Faculty Council, curators consider funding
Published Oct. 9, 2007
Members of the MU Faculty Council held a breakfast with the UM system Board of Curators to spotlight the campus' under-funded programs.
The program featured three programs that attempt to reach out to others in the community, including the Center on Religion and the Professions, various science clubs and the Saturday Morning Science program.
"This is another part of our general mission that we think is sometimes ignored, but it highly important," MU Faculty Council Chairman Frank Schmidt said. "It's basically a get-to-know session."
He said the curators sometimes have misconceptions about MU faculty.
"Most of what the curators know about the faculty comes from odd sources," Schmidt said.
Ellis Ingram, an associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, gave a presentation on the various science clubs that he is involved in. He said finding funding for these programs is not easy.
"A lot of things that I do come out of pocket," Ingram said.
Bruce McClure, an organizer for the Saturday Morning Science program, spoke about how this program reaches out to members of the community in a more intellectual way. He said the sessions are intended to be more entertaining.
McClure said he believes this program helps students become interested in science professions.
"No profession will continue unless we get new people coming to it," McClure said.
McClure said he is amazed at the way this program has grown, including the broad audience of undergraduates and middle to high school students.
"The program has grown beyond our wildest dreams," McClure said.
McClure said funding for this comes from outside sources such as the University Bookstore and MU Office of Science Outreach. But McClure said before the outside funding was available, the program was supported by money was from him and the program's founder, Wouter Montfrooij.
Debra Mason, director for the Center on Religion and the Professions, gave a presentation that also indicated that the center is in need of money.
The center is now operating on two grants, but those can only be stretched though the end of next year, said Amy White, outreach coordinator for the Center on Religion and the Professions.
"After December 2008, it's critical," White said. "We're realizing how immediate it is."
Mason said the presentation at the breakfast was a privilege for the center.
White said the center hired a development specialist to assist in fundraising and a grant writer to pursue additional funding through grants.
"It was a really unusual opportunity for us," Mason said. "We just wanted to let everyone know that we're here."
Mason and White said the center serves an important purpose to the MU community.
"We find ways that religion can be incorporated in other disciplines," Mason said.
White said the center works to apply religion to education and participation in a diverse and global world.
Mason said she does not want to see this center disappear, and she fears that centers, like the one she works at, could be vulnerable to budget cuts.
"Like all of MU's centers, we are dependent on outside funding, especially now, to stay in existence," Mason said. "The university is under pressure to close centers that can't support themselves, because it's not always clear to those outside the university how centers such as ours benefit the core educational and research mission of the university."