The enrollment woes continue at the University of Idaho. Jean Kim, vice provost for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, reported at a Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday that total student enrollment is down for fall semester by about 3.3 percent compared to the previous academic year.
The figure was based on the 10th-day count from Sept. 4.
“Overall, it”s not a great picture,” Kim said. “We didn”t increase our enrollment as we had hoped, but it”s not as bad as it could be.”
As one of University of Idaho President Chuck Staben”s primary goals has been to increase enrollment by 50 percent by the year 2025, many faculty and administration were hoping to see some increase in enrollment this semester after a year of work.
Most of the demographics of students accounted for saw a slight decline in numbers, including undergraduate and graduate students.
Kim
“Enrollment is a function of both recruiting students and retaining students,” Kim said.
During the Faculty Senate meeting, Kim spoke about the strategic enrollment management plan that outlines various strategies. She said UI deans are now considering the report and are looking at how they can increase enrollment in each of their colleges.
Certain objectives were targeted toward recruiting first year students, retaining undergraduate students, creating an infrastructure to attract new students and strengthening UI”s general brand.
Some of these strategies have already been employed, such as the improvements to the university website, which Kim said is set to be fully completed by January.
Faculty Senate member Jodi Nicotra said it”s important to pinpoint why students do not choose UI and why other students decide to leave the university.
Kim said UI faces competition from other nearby universities like Boise State University and Washington State University.
“Even though those of us who work here, who study here, we know that this is a great university,” Kim said. “But that is not a common knowledge even in the state of Idaho and especially outside of Idaho.”
Faculty Senate member James Foster said he thinks faculty should have a more specific strategy to help increase enrollment, focusing their efforts on teaching or conducting research. He said this was a critical part of how to represent the university in the best way.
“We need to decide what sort of university we want to be,” Foster said.
Alan Caplan, a Faculty Senate member from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said UI should look into catering to the parents of prospective or current students. He asked how much the university was doing to consider that demographic.
While Kim said there were some efforts specifically planned for parents – such as parent sessions during new student orientation – she admitted that UI could probably do more in the future.
Graduate student Anthony St. Claire asked Kim how the university plans to respond to the large influx of new students the administration is hoping for in terms of the amount of faculty or teaching assistants they would need to add to make up for the increase.
Kim said her team doesn”t think that enrollment will increase as much as 50 percent in a single academic year, but rather they hope for a steady increase over the next 10 years or so.
Once enrollment numbers do begin to rise, Kim said the university would be prepared to accommodate for the increase in student bodies. “We believe there is capacity,” Kim said. “It will take us probably a couple of years to get to before we have to look at increasing faculty. And when we have that good problem I would assume that we would come up with a plan to address that.”
Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @ErinBamer