After nearly six months in the top job at Illinois State University, Aondover Tarhule won't say outright if he wants the job for good — but for whoever gets it, he said, they'll arrive at "an inflection point."
"If you look at all the projects we're implementing — academic programs, the engineering college, all of the construction we're undertaking and so on ... I don't know that there are many places where you can make as much of an impact as you can right now at ISU," Tarhule said in a recent interview.
Enrollment numbers are not yet official — official numbers will come following the 10th day of fall classes — but Tarhule said projections show the university may match last year's number of incoming students (3,983), which at the time was the largest in 35 years.
"We're hoping to at least equal that cohort in terms of student size," he said. "It's exciting to be able to get back-to-back, consecutive years of strong enrollment at a time when other schools are struggling."
In the interview with WGLT, Tarhule spoke about the potential for new student housing developments, how the university has increased diverse student enrollment without affirmative action, and more.
WGLT: When we talk about a large incoming class, is ISU at a point yet where it has to start looking at building additional housing? (ISU had a proposed housing development slated for the southern part of campus in 2020).
Tarhule: (That project) got shelved because of the pandemic. But we're very actively looking at (the issue) again. In fact, I have a meeting... where we're looking at the current estimates that will help us decide when and if we go to the board to ask for approval to go forward. We're coming very close to making a final decision about how to proceed.
WGLT: When you talk about a boost in enrollment, there are a lot of things that go into that; I think there are people on both sides of the spectrum who are disillusioned with higher education. There's people who say it's too expensive and there's others who are against it conceptually. How does an institution communicate its value?
Tarhule: The value is clear, for anyone who wants to look at the data. Data shows, over and over, coming out of the pandemic that the number of people who didn't have a degree and lost jobs was much more than people who had degrees. But it really depends on what people see for themselves. I advise people think about what you see for yourself for your whole lifetime, not just for the next two years. We're educating people for careers, not just for two or three years. It really should be what people want to do, but if you want have a discussion on the value of college, then I think the data is irrefutable.
WGLT: Part of the reason I ask that is because of that affordability issue is because there's a goal to have a diverse College of Engineering student body, and ISU is going to allocate financial aid to accomplish that. Can you speak about that on a more general level, especially after the 1.9% tuition increase?
Tarhule: Affordability remains a real problem for all colleges, ISU included. On the one hand, we want people to be able to afford to come, but even in our daily budget, costs continue to go up. Inflation went up to about 9% — though I think it's cooling now, somewhat. We are not immune from those types of things; we have to provide food and dining and utilities and so on. With affordability and costs, we continue to monitor that very closely and to try to provide financial aid using different levels of resources.
WGLT: You were very clear earlier this summer when you said the U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action wouldn't impact the university's practices. How does the university continue to diversify the student body without using demographic factors?
Tarhule: What criteria does the university use in making admissions decisions? We use four criteria. One is a student's GPA. The trajectory (of the GPA) is a second variable. Maybe a student started off with one GPA and it got better over time. The third is a personal essay. The fourth is optional and that's a standardized test.
You'll notice, race doesn't count at all. Beginning about five or six years ago, we've never used race, so it's not going to impact us. Look back at the past five years and look at the progress that we've made. First (generation) college student enrollment in 2015 was 29%. Right now we're 40%. If you look at the generality of the student body ...minority students were only about 14-15% in 2013. Last year it was almost 80%.
We've doubled our diversity. That's a remarkable progress, however you count it, without using race. So, we're doing the right things — that holistic admission practices are working well.
WGLT: You've said before — forgive me if I mix up any of the words — that an institution or an individual cannot be good at all things, but it can choose to be good at certain things. What are those things for ISU?
Tarhule: Student success. In my mind, the sole reason for the university to exist is to educate and graduate students. If students come here and they're not successful, meaning they drop out and don't graduate, or they don't find the experience meaningful, or they don't learn the skills to make them competitive for when they leave here, then I think we're failing part of our mission.
I know we are very strong on student success: Our graduation rate is good at 67% and our retention rate is 80%. I'm appreciative and very happy to see those rates.
But at the same time, it means we're losing 20% of our students in the first year. If we bring in 4,000 students a year and we lose 20%, that's 800 students. That's the size of some small, private universities. It's from that perspective that I would really, really like to up the retention. The graduation rate, again, we're good at 67% — better than national average — but that means a third of the students who come here have not gotten a degree after six years. That's very expensive for those students and their families.
If I have an opportunity to rally the whole campus to a cause, I would say let's do better on these goals.
