Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--With the land-grant institution's strategic planning effort nearing completion, Mississippi State President Robert H. "Doc" Foglesong said the university will be consolidating faculty, staff and alumni activities to more effectively focus on student recruitment.
"I'm not interested in lowering our standards, but I am interested in a campaign that will retain the sons and daughters of Mississippi," he said in a recent videotaped statement to alumni and the campus community.
Foglesong said he has asked senior staff, alumni groups and MSU faculty to become engaged as voices for the university in "an increasingly competitive market environment.
"Mississippi State has much to offer and we will be communicating that as widely as possible," he continued, adding that a campus group now is working on a recruitment operations plan.
The effort will consider faculty and infrastructure needs to accommodate future student populations, and build on several key recruitment areas Foglesong has identified.
"We are interested in students who have the academic skills to be successful and in helping ensure their success at MSU," he said. As an example, the university expects to enroll 20 or more National Merit scholars, he observed.
Final, official reports of National Merit scholars by institution will be released by the National Merit Corp. in July.
Continuing to focus on access to "The People's University," Foglesong earlier announced the launching of scholarship programs for incoming freshmen and community college transfers whose family incomes are below $30,000. Called Mississippi State Promise, it has a required academic component as well.
"We're trying to recapture qualified students who may have been squeezed out by tuition increases," he said.
Other areas Foglesong has identified for development are a potential center for U.S. veterans, a student leadership program for students who have excelled in public service organizations such as the scouts, and a strengthening of opportunities for international students.
"Mississippi State will work deliberately, and we will work as a team," he said.