OPINION

REX NELSON: Mulerider heaven

I'll admit to my bias on the front end. Trey Berry and I grew up together at Arkadelphia. Our parents were friends. Trey and I have been friends for longer than we care to admit.

I don't make it a habit of writing columns about old friends, but what's going on at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia deserves coverage. Berry is the SAU president, and the school he heads is one of the fastest-growing institutions of higher education in this part of the country. What's truly amazing is that the growth is coming at a time when many small colleges across the country are struggling. It's also taking place in far south Arkansas, an area of the state that has suffered economically in recent decades. Magnolia, with an estimated population of 11,601 in 2016, is smaller than it was in the 1980 census when there were 11,909 residents.

Berry, who ranks among the state's top historians, came to SAU in 2011 as a professor of history and dean of the College of Liberal and Performing Arts. After just a year, he was promoted to provost and vice president for academic affairs. Before moving to Magnolia, Berry spent 18 years at Ouachita Baptist University, two years at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, and two years as deputy director of the Department of Arkansas Heritage in Little Rock. In February 2015, it was announced that Berry would replace the school's popular president, David Rankin, who was retiring the following July.

"Dr. Rankin has set us up in such a good way for the future," Berry said at the time. "Now we have to shift gears and focus on people, planning, programs and philanthropy. We have to raise money for this institution."

As an expert on the history of south Arkansas, Berry knew how important it was to strengthen ties with residents of Magnolia and surrounding communities. "We need each other," he said.

Upon his arrival in Magnolia, Berry plunged into civic activities. He joined the Rotary Club and also served on the boards of the Golden Triangle Economic Development Council and the Magnolia-Columbia County Chamber of Commerce. Recently, Bobbie Ruth Webb of Magnolia donated to the school a downtown building that had been in her family for more than a century. Her grandfather, K.S. Couch, opened a grocery store on the courthouse square in the early 1900s. Berry plans to turn the building into a university retail store and an event space to further ties to the community.

Back on campus, things are hopping. Two additional dorms opened at the start of the 2016-17 school year, and two more dorms (one in a converted skating rink) open this week.

"We've had a 34 percent enrollment increase the past three years," Berry says. "The biggest challenge has been keeping up with that growth and all it entails."

Berry says that when Rankin was president, the school began trying to determine what areas of study might be popular during the next decade. Programs that were added include engineering, game design and animation, musical theater, cybersecurity and marine and wildlife biology. The academic expansion was coupled with an aggressive marketing campaign. SAU recruits the booming Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area and now has a full-time staff member living there. Crippling budget cuts at colleges and universities in Louisiana and Oklahoma have caused students in those states to look elsewhere. Some have ended up at SAU. Marketing efforts also have picked up in Central Arkansas. And due to the popularity of programs such as a master's degree in computer science, SAU will have almost 650 international students representing 40 countries this school year.

"We're seen as a place that's affordable and student-friendly," Berry says. "Our faculty and staff have open-door policies. We only had a 1.86 percent tuition increase this year, lower than most state schools. These things have worked together to create a sense of momentum here. That momentum breeds additional momentum. We're not in a town with four-lane highway access, but we decided to make ourselves a destination despite that shortcoming. We have a strong social media presence. A lot of students these days surf the Web to find programs that interest them and are affordable. That's why we have students from 42 states and 40 countries. If you can get two or three students from a high school and they have a great experience, the word will get out. For instance, we now have a number of students from Cabot High School. Kids spread the word, and it just continues to build. "

Speaking of momentum, even the school's beloved Mulerider football team is picked first in the Great American Conference in preseason polls. Berry hopes to add SAU's first doctoral program (in education leadership) by the fall of 2019. New facilities pop up each year. Rankin oversaw a $100 million construction effort when he was president. The enrollment growth has meant that Berry also must keep construction crews busy.

"We'll have about 1,900 students (out of a total enrollment between 4,500 and 5,000) living on campus this fall," Berry says. "That's 500 more than just three years ago. In addition to the four new dorms the past two years, we've added 15 classrooms and a $2 million expansion of the cafeteria. We started a $23 million capital campaign and raised $8.3 million the first 11 months of that campaign. Only 24 percent of our budget now comes from the state. The way I look at it, we're 76 percent a private college. If you don't raise it yourself, you won't have it."

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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 08/16/2017

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