Fall classes begin today.  Among other things, this means new students standing in hallways and lobbies wishing that their printed class schedules came with holographic guides to building floor plans.  Most of our campus buildings are not equipped with clear visual guides or, in some cases, even logical room numbering sequences.  Where are those “You Are Here” maps when you need them?

Every once in a while we all need a “You Are Here” orientation.  We must ask ourselves, Where am I?  Where is it I’m trying to go? and Can I get there from here?  Helping students find their way in an unfamiliar building reminds me that they are asking the same questions about their lives, in general, as are the rest of us.

This year I am asking faculty and staff to imagine Arts and Letters as a college of destination.  By “destination” I mean that students come to and stay at Missouri State because of us.  Some students will come to Missouri State specifically to study graphic design or musical theatre, for example.  Other students will come here for a variety of reasons and then find us once they arrive, perhaps discovering a passion for creative writing, communication, or languages.  In either case, if we are a college of destination, then our programs draw students to Missouri State and keep them here.

A college of destination is built on programs of destination.  This summer I asked our department heads to describe the characteristics of a destination program and they suggested the following.  Destination programs have:

• Quality faculty who are enthusiastic about their work and their students.
• Unique qualities that distinguish them from other similar programs.
• Established reputations.
• A commitment to mentoring students and providing individual attention.
• Highly talented students who compete for opportunities.
• A “cycle of success” where new students see graduates doing well and expect to do well themselves.
• Involved alumni who give back to students and spread the programs’ reputations.
• Traditions that celebrate their heritages and honor those upon whose work the programs’ successes are built.

Being a college of destination does not mean that we are the end of the road.  Far from it.  Although arriving at college certainly is a milestone, many students already are fixed on the next goal — a career, graduate school, a life as far from Springfield, Missouri as they can get.  One of the most important questions we can help students ask is, “Where do you want to go?”  And our response to their answers should be, “You can get there from here.”

At our all-college meeting last week I shared just a small representative list of where our recent alumni have gone.  I would wager that many of them never dreamed of these places when they first came to campus, while some of them may have wondered if they could realize their ambitions with an education from an in-state public university.  So to our new students I pose the following questions, and they all have the same answer: Yes, you can get there from here.

Do you want to …

• Own your own design firm?
• Be president of a major advertising agency?
• Work on special effects for major network television series?
• Be the lead environment artist for internationally distributed video games?
• Win an Emmy?
• Be a university professor at institutions like Stanford, California State University, Ohio University, University of Illinois, or Harvard?
• Live and work internationally?
• Work in management positions for Fortune 500 companies like IBM, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, e-Bay, or Wal-Mart?
• Publish novels or have your writing appear in The New Yorker?
• Edit a major motion picture or a hit TV series?
• Manage a German company just because you are fluent in the appropriate language?
• Perform on Broadway and in national touring companies?
• Act on network television?
• Own a multi-million dollar company?
• Be a highly successful trial attorney?
• Be accepted into the country’s top PhD, MFA and MA programs?
• Win national awards for your creative work?
• Be a fabulous high school teacher?
• Be nominated for a Grammy?
• Sing with a major opera company?
• Work in the White House?

The map says, “You Are Here.”  And that’s an excellent place to start.