Anyone on campus for the first day of classes could see that VCU is growing, but last Thursday the board of visitors heard the official words as the university announced its largest enrollment ever.
At the board meeting, which functioned almost like a State of the University address, President Eugene P. Trani announced that VCU will have 29,225 students for the 2005-06 academic year. A massive freshman class of about 3,500, also a VCU record, helped boost the university to its high mark.
With nearly all aspects of enrollment heading in a positive direction, officials expressed optimism regarding the university’s future.
“We have close to 12,000 applications from freshmen and that is always a good sign,” said Henry Rhone, vice provost for student affairs. “More students know about VCU and they want to come to VCU, and I think more students are making VCU their first choice.
“Those numbers really suggest that VCU is in the right place in terms of competing with other institutions, and obviously our reputation among students is improving.”
Consider these statistics on freshman alone: 1996’s freshman class-1,500-was less than half the size of this year’s class. Meanwhile, the university received 11,702 freshmen applications this year, an increase of nearly 7,000 since 1996. Two statistics also show increased selectivity in admissions, with a 68 percent acceptance rate (down from 74 percent last year) and an average freshmen SAT score of 1075 (up from 1002 in 1996).
Trani later proclaimed the diversity of the freshmen, calling them “the most diverse freshmen class in all of Virginia” with non-white students making 38 percent of entering freshmen.
VCU also boasts the highest number of Virginians, with two large groups of around 900 freshmen coming from northern Virginia and the Richmond-metro area.
Trani announced that the total number of undergraduate applications also rose to 15,350, a 15 percent increase from last year.
Brian Ohlinger, associate vice president of facilities management, told the board of two upcoming construction projects-a new business school and the second phase of the engineering school-designed to keep healthy growth from becoming an unmanageable explosion of students.
While the retention rate from freshman to sophomore years did rise to 80 percent, Trani still addressed retention and the five-year graduation rate as areas that will require ongoing attention.
“…Student retention, that’s what all of this is about,” Trani said. “Students coming in to a big university in a metropolitan area can quickly get lost in the process if they don’t know there’s a part of the element they can grab a hold of.”
In addition to focusing on students’ academic standing, Rhone and other university officials are working to ensure that students stay on course for their careers while enjoying college life.
“We want to improve advising for all of our students early so that they really can get off on the right track,” Rhone said. “It’s also important that students feel [they are] a part of VCU, that they like the school of their choice and that they feel involved.”
One factor relating to retention could be students’ financial status, which Trani spoke about in front of the board. Trani cited statistics that 70 percent of students work full- or part-time jobs and asserted that the per capita income for families is much lower at VCU than other state institutions. Instead of concentrating on financial hardship, the board of visitors went on to talk about a possible long-term solution: increased state funding.
Paul Timmreck, senior vice president of finance and administration, gave a presentation on the effects of the General Assembly’s Higher Education Restructuring Act. Based on the university’s financial, academic and enrollment plans, the General Assembly will provide general funds to VCU and the state’s other universities.
Timmreck used three funding scenarios to illustrate funding’s impact; in the first, VCU would receive additional general funds from the state and in the second it would receive no general funds. The most realistic option is the third, where the General Assembly provides an amount of funds somewhere between the other two scenarios. If this funding comes through, Timmreck says the money will go “to the heart of the institution.”
“It’s all for instruction, for students to be able to get the classes they need to stay on schedule for graduation,” Timmreck said. “It also means, quite frankly, the more money you get from the state the lower the increase in tuition, and that’s good news for students and parents.”
Aside from the possibility of lowering tuition increases, Stephen Gottfredson, provost and vice president of student affairs, spoke to the board about future improvements at VCU.
First in his presentation on VCU’s Stategic Plan was VCU’s “front door,” an organizational structure for academic and students support services. Another addition VCU hopes to make is an honors college, a single building which would be home to honors services and classes. The first structure’s purpose would be convenience, while the honors college would be aimed at recruiting “high-end” students.
In other business, the board of visitors welcomed two new members on August 25: Lillian Lambert, president of LilCo Enterprises, Inc., and Stuart C. Siegel, chairman of the board of S&K Famous Brands, Inc. and namesake of VCU’s Siegel Center.
Ashley Bacon Ward, member of several student organizations including the Black Political Science Association, was nominated by Trani and approved by the board of visitors to serve as a student representative on the board.
In addition, the board welcomed incoming Dean of Medicine Jerome F. Strauss, who has a doctorate in molecular biology and has co-authored more than 250 scientific publications. Strauss will officially begin as dean September 15.