In the wake of recent criticism regarding declining enrollment and retention numbers, President Jesse Rogers said he came to put all concerns at ease at the meeting with SGA on Oct. 16.
According to Rogers, enrollment dipped due to an increase in the number of students graduating and the university adjusting recruitment efforts to higher admission standards.
“The reality is two things: mainly they [students] are leaving because they’re graduating,” Rogers explained. “Additionally, we have not had to aggressively recruit students.”
To defend his statement about aggressive recruitment, Rogers said previous students have generally found MSU on their own.
Furthermore, he said MSU does not want to be a big university because “we want to maintain our mission.”
Rogers was most likely referencing, in addition to other university characteristics, the ability for students to engage in more personal communication with professors due to the low student to teacher ratio held at MSU.
The Mission Statement on the MSU website vaguely touches upon this aspect, stating that “through an emphasis upon teaching, augmented by the opportunity for students to engage in research and creative activities alongside faculty, Midwestern State prepares its graduates to embark upon their careers or pursue advanced study.”
To help maintain the small size of the university, Midwestern increased admission standards two times in the last eight years.
Rogers proceeded to provide a brief history of recent hikes in admission standards and the effects of those hikes.
According to Rogers, the university raised admission standards after surveys in 2005 revealed that 40 percent of freshmen were taking one or more remedial classes.
Because many of the freshmen taking more than one remedial class did not finish the year, the university decided to raise admission standards to eliminate the need to provide the extra courses.
In turn, the university also hoped that the higher standards would increase the graduation rate.
The university accepted fewer students the next year, and graduation rates began to rise. This led to another increase in admission standards in 2011.
“We took a smaller class in, and we turned away about 400 applications,” Rogers said. “That worked so well that we raised tuition standards again in 2011.”
Rogers provided statistics supporting the graduation rate increase, saying Midwestern graduated approximately 900 students in 2004.
Last year the university graduated 1,339 students, and this year the university is on pace to have the second highest graduating class in Midwestern’s history.
“That small class gave us fewer freshmen, more graduates, and what happens? Enrollment goes down,” said Rogers.
At this point, President Rogers brought in aggressive recruiting as a solution to the enrollment concerns.
“We’re going to continue to have the same standards, but we’re going to start recruiting aggressively,” Rogers said decisively. “Our hopes are to raise enrollment to 7,000 students.”
Rogers did not provide a date as to when this enrollment goal was to be reached.
After discussing enrollment, Rogers discussed university plans and issues concerning students.
This year, MSU is preparing to remodel the Bolin science building and Christ Academy, and expand the College of Health Sciences and McCoy engineering building. Renovations on Christ Academy include new roofs, air conditioners and heaters.
After recent state higher education funding cuts, students may wonder where the university is getting the money to finance these projects. Rogers explained that some donations and funds by the state are made available specifically for construction and remodeling. The recent $4 million gift from McCoy to the engineering building was donated purely to expand the college. Rogers made it clear that the university was not using money allocated elsewhere for these plans.
For the following year, Rogers said MSU will start a biochemistry program, add a petroleum engineering option to the mechanical engineering program and add a petroleum geologist to the geology department.
Rogers then discussed university plans to change course fees.
“We collect a fee from you right now, called a course fee,” Rogers said. “We have analyzed the course fees and found that they are unequally distributed.”
According to Rogers, some course fees are too low, like humanities, and others are too high, such as the health sciences. The fees are coming up with deficits for some courses, and surpluses for others. Since the course fee must be used on that course alone, the university cannot use the surplus money from particular courses to offset the deficits of other courses.
If it is approved in November, he said that the university plans to restructure the course fees to adjust for those that are too low and those that are too high. The course fee name will also be changed so that the fees obtained from the course can be used to fund the entire department, and not just the course.
“You may see a dollar or two this semester, or a dollar or two the next semester,” Rogers said. “It’s just a movement from one area to another: it should cost you nothing.”
While on the topic of future costs to the students, Rogers assured the SGA crowd that tuition would be set in February and would be way below the 5 percent increase restriction that the university guarantees students.
Rogers concluded the updates on university plans by discussing the new portal system that should come in December.
“We’re going to change the way we communicate with you come December. With the new portal system it’s going to be a lot easier for the university, your professors, for me and for the administration to communicate with you.”
At a cost of approximately $1 million, this portal will have a single sign-on that allows students to access their Webworld and Blackboard. It will consolidate all forms of communication, send updates to the student, provide another method for the student to pay fines and fees, and send emergency updates.