MSU President M. Peter McPherson plans to talk about the future of university commercialization and globalization when he delivers his eighth annual State of the University address Tuesday afternoon.
With MSU currently experiencing a “momentum” boost, McPherson said the opportunities for educational advancement are endless.
“Institutions like ours need to continue to change,” said McPherson, the university’s president since Oct. 1, 1993. McPherson will deliver his speech at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Wharton Center’s Pasant Theatre.
“Change is part of who we are.”
And changing for the better may only be a matter of staying on course, he said. McPherson, a Lowell, Mich., native, said the individual accomplishments of professors and other faculty will ultimately make the university stand out economically worldwide.
Thus, MSU’s revenue - via donations and potentially state-issued funding - will likely continue to benefit, thus potentially allowing campus employees to be better compensated. Currently, MSU ranks near the bottom of the Big Ten in professor salaries.
And McPherson said he feels professors and other faculty are a terrific economic resource to the university, saying faculty research and projects bring prestige and commercial success to the university.
Marketing the university will be crucial for the future of MSU, he said. But making continued technological advances will also benefit those associated with MSU - a point he will also stress in today’s address.
Currently, students can enroll for classes online and many of the university’s dorms are equipped with high-speed Internet access.
But McPherson said more still can be done.
He called technology an “area of very large growth in the years ahead.” It’s not a new theme to McPherson, who last year highlighted the success of the Virtual University - which in 1999 graduated its first six master’s students.
MSU Trustee Scott Romney, who will be attending his first State of the University address as a member of the university’s highest governing body, said he looks forward to hearing McPherson talk of the recent accomplishments affiliated with MSU.
Yet the Birmingham Republican said the address shouldn’t only focus on the areas in need of improvement - but also on improving areas of the university he says are already top-notch, such as agriculture, science and research.
“I think we need to continue to improve where we are superb,” he said. “And we need to continue to improve where we show growth.”
Because the parking ramp near Shaw Hall is currently under construction, Betsy White, MSU academic events coordinator, said there will be shuttles to the Wharton Center, easing the potential for campus parking challenges.
Bus stops for the shuttle will be on Birch Road, West Shaw Lane and Harrison Avenue, and buses will run every 10 minutes from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
