The Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program has accepted Murray State’s proposal to serve as one of the three GSP campuses in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Murray was selected as a GSP campus through a competitive bid process open to all public and private universities in the commonwealth. MSU’s Food Services and Housing Office, along with the colleges of Education and Humanities and Fine Arts, deserve particular credit for helping to craft an attractive and competitive proposal. Serving as a GSP host campus is an honor and one that will pay dividends for the University. As with MSU’s own Commonwealth Honors Academy, hosting GSP brings substantial prestige from across the state. Moreover, studies show that familiarity with a campus is a key factor in a student’s choice of universities. Hosting GSP means that some 400 of the commonwealth’s highest achieving students will spend five weeks on Murray State’s beautiful campus, and we expect to see a corresponding increase in the number of Governor’s Scholars who choose MSU for their education.

The University’s hosting of GSP should not be interpreted as a reduction of support for MSU’s own home-grown CHA. As MSU’s proposal indicated, the programs are substantially different and complement each other; CHA successfully draws outstanding students from Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio as well as Kentucky, while GSP serves Kentucky students only. Moreover, while it is smaller, CHA’s use of MSU faculty to teach and administer the program means that CHA inevitably draws a far higher percentage of attending students to campus. In addition, the GSP contract is for three years only, while CHA is a dedicated MSU program.

Hosting the 400+ scholars, faculty, and staff of GSP will, of course, requires a substantial commitment of campus facilities and resources each summer; however, given the potential return of this investment in prestige for the University and the recruitment of high-achieving students, we hope each campus unit will do its best to welcome GSP and provide a pleasant experience for the GSP scholars during their time on campus.