Missouri State University ended its Homecoming celebration Saturday with a big announcement at Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts followed by a fireworks show. John Goodman, actor and MSU alumnus, was on hand as well as former NFL player and MSU alum, Clay Harbor, and MSU alum, David Glass, owner of the Kansas City Royals and former CEO of Walmart.
The Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts was filled to capacity with people anxious to hear MSU officials announce the surprise: A quarter of a billion dollar campaign called "Onward, Upward," a third of which has already been raised from private donors—to fund several projects.
Those include three new buildings at the Darr College of Agriculture: A small animal education facility, a livestock show barn and a maintenance training education facility; building a permanent structure for Tent Theatre (John Goodman has given money to help fund that project); creating a student-managed investment fund to provide real-world financial market and investing experience; providing more resources to attract, instruct and prepare students who want to become teachers; renovating the Professional Building; enhancing student study away opportunities with more individual financial assistance; creating a degree-completion fund; expanding IDEA commons by 30,000 square feet; expanding the number of students who can enroll in the MSU-West Plains nursing program; and increasing research support opportunities for graduate level students.
The university also announced 222 new endowed scholarships that will be funded in perpetuity.
MSU President Clif Smart and his wife, Gail, will donate $1 million to create four endowed professorships in English, political science, music and musical theater.
To date, the MSU Foundation has raised more than $150 million for the "Onward, Upward" campaign from nearly 50,000 donors.
MO State University Foundation executive director, Brent Dunn, said the silent phase of the campaign has been going on for two years, and now that the campaign is in the public phase he hopes donations will come in from all over the country and the world.
"Now, since we can go public, we'll truly go public and take the message of the tranformation of the university not just in Springfield, not just in Missouri, ut we have alums in 50 states and 93 countries around the world, so we're taking that message worldwide," said Dunn.
David Glass, who graduated from the university in 1960, said he's very supportive of this campaign and the projects it will fund.
"(The university) actually gave me my start," he said, "so, I owe it a lot, and it's a great school, and I want to see it continue to be successful...it opened doors to me that wouldn't have been available otherwise."
MSU called the event Saturday “It’s on!” and weeks earlier had said the announcement would be “huge and transformational.”
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