(LISTEN): Missourians for Improving Higher Education co-founder Tom Strong appears on "Wake Up Missouri"

The Missouri Senate Education Committee has voted to approve legislation that would repeal a law that the University of Missouri be the state's only public research university. State Sen. Lincoln Hough's (R-Springfield) Senate Bill 11 would also repeal the law that says Mizzou is the exclusive grantor of research doctorates and professional degrees like dentistry, law, medicine, optometry, pharmacy and veterinary medicine. It would also repeal the law's provision that says degrees in engineering may only be conferred by Mizzou "or a public institution of higher education in collaboration with the University of Missouri." Missourians for Improving Higher Education co-founder Tom Strong is pushing the bill. Mr. Strong, who graduated from Mizzou's School of Law, joined us live on 939 the Eagle's "Wake Up Missouri" and emphasizes it's not an anti-Mizzou bill. He notes he is a major donor to Mizzou and that his name is on a room at the law school in Columbia. Mr. Strong tells listeners that Senator Hough's bill allows other universities to perform as they can perform. He says Missouri State would love to have an engineering school and a pharmacy school, and that Southeast Missouri State in Cape Girardeau would like to have an engineering school. Mr. Strong says high school students who want to pursue engineering are leaving for other states. He also says students in the Bootheel are closer to Ole Miss in Oxford than they are to Mizzou in Columbia. He's hopeful the bill will pass: