Campus • The
Murray State University gate, above,
was constructed so motorists could not
drive cars onto campus. Forrest C. Pogue
Library, left, is shown at night. The
library contains an ornate reading room
and bronze doors to the east and west
entrances. The Pogue Library was Murray’s
central library from 1931 until 1978.
Now it houses the archives, special
collections and the James O. Overby
Law Library.
It is also named on the National Register
of Historic Places. Tracey Roman /
Online Forty-Niner
Murray State University’s Southern charm
By
Joseph Serna
Online Forty-Niner
Staff Writer
Murray
State University is the kind of campus
someone might expect to see in a Normal
Rockwell painting.
“
[Murray] is kind of like Mayberry,” said F. King Alexander, president
of Murray State and soon-to-be president at Cal State Long Beach in the
spring.
A school covered with brown, yellow, orange and red leaves, full of welcoming
smiles and southern-accented “how ya’ll doin’s” from
passing students and faculty.
One of the students’ biggest peeves is parking, which on a bad day, may
require up to a 10-minute walk to class.
It’s a little different from CSULB.
On the drive to MSU, one does not have to worry about traffic on the freeway
or random pedestrians jaywalking across the street.
Tucked away hours from the closest major city, surrounded by small-town roads
lined with churches, trees and houses with enough backyard to hold a Southern
California housing track, MSU exudes the small-town atmosphere
one could expect from the school that calls itself the “public-ivy” university
of Kentucky.
The campus, nearly equal in size to CSULB, is that big because of vast ranges
of “green space,” or open areas of scenic beauty filled with trees
and grass.
No matter where a student walks on campus, nature and the tight-knit community
feel that comes with small-town
Kentucky is not far behind.
For Murray, a town of about 15,000, the campus of about 10,000 nearly doubles
the size of the town, and in turn boosts the local economy more than CSULB
could do for a city of almost half a million.
“
With a community our size, we could very well put a company out of business,” said
Jim Carter, vice president for institutional advancement at MSU.
The economic power of the university is one reason the Student Recreation and
Wellness Center is only available to students, staff, faculty and alumni. If
it were open to the public, it might drive competing fitness centers out of
business, Carter said.
The facility, unlike anything available at CSULB, is a 73,000 square-foot recreational
center packed with basketball and racquetball courts, a pool with a 30-person
hot tub, and two stories of weight machines and cardio equipment outlining
an indoor one-eleventh mile indoor track.
The wellness center is only one of several “common areas” Alexander
has encouraged and developed on the campus.
Close to Murray State’s on-campus housing, which accommodates more than
3,000 students compared to CSULB’s which houses just under 2,000, sits
the newly renovated dining center.
Students will not find a Taco Bell, Subway or Roundtable Pizza at Murray State.
Food service is run by the campus at Murray State, with Starbucks being one
of the only corporations present on campus. The school purchased Starbucks
equipment and has a coffee shop serving their coffee, the shop is relaxed,
has Internet access, leather couches and chairs, and live musical performances
Saturday nights.
“
If you don’t pay attention, you lose half the educational opportunities
you’ve provided,” Alexander said.
Alexander sees a direct correlation between students staying on campus and
student retention, which puts creating a community feel with more common areas
near the top of his priorities—a more daunting task for CSULB’s
35,000 plus than for Murray State’s approximately10,000, he said.
One way Murray State has encouraged a community atmosphere is with the advent
of different residential colleges for the students living on campus. Modeled
after Oxford University and Cambridge University, each student housing building
represents a different “college.”
The colleges, full of students of different classes and majors, can compete
in intramurals and academics for bragging rights on campus. Even the faculty
members are assigned to colleges; Alexander is part of Clark College.
While Alexander loves Murray State, and almost everyone at Murray State is
sorry to see him leave, he sees moving to Long Beach not just as a career opportunity,
but also as an opportunity for his two daughters, Madison, 6, and Savannah,
9.
Alexander mentioned that Murray, which is a great area in which to raise children,
would limit exposure to other cultures and lifestyles—exposure and knowledge
he wants his daughters to have.
Murray State is 88 percent white, non-Hispanic students, 6 percent black, non-Hispanic
students, and the remaining 6 percent of students’ ethnicities grouped
into “other.”
CSULB is almost 40 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic, 10 percent Asian and
5 percent black.
“
I’m the only black male in my department,” said Tomisin Elelu,
a chemistry student at MSU.
For Elelu, the fact that the university is not as diverse as some places is
not an issue.
As he stood in the wellness center preparing to play basketball, he pointed
to the players on the court as an example of why people do not even notice
the predominance of one race—the five on five game had black, white and
Asian players. Even Alexander was playing.
“
[The diversity] makes it even more special,” Elelu said. “Because
we all band together.”
Outside of ethnic makeup, both the students and faculty banded together after
news of Alexander’s hiring at CSULB.
They both passed resolutions, only symbolic in power, asking Alexander to stay
at Murray State.
That act exemplifies the unity and spirit of the campus and local community,
said Scott Ellison, the president of the student government association.
He said he cannot picture the university without Alexander, to him, as it is
for most people in Murray, “the university is the community.”
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