The Griffon News

There have been some wonderful changes made at Missouri Western State University since I first began my articulations in the hallowed halls of Academia back in 1991.

Missouri Western has made some real progress, and that should be applauded.

We have had an enormous erection spring up in the center of campus with all these littler erections popping up all over the place now.

I used to make my run for freedom on the last day of finals in hopes of giving the rent-a-pigs something fun to do that day.

Security, back then, was not the real cops we have on campus today.

Murphy Hall now stands where I drove my 1976 Dodge van tearing across the then open expanse between the English and Science Buildings. That kind of ruins an exit plan.

In the last three years, we have had all these new administrative faces come in and troubleshoot the kinks in system.

We now have definitive plans for things like graduate programs and new departments on the rise like Professional Studies.

We have an Applied Learning Program that is raising the charts and letting us shine as a beacon of success to all the schools in the state.

Missouri Western has done a really good job.

However, we should not break out the bubbly just yet; we still have a ways to go.

It seems weird to me that there are foreign language choices available to the area’s high school students than there are to us Griffons.

Am I so odd for wanting to study Latin? With all trends showing the shape of the coming world economy, isn’t it an injustice that I can’t study Arabic or Chinese here at Western?

Many high schools across the nation have a student-run radio station, broadcasting across the airwaves. Now, there is some applied learning for the bigwigs to consider.

All we have to offer is dead air. It’s dead air.

The true question is how long can we seriously be considered a university without a stronger graduate school?

Back in my day of high school, admittedly this was 17 years ago, teachers told us that if we went to college, we could write our own ticket in the professional world.

Turns out that it was a ticket for coach, not first class.

Today, to have any real success that might let you lift your oppressed head above the middle-class red line you need a master’s degree. Can I get one here?

Not yet.

The good news is that the future holds a whole realm of possibilities, and maybe with our rising tuition we will see even greater improvements.

We are off to a good start as a university, but let’s be the turtle not the hare, because we know what happens when we start napping.