MACOMB – The Western Illinois University department of Institution Research and Planning announced its Fall 2018 enrollment of 6778 full-time students and 1724 part-time students for a combined total of 8502 enrolled students on both Macomb and Quad City campuses.

This is an 11 percent decrease from a year ago when 9441 full-time and part-time students were enrolled during the Fall 2017 semester.

Ron Williams, Vice President for Student Services, and Jason Woods, Interim Director of

Admissions and Melissa Telles, Associate Director of Admissions addressed the decline in student enrollment during a regular meeting of the faculty senate on Tuesday.

They distributed the WIU Faculty Recruitment/Outreach Initiatives document which presented a general approach to student recruitment and retention at the institution.

Taking to the lectern, Williams pointed out enrollment is of crucial importance at the university right now, and their “primary goal in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions is to stabilize enrollment. To do that, we are soliciting the help of everyone on campus.”

Williams emphasized a collaborative approach noting that neither he nor anyone in his department has the authority to issue a mandate. While Williams and others focus on enrollment, those “outreach initiatives are very important to get WIU out in front of people earlier than perhaps their junior or senior year when they’re making a decision for college. We want Western to be engaged in their minds,” he said.

Williams said they are going to community events in this region, and broadening out a little further going across the river into Iowa. “It’s important for you to know that our admissions staff, and people on campus are really participating in outreach activities that are targeting younger students. That’s a little bit of a change in the way we do things.”

In other business, Bill Thompson, chapter president of University Professions Local 4100, which represents a large number of WIU faculty and staff, had a discussion with Interim Provost Kathy Neumann over what he perceives as an impending layoff of 100 positions at the university.

Thompson recalled that at the last faculty senate meeting Neumann had said that administration wants to move the institution to a 17:1 or 18:1 student-to-faculty ratio. “So, that looks to me like the loss of about 100 positions, depending on whether it’s the 17:1 or 18:1 ratio, and he asked what the timeline is on is getting the institution to those ratios.

Thompson said that to reach the aforementioned 17:1 student-to-faculty ratio is about 93-94 positions. To get to 18:1 is a little bit over 100 positions, he said.

“In general, this has been the same conversations we’d had for the last couple years of a desire to have the institution get back to a 17:1 ratio. So, nothing in that regard has changed,” Neumann said. Although she did not know what the timeline is, the university is “currently working towards that number, and a lot of that is going to depend on how the recruiting goes.”

She followed up by saying there has been “no additional discussion” by university administrators about additional layoffs and the 17:1 remains the preferred ratio. The current student-to-faculty ratio is 14:1 with 556 full-time faculty.

On another note, Colton Markey, Student Government Association (SGA) Director of Academic Affairs said the SGA is offering two $400 scholarships to students who are in need of financial assistance. Students can apply for those scholarships on PurplePost. The applications are due October 1.

There is also a Superhero Blue Light Fun Run/Walk on October 20 with an entrance fee of $25. All proceeds go to benefit WIRC Victim Services.

In response to an earlier question from Senate member Susan Czechowski about what initiatives the SGA has to combat sexual assault and domestic violence, Markey said, “We do not have any planned, but (the SGA) is not a programming body.” He added that the Women’s Center at WIU is hosting Take Back the Night (TBTN) on October 25, a march and rally from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Visit the Women’s Center at http://www.wiu.edu/student_services/womens_center/ for additional information on upcoming events and rallies.

Faculty Senate Chair Christopher Pynes announced that WIU president Dr. Jack Thomas has requested the Senate members begin a search committee for a new provost. The petitions are available on the Faculty Senate website at http://www.wiu.edu/FacultySenate/.

Pynes said the petitions are due by no later than 2 p.m. on Friday, September 28.

He commented that, “the president has given a lot of latitude, so we’re going to have one member from each college and then two at large. The way the elections going to run is the colleges will set those, they will vote, and the two at large will be selected by (the Faculty Senate), but the Senate will vote electronically at the same time as the colleges.”

The only real requirement, Pynes said, is to have “more faculty than other constituencies. So, if you know somebody you want to be on the provost search committee, you should encourage them to submit a nominating petition.”



Reach Christopher Ginn by email at chrisginn1978@gmail.com or find him on Facebook.