During last week’s spring break I had the happy opportunity to combine business with pleasure, traveling to Chicago to visit family and connecting with some Arts and Letters alumni while I was in town.  I could just as easily say I combined pleasure with pleasure, because meeting with alumni certainly is one of the more enjoyable bits of business for any college dean.

Saturday evening about 30 alumni gathered at the Rock Bottom Restaurant & Brewery in downtown Chicago.  I told this group that one of my responsibilities was to increase the value of their Missouri State University degrees by working continually to improve the university and its reputation.  Lately the university understandably has devoted much attention to recruiting new students; it can be easy to lose sight of the tens of thousands of alumni who continue to watch us carefully, as well.  We have made investments in one another, and it is gratifying for all of us to witness growth and success.

Everywhere I go, alumni speak fondly of their years here at Missouri State, and it doesn’t matter if they graduated two years ago or twenty or fifty years ago.  Hal McAninch (’57), for example, spoke of how important the individual attention and mentoring he received was to his success; but I heard similar sentiments from Mark Thorne (’00) and Traci Stanton (’92), as I have from many others.  And every graduate I meet asks about specific professors and shares stories of memorable experiences they had with those individuals.  Teachers sometimes forget how remembered they are.

Last week I spoke with several alumni who hope to see their children or grandchildren attend Missouri State.  That probably is the highest compliment we could receive from our graduates.  What’s more, these were people who don’t live in Missouri, much less in our corner of the state.

This has been a stressful year at the university — uncertain budgets, hiring frosts and thaws, pressures to maintain enrollments and reduce costs — but the encouragement of alumni this past week has reminded me again that our work has great meaning, and that we do it very well.  It is, indeed, a privilege to be a Bear.