Updates to faculty layoff plan and other stuff

[wiu712]

SIU-Carbondale enrollment at lowest point since 1965, data shows.

Southeast Missouri State University reported an increase of nearly 50 percent of Illinois students compared to last year. At the same time, Murray State University is reporting a 40 percent increase of Illinois students.

From the Daily Egyptian:
http://dailyegyptian.com/58498/news/siu ... ata-shows/

[ST_Lawson]

Total enrollment is down 5.5% at Northern Illinois. Total enrollment was counted at 19,015 on the 10th day of classes this year. There are 1,115 fewer students enrolled at the school than there were at this time last year. The largest decline is in the freshman class, while smaller declines took place among transfer and graduate students.

Total undergraduate enrollment at NIU declined to 14,079, down 6.2 percent from 2015. Graduate school enrollment fell 3.7 percent to 4,672. Enrollment at the law school grew 4.3 percent.

Eastern Illinois University President Glassman today said in his state-of-the-university address that “more than 7,400 students are enrolled at EIU this fall….” Last year, according to university website, 8,520 were enrolled.

UIUC, UIC, and UIS will announce their enrollment figures on Thursday.

So we still need to hear from Chicago State, Northeastern Illinois, and Governors State.

I've updated my spreadsheet, thanks.
And wow...those numbers for EIU are rough. Percentage-wise, that'd be higher than the drop that SIU-C is having (which is worse than the drop that we had).

[Tere North]

Why in the world would they rest on their laurels? jc

That says it all. Consider Western's enrolment headline of "Western Illinois University: A Bright Future" demonstrating success vs. that of Northern stating "NIU enrollment down 5.5 percent" and expressing concern. Yet, Western's enrollment is actually down 6.5%, and while the new freshman was pretty much stable at only a decrease of 0.5%, our new transfers took a beating at a 12.5% loss.

[ST_Lawson]

I'm not trying to defend the administration...I know they've had problems...but I think that the way that the press release was put out there was more just trying to spin the numbers in a positive way.

For a lot of the students (both current and prospective), perception = reality. Last year when a few news sources mentioned the possibility of schools like Eastern and Chicago State closing, Western was kinda lumped in there too. Before long, I was seeing all kinds of mentions on twitter and facebook of people saying that Western wouldn't be open in the spring or wasn't going to be open for this fall semester or whatever. Many people saw that mention that there was a chance of some universities closing, Western was mentioned in there...then all of a sudden, as far as people talking online are concerned, we're closing the next semester.

The schools have to post enrollment numbers and various press sources are going to run with them and put their own headlines to them, but I think Western did the right thing in this case by getting in front of the enrollment news and posting a positive sounding press release..."enrollment remains steady...despite a smaller number of graduating high school seniors", "numbers have remained stable, and that our retention rate has increased."

On the SIU and NIU news pages (http://news.siu.edu/ and http://newsroom.niu.edu/) there is no mention of the enrollment at all. What this has led to is when you do a search for "southern illinois enrollment" on google news, here's the first few headlines I see:
"SIU officials announce enrollment down 7.6 percent"
"Enrollment reaches historic low at SIU"
"SIU Carbondale fights historic enrollment drop"
"SIU enrollment at lowest point since 1965, data shows"

If you do the same thing for NIU, you do get an article that talks about both WIU and NIU being down because it's from the QC area, but then:
"NIU enrollment down 5.5 percent"
"Fall enrollment down 5.5 percent at NIU; freshman enrollment drops 20 percent"

Now do the same thing for Western...the first line is:
"Western Illinois University: A Bright Future"
and then you see the article about WIU and NIU from the QC area and then the other press. But, the first thing you see is something positive. Yes, it's put out by our own University Relations, but it doesn't change the fact that your first impression is a positive one.

So, I don't think that they're really resting on their laurels, I think they're trying to get ahead of the story with a positive spin and get that pushed out to the press before they can take the numbers and put out their own take on it. They're not hiding the numbers, but they're making the best of a rough situation. And honestly, it is a much better situation than it initially looked like it might be (the temporary budget "patch" probably helped somewhat too), and I'm sure they're going to keep working as hard as they can to bring in new students, but it's just going to be tough for a while until the budget mess can get sorted out (assuming it does get sorted out).

[wiu712]

Total WIU fall enrollment down 6.5 percent. Freshmen enrollment considered by administrators to be level with 2015.
From today's McDonough County Voice:
http://www.mcdonoughvoice.com/news/2016 ... 65-percent


UIS enrollment up slightly for fall semester.

UIS enrollment is up slightly for the fall semester and makes up the second largest student body in the school's history.

Census numbers on the 10th day of classes showed 5,428 students enrolled this fall, up from 5,402 in fall 2015. That's an increase of about 0.5%.

UIS' largest enrollment was in fall 2014 when 5,431 students were enrolled.

[Tere North]

I'm not trying to defend the administration...I know they've had problems...but I think that the way that the press release was put out there was more just trying to spin the numbers in a positive way.
... I think they're trying to get ahead of the story with a positive spin ... it's just going to be tough for a while until the budget mess can get sorted out.

Blaming the budget issue doesn't seem to explain the increased enrollment and UIUC, UIS, SIUe, and ISU. They too were affected by the same budget issues. What did these folks do that brought in more freshmen and transfers? That is what Western needs to be asking itself instead of making excuses and relishing that at least they weren't the biggest loser.

[wiu712]

Illinois public universities have fluctuating enrollment after difficult year.

From today's Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... story.html

[Neckfansince71]

Gosh, the bleeding has been stopped! Time for healing! WIU is alive and well! Even reading the Tribune article makes you feel like WIU was proactive instead of reactive! Negative does not fill dorm rooms, class rooms, or stadiums! jc

[sealhall74]

Gosh, the bleeding has been stopped! Time for healing! WIU is alive and well! Even reading the Tribune article makes you feel like WIU was proactive instead of reactive! Negative does not fill dorm rooms, class rooms, or stadiums! jc

Yep, and a healthy dose of realism keeps 'em coming back year after year.

[ST_Lawson]

Yea, the entire situation sucks...budget mess...enrollment dropping across a lot of schools. I don't see anything wrong with publicly trying to spin the story to make it look as positive as we possibly can. Students who might have 3, 4...8? schools on their list of potentials and if, for example, they happen to have Eastern, Northern, Western, and Southern on their list and are doing a bit of research on the schools to figure out how to narrow things down a bit...
What do you think they'll do with their list if their quick searches pop up with "SIU has record low enrollment", "NIU significant enrollment drop", "EIU student enrollment drops sharply since 2015", and "Western Illinois University: A Bright Future"?

As I said...for the current HS students looking at schools (and for current students deciding to stick around), perception = reality. If they see a ton of negative comments about enrollment declining, they are less likely to choose Western or to choose to stay at Western. I'm not saying that putting the positive spin will keep everyone around, but every little bit helps. It didn't cost them anything to put the press release out, so if doing that helps bring in or keep 10...or 100 more students to/at Western, then it's worth it.

The administration isn't naive to the situation, but it doesn't mean they can't present a positive "face" for it.

As for the budget issues not explaining the increases at the U of I schools and ISU...I think it actually does. If you're looking at prospective schools, are you going to lean more towards the ones that appear publicly to be tenuous in terms of long-term sustainability or are you going to lean towards the ones that appear to have stability and appear to be less directly affected by the budget issues? If I was a HS student today that was actually looking to stay in Illinois, I know that schools that look more likely to be around in 4-5 years even if the budget issues continue would be the ones that would be near the top of my lists. Most of the schools that are doing well are either "flagship" or "urban and serve more of an upper-middle class population" in general. Urban alone isn't enough to do it (as the other Chicago-area schools have shown), but schools like UIC and SIU-E are both close to very large cities and have medical training/schools...which means doctors, dentists, partnerships with local hospitals and medical facilities...and all that equals $$$. Even if you aren't going into the medical schools, having that at a school helps bring in other sources of financing that don't involve getting $ from the state every month and helps make the school more stable.

So, a student looking at a list of pros and cons for each school on their list is going to be able to add stability to their pros list for schools like the U of I's and ISU as compared with most of the directionals...and that, as we've already seen, I think, affects enrollment.