The new president of Murray State University is on the job.
Bob Davies started his new post this week. He comes to MSU after five years in the same post at Eastern Oregon University. Davies says higher education is currently at a watershed moment: "We are really testing the boundaries between public higher education being a public good and a private good. Public higher education was set up as a public good. The very first set of public universities were actually established before we were a country."
Davies says in the next few months he will get to know the people of the region and shore up local student recruitment. He says his roll-out will include visits to areas that generate a lot of students for Murray State, like the St. Louis and Chicago areas, but he will also be concentrating recruitment efforts closer to home in Western Kentucky.
Davies says Murray State faces challenges like shifting demographics, dwindling funding and political and ideological shifts between the public and private good of higher education. He takes the helm at Murray State after two consecutive years of budget cuts and says he will work to boost morale and chart a path for the University.
Davies was named to the post in March.
