Originally aired February 2, 2001

In May, Governor Mike Johanns approved more than 6 million dollars in renovation funding for Peru State College. The money will be used to create a new library and academic resource center.

It’s more good news for a college that was in trouble just three years ago. Peru State was gripped by turmoil. Some even wanted it moved to a different location.

As “Statewide’s” Mike Tobias reports, much has changed since that time, including how the campus looks, and how others are looking at it.

TRANSCRIPT - Peru State Comeback

Reported by Statewide correspondent Mike Tobias.

It's called the Peru State College Color Song. Its lyrics speak of devotion. Devotion of students, alumni and faculty to this small college tucked into the hills overlooking the Missouri River. It's been there since 1867, almost as long as Nebraska has been a state.
A few years ago, that devotion was put to the test. Controversy brought turbulence to this normally quiet campus. The biggest issue, whether Peru State should stay in Peru?
[Sen. Floyd Vristka] "I am pledged to do what I can to bring this issue to a closure, to keep Peru in Peru."
It started in September 1997. Reports surfaced that members of the State College Board of Trustees talked to Nebraska City officials about moving the college north. Soon the board was asking for proposals. They felt the Peru campus was in such bad shape that rebuilding somewhere else should be considered.
In January 1998, the board announced its decision. It unveiled plans for a new 35-million dollar campus in Nebraska City.
[Doug Christensen] "Would I send my child to the campus that is currently at Peru given the kind of environment that's there in terms of campus life? The answer to that is simply no."
The Governor asked for a further review of the Nebraska City plan. At the same time some questioned whether the college was even needed.
Support for keeping the college in Peru was also building. More than five hundred people descended on the capitol for this rally. They protested the decision to move the school and how that decision was made.
[Dwight Wininger] "That's why we have elected officials. This is their job; this is their call that's why we're here. To bring accountability to the process, to bring accountability to government, and to keep the oldest college in the state of Nebraska where it belongs in Peru, Nebraska."
Soon, another issue reared it's head. A faculty member accused Peru State Vice-President David Ainsworth of making a racially insensitive remark. Within days, Ainsworth resigned and Peru State President Robert Burns announced his retirement and was reassigned by the board. Both had been the target of a faculty vote of no confidence.
It was a time faculty members like Bill Clemente would rather forget.
[Bill Clemente] "It was horrible for the school… dreadful. It wasn't just for me, it was everybody. I mean, you don't want to go through that kind of a thing."
Clemente found himself in the midst of the turmoil in May '98. He was supposed to be recognized at graduation for a teaching excellence award. But Clemente protested Burns handling of the racially insensitive comment by refusing to sit on stage during the event.
It was a time of uncertainty for many. Some faculty left. Clemente himself considered leaving the school he's been a part of for eight years. By the end of 1998 Peru State was a college with declining enrollment, interim leadership, and a bad public image.
[Clemente] "It was garbage. And we put the trash out. I mean that's the way I look at it. And I don't want to forget, but I don't want to remember the smell.
"We learn a lot from those situations and so… and I think that their attitude here is… you know, has undergone a complete change."
That change began in late '98 when an independent consultant's report put the price tag on a new campus at nearly 100-million dollars, twice what was needed to renovate the Peru campus. This ended any talk of relocation. In November 1998 the State College Board reversed its decision and voted to keep Peru State in Peru.
In spring '99 the legislature approved about six million dollars for a much needed renovation of the Hoyt Science and Campus Services buildings. When finished next fall, Hoyt will be twice as big with modern laboratories.
[Tour guide] "Yeah, well you do have great opportunities to start here and you get a good chance."
Soon prospective students touring the campus became more common. Total enrollment is up two percent this year. Noteworthy because the other state colleges had declining enrollment.
As a freshman, Cheryl Empke, heard students talk about transferring. Now the student senate president hears talk of a whole new attitude on campus.
[Sheryl Ehmke] "There is now a pretty positive… like the attitude of students on campus. Everyone's excited about being here. Everyone likes it, you know. There's so many more students this year just proving the fact that things have changed and turned around for us."
Many credit new leadership for this change. When Johnson became president in June 1999 he immediately set out to tell anyone and everyone about the college.
[Ben Johnson] "And I've been to every rotary club, every Kiwanis club, every chamber of commerce, every… everything you can imagine. I even crowned to beauty queens in the past year at county fairs. I took every opportunity possible to go to people and say, we're here, we're strong, we're doing a great job, we're not moving."
[Paul Hinrichs] "In general I think there's a sense of east amongst the faculty. We're happy with the leadership we have."
[Clemente] "Trust has not been easy to come by in the last years and I think that's probably back."
Peru State also benefited from changes in the state college system. Gone is Board Member Rick Cokeman who wanted to move the college. His replacement is a Peru State graduate. Also gone is retired Executive Director Carroll Clouse, another proponent of moving the campus. He was replaced a year ago by Stan Carpenter.
[Stan Carpenter] Peru is where it is and it's going to stay where it is. Since I've been here the board has been 110-120 percent committed to Peru. Each and every single board member has the sense that it… has the sense that that person wants Peru to succeed.
When compared to the other state colleges, Wayne State and Chadron State, Peru still has a ways to go. It has half as many students and it lags behind it's counterppers in key measures like faculty salaries, graduation rate, and freshman retention which indicates how many students are leaving after their first year.
[Carpenter] Obviously we want more retention. That's one of the reasons they've gone to the idea of an academic resource center. To provide services to students to give them a chance to succeed, to give them the best chance to succeed. They'll get better.
The academic resource center is one step Peru is taking to close the gap between the other state colleges. If funded by the legislature this session the old gym will become a new library. The old library will become the resource center. Something that's much needed at an open admissions college that admits anyone with a high school diploma or GED.
[Johnson] That will be the testing center and that will be placement center and that'll be the honors program. That'll be classes and workshops and tutoring and that kind of thing. We'll have a building that will be especially dedicated to making sure that any student who wanted to… any student who's going to fail had to want to fail in order to do it. We're going to make it so tough for students to fail in this campus that they're going to have to really work at it.
Johnson expects the number of students taking classes on campus to hit fifteen hundred in the next couple years, then remain steady. The real growth will be off campus. Johnson expects another fifteen hundred students to eventually enroll in undergraduate and graduate programs throughout southeast Nebraska. Off-campus enrollment was already up a 150 percent this year. Last month Peru State got approval to lease space in this downtown Lincoln building and offer a Bachelor of Technology Program.
[Johnson] The attitude in the past was…every student must come to this campus for an education. I didn't think that was realistic. We will have off-campus courses for non-traditional students but we will take the programs to them, not require that they come to the programs.
The question of moving or closing Peru State has been around as long as many of the trees on this place fondly referred to as the campus of a thousand oaks. Some say it comes up every twenty years or so. Johnson says that tradition is going to end.
[Johnson] This is not going to happen again at Peru State College. That was it! It's not going to happen again because we are going to become so strong on this campus. We're going to become the leader in enrollment growth and in retention and in… in academic programs… academic excellence things. We're going to have the highest percentage of scholar athletes in the nation before we're finished here in the next few years. So we're going to become so strong that when the legislature or anybody else says, well we need to close a college they're probably going to think of UNL or UNO first before they think of us.