Last Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, we held our annual Board of Governors Retreat. This was my first in-person meeting with the board, and it went well.

We discussed many important things for the coming year that I’d like to share with you. We also enjoyed an alumni event on Thursday evening, which included alumni from the Lake of the Ozarks area.

Presidential goals

As with the rest of the university employee base, I have goals and objectives assigned to me by my supervisors — the Board of Governors. The board identified four goals for me to complete in the coming year:

• Successful presidential transition plan execution — meeting the campus, the community, legislators, students, etc. and understanding the projects and processes at Missouri State.
• Develop a new strategic plan (a year early, since there have been many changes in the last year).
• Continued operational excellence.
• Successful transition to Conference USA.

Strategic plan development begins

On Thursday afternoon, we kicked off the strategic plan development. We have engaged an experienced outside consultant with whom I have worked in the past. He’ll facilitate the process over the coming year.

The Administrative Council and the governors broke down into teams of five. We essentially identified Missouri State’s strengths, weakness, threats and opportunities from the administrative perspective — otherwise known as a SWOT analysis.

Our facilitator will meet with campus, community, alumni and legislative groups over the next several months going through the exact same exercises. This input will drive the development of the strategic plan.

It’s going to be a pretty intense process, and we can’t succeed without your participation. We’ll be sending out communications (keep an eye on Inside Missouri State) for participation opportunities. We’ll also be selecting the strategic plan steering committee in the coming weeks. The main goal of this process is to create “our” strategic plan. Thus, your participation will be very important.

Around the state

On Friday, the board provided input on feedback they’re hearing from citizens in their districts about higher education in general and Missouri State specifically.

We also were presented with a legislative preview for the 2025 legislative session. Executive Vice President Zora Mulligan covered four big things:

• Elections
• Budget (which could be influenced by state elections)
• Funding model (how budgets are allocated to universities in Missouri)
• Old and new legislative bills that we may see in this session

Around campus

We had an update on the athletics director search. We can expect to see public forums scheduled when finalists are announced either later this week or early next week. Also, I’ll be meeting with Conference USA as we begin the transition process. We’ll officially join CUSA July 1, 2025. There’s a lot to do between now and then.

Provost Dr. John Jasinski and Dean Dr. Tammy Jahnke provided a primer on the upcoming Higher Learning Commission (HLC) accreditation evaluation that will take place March 30-31, 2026.

This is a reaffirmation of the accreditation we currently hold. It’s a very, very important element of our standing as a university. There’s much to be done in preparing the report, which will be submitted to the HLC in summer 2025.

Fall semester begins soon

It’s hard to believe students will be returning to campus next week and classes start in two weeks. Fall is such an exciting time!

Thanks for checking in. It’s a great day to be a Bear!

Biff