College Council

October 27, 2009

Members Present: Steve Schutt (Chair), Lois Barr, Patrick Doggett, Michael Kash, Alexander Mawyer, Tracy Schwartz ’10, Justin Stenger ’10, Kristina Waugh

We discussed a number of thoughtful questions about enrollment growth posed by the College's trustees at meetings last week.  A number of these questions, which are pasted below, are already being analyzed on campus, and College Council will refer the others to appropriate offices or individuals.

Trustee Questions re Enrollment Growth

·         What is the financial model?  Will increases in revenue exceed increases in costs?  For how long?

·         Where will additional students come from?  Will they major in academic areas that have room for more students, or will they want to major in areas that are already full?

·         What different marketing or recruitment strategies will the College use?

·         What evidence supports the premise that the College can become more broadly attractive to larger pools of students?

·         Can we create or expand academic programs that will attract more students, and reduce or eliminate those that won’t?

·         Can the College maintain its current, attractive student-teacher ratio?

·         Can we maintain broad diversity in the student body while growing larger?

·         Can we improve/expand our study abroad programs to attract more students?

·         Doesn’t the College need to renovate current residence halls in order to attract more students?  Can renovations be done one by one, over a period of years, or must they be completed all at once?

·         Will it continue to make sense for the College to recruit more students from Illinois if the state reduces or eliminates the Monetary Assistance Program [“MAP”] that provides grants to Illinois college students with financial need?

·         What percentage of our student body should come from Illinois?

·         How will proposed changes in First Year Studies affect plans for enrollment growth?

·         Should the College have a long-term plan for a second phase of enrollment growth – one that might increase total enrollment to 2,000, for example, over 10 or 15 years?

College Council also continued our discussion about the needs that we would like to address on campus. If you have any ideas or suggestions please let a member of College Council know.

We have a slight break in our agenda, and if there are any issues that you would like to see brought up at College Council please let a member of the committee know.

Our next meeting will be on November 3rd at 4PM in Pierson Room C.

 If you have any comments, questions, ideas or concerns, please contact any College Council member.

 Respectfully submitted,

 Tracy Schwartz, Secretary