Maryville, Mo. – The Missouri Academy of Science, Mathematics and Computing will end its operations at the conclusion of the 2017-2018 academic year.
The Missouri Academy is a two-year accelerated, early-entrance-to-college residential program for academically-talented students on the campus of Northwest Missouri State University.
The decision to close the Missouri Academy is based on several factors, University leaders said, as Northwest enhances the focus on its core mission of providing students with opportunities to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
“This decision was not easily made,” Northwest President Dr. John Jasinski said. “The closure of the Missouri Academy is not due to any single reason and especially not due to the quality of the faculty, staff and students associated with it. Rather, the closure is the result of a number of factors and interaction of factors that make the Missouri Academy no longer financially viable for a regional, comprehensive teaching institution such as Northwest.”
Among the reasons cited by the University are a shifting financial landscape that is straining resources at higher education institutions and has led Northwest to reprioritize and reallocate resources to meet its mission critical priorities.
The University acknowledged the Missouri Academy has been yielding a net loss for Northwest, despite efforts since 2012 to curb expenses and reverse declining enrollments. With domestic enrollment for the Academy continuing to decline, Northwest no longer has the capacity to absorb the financial net loss. Furthermore, Northwest has been unable to garner appropriate state and other sources of support for the program and cannot appropriately invest in Missouri Academy facilities or fund its operations at needed levels.
The Missouri Academy saw its enrollment peak at 178 students during the 2008-2009 school year. Through its first 15 cohorts, concluding with the 2015-2016 academic year, the Missouri Academy enrolled 1,042 students, and 801 of those students completed the two-year program successfully – a graduation rate of 77 percent.
The Missouri Academy’s current enrollment is 106 students, who come from throughout Missouri as well as South Korea, China and Panama. Forty-eight students are in their second year of the program and are expected to graduate in the spring. Following Missouri Department of Higher Education policies, the Missouri Academy will maintain operations to serve its remaining students through their expected completion in spring 2018. The Missouri Academy is no longer accepting students to enroll.
In regard to Missouri Academy staffing, 12 positions are allocated to the program. Three already are vacant and three more are being eliminated this spring.
Despite the Missouri Academy’s closing, University leaders said Northwest will continue to enhance its already strong undergraduate and graduate STEM programming. More students enroll in biology than any other discipline at Northwest, and the School of Agricultural Sciences graduates the largest number of students. The School of Computer Science and Information Systems is the largest producer of graduate degrees and it added a graduate degree in information systems last fall. Northwest also plans to remain active with numerous STEM programs and affiliations, including a Northwest P-6 STEM initiative called “Project Lead the Way,” offered at the University’s Horace Mann Laboratory School, that is a collaborative effort with Missouri Project Lead the Way and the Regional Professional Development Center.
“To some, closing the Missouri Academy will seem counter-intuitive, but Northwest is filling the void,” Northwest Provost Dr. Timothy Mottet said. “We are building for the future in alignment with our strategic plan and prioritizing our objectives to ensure Northwest is a vibrant university for years to come.”
For more information about the Missouri Academy, visit www.nwmissouri.edu/masmc/.