Our mission is to educate students to be global citizen scholars committed to public affairs.

We integrate this mission into academic work in the classroom, research, creating a welcoming campus and providing extracurricular activities for students. We also demonstrate our commitment to this mission by hosting a wide array of speakers and events on campus.

Over the past few years the university has been privileged to rent campus facilities to actors, reporters, authors, politicians, activists, scientists, musicians and many others. These presentations often draw large crowds of supporters. Sometimes they also draw substantial opposition.

The First Amendment prohibits us from choosing who to rent to based on the specific cause or viewpoint of the group. Regardless of who we rent to, it is the university’s responsibility to make certain these events do not disrupt academic classes and other university activities.

To this end, the Board of Governors approved a Facility Rental Policy at its August retreat. This policy identifies several factors the university will evaluate when determining whether to rent a facility to an outside group and how to manage the rental to avoid campus disruption.

The policy makes clear that the university reserves the right to deny rental of a facility or offer alternate dates for a facility rental to avoid interference with classes and other campus activities. The policy also states that we will not make facility rental decisions based on the identity or viewpoint of the presenter.

As Missouri State’s profile continues to grow, outside interest in renting our facilities will increase. This a good thing — high level events on campus allow us to put the public affairs mission into practice, receive additional revenue and showcase our university to a larger audience. The new Facility Rental Policy will help us responsibly manage these requests and events.

Thanks for all you do for Missouri State!