About two dozen faculty, students and alumni gathered at a UM System Board of Curators meeting Tuesday to show their support for the University of Missouri Press less than a week before its annual $400,000 university subsidy is scheduled to end.
More an act of presence than protest, the advocates stood quietly as the board mulled over its scheduled, unrelated agenda. The most notable university reaction came when a Donald W. Reynolds Alumni Center employee wheeled out extra chairs for press supporters.
“It’s easy to protest online,” MU graduate student Jonathan D. Jones said. “Sometimes actually showing up is half the battle.”
UM System President Tim Wolfe announced plans in May to shutter the press, citing a need to focus on six broad strategic priorities including “attracting top personnel, expanding research and economic development and effective communication of (the university’s) value and importance.”
The university system was granted level funding by the state legislature this year.
Bruce Joshua Miller, a UM Press Midwest sales representative, launched a Facebook page in support of the press shortly after the announcement and has gathered more than 3,600 online signatures in opposition of the move. He, along Florida State University associate English professor Ted Stuckey-French, helped organize Tuesday’s event. Neither could actually attend, but hoped that a face-to-face meeting between press supporters and university decision makers could do more than letters and phone calls had – overtures they say had been ignored.
“I don’t understand how (Wolfe) can state his goals and then say he’s closing the university press because it doesn’t meet them,” Miller said from Chicago, explaining that press publications increase the school’s stature worldwide and attract exceptional students and faculty hoping to publish works.
UM spokeswoman Jennifer Hollingshead said the Office of the President has replied to all the letters they’ve received concerning the issue and agree with MU Press supporters about the importance of scholarly publishing.
“Certainly we have worked with them over the years to try and turn around the model,” she said. “But in this economic time, where resources are tight, we have to find ways to accomplish our mission that are more cost efficient and sustainable.”
The UM Press was established 54 years ago and has since published more than 2,000 works on a variety of scholarly subjects as well as aspects of Missouri’s history and culture. Stuckey-French said he sees the press’ predicament as a consequence of declining public university funding nation-wide and a trend of attempting to “run universities like corporations.”
Eastern Washington University and Southern Methodist University [have both shut down their presses](http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/06/19/essay-closure-university-missouri-press).
“Very, very few of them make money,” Stuckey-French said. “They’re a service, like libraries.”
Both Facebook organizers said they were surprised by the amount of coverage their cause found in major news outlets and the thousands of online supporters that showed electronic support and outrage.
“We’ve been amazed that it has mushroomed like it has,” said Stuckey-French.
Hollingshead said the UM Press supporters were welcome to appear at the public meeting, but could not speak about whether or not their efforts would have any effect on the university’s plans.
Cameras and microphones packed an alumni center conference room during the afternoon’s press conference announcing major sports facility spending after the Board of Curators meeting. A handful of press supporters, the last of many who had waited four hours for a chance to speak that never came, stood at the back of the crowd, waited some more and finally left as well.
