Board of governors extends MSU president's contract

FAIR GROVE – Missouri State University president Clif Smart has been awarded a four-year contract extension by the MSU Board of Governors.

The 10 members of the board of governors met Thursday along with college administrators and deans for a daylong retreat in Fair Grove.

Smart's contract extension was approved during the executive session, a closed portion of the meeting.

Smart's term will continue through June 20, 2022. He will receive a 1.5 percent salary increase, the same as university faculty and staff.

"The board feels that Clif has done an outstanding job as president of Missouri State," Beverly Miller, board of governor's chair, said in a news release from the university. "The contract extension underscores our confidence in his ability to move the university in the right direction. So many good things are happening in the Missouri State system, and we feel strongly about supporting his leadership of the university well into the future."

Smart presented his self-assessment to the board in an executive session at its June meeting. The board completed an electronic survey that evaluated Smart in nine major categories: strategic leadership, educational leadership, organizational management, financial management, fundraising, external relations, internal relations, board and governance relations, and personal characteristics and values.

"I am excited by the many good things that happened at Missouri State over the past year and look forward to building on that success this year and beyond," Smart said in the release. "I greatly appreciate the board's confidence in me and their enthusiastic support for the direction that the university is heading."

The majority of the Thursday meeting was spent discussing eight major goals to focus on during the next year.

Here are the goals and their highlighted objectives:

• Access to students: maintain enrollment growth and cost of attendance and increase the first-time freshman retention rate.

• Public affairs integration: develop a campuswide community service project to coincide with the university's 110th anniversary in 2015.

• Engaged inquiry: maintain awards of faculty and staff grants and sponsored research above $20 million annually. Fiscal year 2014 hit a record high for grants. A total of 289 grants were awarded, worth nearly $22 million.

• Partners in progress: complete a diversity climate survey and implement a two-year pilot project to conduct community-based research on local and regional social issues.

• Valuing and supporting people: improve compensation for faculty and staff and increase the diversity of the workforce by having a target of at least 20 percent of new hires being ethnically or racially underrepresented within the hiring department.

• Responsible stewardship: grow and diversify revenue and begin construction and renovation of various university buildings.

• Athletics: increase cumulative volunteer hours by student athletes from 2,000 to 2,500 and finish in the top three in the Missouri Valley Conference All-Sports standings.

• West Plains integration: continue to develop pathways for students moving from the West Plains campus to the Springfield campus.