Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington has encouraging enrollment data for the fall.
IWU President Georgia Nugent said projections from deposits so far suggest IWU is on pace for 500 new first-year students. She said it would also make up for a dip in entering students last fall. Nugent said a couple new programs may contribute to the uptick.
"It's called direct admissions and it's almost a reversal of the usual process. We can reach out to students whose records look of interest to us and offer them admission. And they can determine whether to accept it," said Nugent.
A similar program targets students from underserved communities. Nugent said the number of applications from international students is at a record high, and that has contributed to the higher admission and acceptance number. The jump in international student interest is a national trend.
"That was a particular area of concern last year because of things beyond our control. In a lot of cases students were not able to get visa interviews," said Nugent.
IWU average total enrollment of about 1,600 in recent years is less than desired and has contributed to stretched finances on campus. In the school year that is about to end, the size of the student body fell to 1,527. If that projection of 500 entering students in the fall comes true and can be replicated, IWU could return to an enrollment of about 2,000 in a few years. IWU presidents over the years have targeted that number as one the institution is built to serve.
As recently as 2017, IWU enrollment was 1,649 students, which at the time was the lowest since 1988. Enrollment rose about 30% or by 100 students in 2018 on the strength of above-average scholarship awards. Then the size of the new class fell in 2019 when the enhanced scholarship levels were not repeated.
Entering class size
- 2017 - 416
- 2018 - 540
- 2019 - 446
- 2020 - 487
- 2021 - 473
- 2022 - 382
- 2023 - 500* projected
IWU total enrollment
- 2017 - 1,649
- 2018 - 1,693
- 2019 - 1,636
- 2020 - 1,626
- 2021 - 1,653
- 2022 - 1,527
Many colleges and universities of all sizes have had trouble sustaining enrollment numbers because of demographic shifts. May 1 used to be the deadline for deposits, but most higher education institutions have become more flexible in recent years.
Meanwhile, Illinois State University said its entering student deposits for the fall are up about 1% from this time last year.
Program restructuring
Meanwhile, Illinois Wesleyan continues its campus conversation about structure and priorities.
Over the last 20 years students nationwide have shown more interest in pre-professional programs and less in traditional liberal arts majors. Nugent said in a WGLT interview IWU hopes to offer a blend of the two. In 2020 there was faculty pushback to previous moves in some departments including foreign languages, philosophy, and music.
“We're doing all right. But those are national trends. Enrollment in foreign languages in America has been declining steadily for 40 years. We tend to see very high enrollments in Spanish, which people view as more pragmatic these days. I think some of our programs such as philosophy are actually seeing increasing enrollments,” said Nugent.
She said the evolution of the School of Art into one of Art and Design has borne fruit and has healthy enrollments now.
“It has also added new types of programming, like graphic design. I think we're teaching anime now. There's a lot of interest in those fields,” said Nugent.
Over the last four years deposits for music majors have fluctuated between 10 and 21. Nugent noted music education has healthier enrollments but said training for professional musicianship is not as popular as it once was at IWU.
“We're working very closely with the music faculty. They're looking at ways that they can trim expenses, and ways that they can introduce courses that might be of a broader collegewide interest,” said Nugent.
She said she hopes the area of study can survive as a School of Music but said there will always be music at the university.
“Whether it makes most sense for it to be organized as a school or as a department is something that we're looking at now,” said Nugent.
She discounted the recent departure of the head of Music for a position at Ball State as a professional opportunity, and said she did not think it directly related to the enrollment numbers.
IWU is looking at other options to reorganize as well. Nugent said the national accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, conceives of IWU as a school of nursing, a school of music, a school of art, and a school of the liberal arts. Nugent said that does not match how the university thinks of itself.
“We're looking at whether it might make sense to organize some of our smaller departments into a more overarching entity. We have had several possible plans, or many different permutations of how you could do that; a school of the Liberal Arts, a school of the Fine and Performing Arts, whatever it might be. The faculty has had an opportunity to think about those to offer us feedback,” said Nugent.
Consolidation of departments would cut some administrative expense, such as stipends given to department chairs above their faculty salary. Nugent said, though, there is an additional benefit to connecting disparate departments.
“One thing that I like about such a plan is that it would actually put faculty more in the classroom. Currently, if you're a chair of a department, you get some release from the teaching load. I would rather see more of our full-time faculty in the classroom with our students and decrease the kind of administrative work that's going on,” said Nugent.
She said every area of the academic enterprise is under scrutiny: humanities, social sciences, sciences, business. And the reason for a shift rises above finances, said Nugent.
“What's been happening really for the last 15 or 20 years is that we're seeing the real intellectual energy being in interdisciplinary areas. The way I like to think about it is the world has many difficult issues. And they don't come in disciplinary boxes. So I think the more that we can foster those kinds of interconnections, the stronger education will be,” said Nugent.
Nugent said work on that plan will continue through the summer with decisions possible in the fall.
Fundraising
Nugent said the campus had success with its 10th annual day of giving fundraiser called "All In for Wesleyan." That event set a record of $2.6 million and more than 5,000 donors. The goal had been 3,600 donors. The tally increased by more than $100,000 from the previous record.
Infrastructure projects
Fundraising continues for the Petrick Idea Center, Nugent said. IWU will schedule a groundbreaking soon. She said the hoped-for completion date is in spring 2025. IWU had originally hoped to start building the 50,000-square-foot center in 2022. It will include meeting space to collaborate, a stage for presentations and a makerspace for students to create. The makerspace would include 3-D printers, laser cutters, sewing machines, recording equipment, possibly a test kitchen and more.
The director of the center has been developing new programming and doing outreach in the community, Nugent said.
“I think of it as not just an advantage or resource for the university but for the community,” said Nugent.
Community leaders have been focusing on a so-called Innovation Corridor along Main Street, and Nugent said she hopes the Petrick Center will be the hub for that.
The Center would be open around the clock and would include living space for up to 100 students, generally for those who would tend to use the center most often.
Renovation of the first-year student dorm Munsell Hall is on pace to happen this summer, said Nugent. It’s companion residence, Ferguson Hall, will be renovated next year. The two together will cost $16.5 million. The changes will include modernized first-floor lobbies, reconfigured connecting bridges between the two buildings, hallway refreshes, and changing bathrooms to make them single user. There also will be heating, cooling, and ventilation improvements. Electrical, plumbing, fire protection and technology improvements are part of the bundle of changes, too, along with repairing existing concrete walks and stairs. Donations by the Charles and Joyce Eichhorn Ames family are funding the project.
