Record enrollment boosts student participation
Cutting the ribbon at the East Hall ribbon cutting on Sept. 24 are (from left) Resident Assistant Emily Musselman, Resident Director Anna Glowinski, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Kory Vitangeli, Indianapolis Student Government President Josh Elijah and President Beverley Pitts.
By Kim Puckett | News Editor
An additional 250 students have brought UIndy’s total enrollment to 4,978, a record for the university. Although these large numbers strain campus amenities such as housing and food service, university officials say the increase brings positive changes in the campus community.
“I think one of the effects that is really positive with the increased enrollment is the activity level of students,” said Mark Weigand, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management. “The number of students participating in the student activities that we’ve had has been a record as well.
Weigand said this year’s family weekend drew more parents and students than ever before. Kory Vitangeli, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students, agreed that booming student numbers have increased activity participation.
“On the student activities side, we have seen a record enrollment in our campus organizations,” she said. “When we used to only get 10 or 15 people at our student government or RHA [Residence Hall Association] meetings, now numbers have doubled or tripled in terms of students showing up.”
Vitangeli said the ongoing campus expansion project also has contributed to campus enthusiasm.
“People seemed really excited this year about wanting to be involved on campus—wanting to go to the football games, wanting to get painted up for the games. They seem really excited about being at UIndy,” she said. “We think some of that is attributed to people being excited about the new additions to the student center and a new residence hall being built, just a general feel that it’s becoming a more residential campus.”
Most of the increased enrollment came from returning and transfer students. The freshman class numbers stayed the same as in 2008-09. Weigand said this disbursement was intentional, following the university’s strategic plan to keep the freshman class size from getting too big.
“It [the enrollment increase] isn’t a bubble on the freshmen classes that we have sometimes seen in the past,” he said. “We actually denied more students than we have in any other year to control the class that came in as freshmen. So, our increased numbers are in areas that we are better able to handle academically then it would have been if it had all been freshmen.”
Upper-level classes usually fill up more slowly and have more seats to fill than freshman-level courses, Weigand said.
In order to keep the incoming freshman class size down, the university has been slowly increasing admission requirements over the past few years, specifically focusing on high school grade point average and difficulty of high school classes taken by the student.
“We think those are better predictors than even the SAT,” Weigand said. “How difficult the courses are the student sign up for is a sign of how serious the student is.”
The enrollment numbers are not completely positive for students, especially those living in temporary housing.
“We are over capacity this year for our residence halls,” Vitangeli said. “So, we have students kind of crammed everywhere when it comes to our temporary housing locations. From some of the student perspectives that are in temporary housing, I certainly think they might say that it’s difficult sharing a room with five or six other people.”
Weigand said the university hopes to move students living in temporary housing to better accommodations before the school year is over.
Despite the close quarters, Vitangeli said, activity and excitement have increased in the residence halls with such a large population.
“We have seen in the residence halls really strong communities being formed just because of the sheer numbers, lots of people participating in programs,” she said.
Because East Hall was built especially with upper-class students in mind, the new dorm has helped bring 150 residents back to campus who moved off campus last year.
“One of the goals that we had with building East Hall was bringing upper-class students back to campus to be role models for other students,” Vitangeli said. “I think when students see the upper class students being excited about what’s happening on campus, it helps with that feel of excitement on campus. So, I think that has hugely contributed.”
