By MATT PIKE
Even during the summer, Missouri Western State University is preparing for the fall semester with students getting enrolled, and already, officials with the university are seeing an increase in enrollment.
Interim President Patt Lilly says that currently MoWest is seeing an improvement int he number of new students enrolling for the fall semester.
"It's exciting to see more people come to Missouri Western, have the Missouri Western experience," Lilly says on the KFEQmunnity show. "I think the staff has worked hard over the last year in creating these partnerships with businesses and others in the community to try to make sure that we're at top of mind when students think about going to college."
MoWest has developed 13 partnerships with area businesses and entities to help develop pathways for students to enroll in college, or provide enrollment incentives to stay local for college.
The enrollment growth is also a bonus for a new incoming President, as the search is underway for the next President at MoWest to take the seat from Lilly.
Lilly says applications are beginning to trickle in and the search committee met for the first time earlier this week.
"Things are in place now," Lilly explains. " I think from a scheduling standpoint, you're probably looking at receiving applications during the month of June, probably July they'll begin going through those and come up with some finalists, and potentially late July into early August have interviews on campus and, perhaps, in August be able to annoucne a new Preisdent."
There is no for sure timeline on when the new President will be annoucned at MoWest, though the hope is to have them in place before the fall semester.
Overall though, Lilly says there's a lot of excitement right now at MoWest, particularly around the enrollment growth.
"Everybody is excited about that, not only those of us that are engaged day to day working with the university, but the faculty, the opportunity to have more students, the various extracurricular activities benefit, it just makes for a better voerall experience as a four year university," Lilly says.
Interview
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