looked to see what is the state of the art, what are our competitors doing and what are we doing really well that we can build on and how we can do that. I really think that getting student’s engaged beginning at the residence halls and on forward is really a critical thing. Over the next couple of years we are going to double and triple the number of Living Learning Communities we have. That involves programming, which is connecting students to each other and the things they are interested in and ultimately the university.
How have your views of Student Affairs changed throughout your time here at Missouri State?
I think the more you know about it, the more you understand how important student affairs is. I think that it was really demonstrated that our students think that it is important in this recent Taylor Health expansion vote. Overwhelming positive to say we want to make sure that our university offers the things that great universities offer. Our students expect that of us. Whether its recreation, athletics, health care, residence life, engagement activities, academic activities, all those things are important to the student experience. Our students take pride in our university and we want to make sure they have an incredible college experience while they’re here.
What do you feel is the most important factor to student success?
I think factors for student success include connection to each other, connection to the university, a sense of pride in the university, the ability to do the work, the willingness to do the work and learn. It’s beginning to identify with the university so you think of yourself as a bear forever.
What is your favorite tradition at Missouri State?
I think that we do Homecoming week as good as anyone. From all of the different contests and community activities, Gale and I probably like Rockstar as much as anything and the Yell Like Hell pep rally. I think we created a great pre-football game tradition in Bearfest Village where we typically have 15000-20000 people having a great time on the main campus before the football game. It’s a lot of fun.