UAFS officials detail student growth changes

Enrollment numbers for the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith (UAFS) revealed a slight drop for the 2012 spring term as compared to the same time period in 2011 at Wednesday’s Board of Visitors meeting in the Smith-Pendergraft Campus Center of UAFS. However, despite falling from 5,464 to 5,326, the university still posted its second highest numbers since 2001.

It was also the first time numbers had declined over the same time period. Still, Penny Pendleton, Dean of Enrollment Management for UAFS, feels the numbers are a positive sign. To prove her case, she points to spring graduation projections for the university, stating that around 371 students will graduate with bachelors degrees in May 2012 compared to 278 in 2011.

If these projections are correct, UAFS would see 654 bachelors degrees awarded in the 2011-2012 school year compared to 531 for 2010-2011, an increase of around 23%. Pendleton also noted the university was seeing an increase in the following categories:

    •    Number of credits taken by junior- and senior-level students
    •    Number of students returning from last semester
    •    Number of students enrolled in S.T.E.M. Programs (colleges of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
    •    Number of students enrolled in humanities and social sciences
    •    International student enrollment
    •    Out-of-state student enrollment
    •    Western Arkansas Technical Center student enrollment  

Pendleton said that in the last two years the university has continued to weed out abuse of financial aid. “If a student on financial aid, based on need not scholarship, has all D’s and F’s, aid is suspended,” clarifying that “some students were here for the pell grant and not the education.”

While students are not academically suspended, they will have to “pay their own way.” Appeals, Pendleton noted, are allowed if a student had to withdraw for a “legitimate situation.” On retention, the university is continuing to send out early academic alerts from a student’s professor, and “for the last two years,” each student has received assignment to an academic advisor. 

“What’s good to remember in this whole picture is, while two-year degrees and certificate programs are very good programs, students are recognizing they’re not going to help them maintain that long term job,” UAFS Chancellor Paul Beran said. 

Beran continued: “Many of our two-year students are moving into bachelors programs. These students are recognizing what they can do.” 

More importantly, Beran noted, is that “5% of our state revenue is based on performance. This bodes well for how we’re going to lie in that performance funding arena for the next 10 years,” though he noted the university was “mining an underserved area right now.”

“We won’t keep growing like we have been. Over the next couple of years, you’ll see a somewhat more graduated growth,” Beran said. 

Also at Wednesday’s (Feb. 8) meeting, it was announced UAFS would seek a request for qualifications from qualified professional planning and design firms with master planning experience in the creation of “a comprehensive Campus Master Plan for UAFS,” board member Darrell Morrison said.

The plan will “preserve the spirit and character of the existing campus,” Morrison said, “while addressing the complexities of a growing educational program, increased student population and campus life, on-campus housing and recreation, traffic circulation, access, utility distribution, and parking.”

Morrison noted the program would “provide a guide for future campus development and expansion during the next 20 years,” and that the university has purchased one property with four additional offers made within the boundaries set by the 2009 Strategic and Campus Housing Master Plan.

The boundaries include part of Grand and Kinkead Avenues with the pending offers located just north of Grand and south-southwest of Kinkead within those boundaries. The purchased property is located on the southern tip of the boundary, south of Kinkead.