Submitted by Bob Edwards
Public Relations Dept. Asst.
Glenville State College
Glenville, WV - The numbers are up at Glenville State College. For the first time since the fall of 2002, the student population at GSC has surpassed the 1400 mark. Officially, 1441 students are enrolled for the 2007 fall semester at Glenville State College, an increase of 8.6 percent over the fall 2006 semester.
The increase in enrollment can be attributed to several factors. GSC President Peter Barr has pledged to make increasing enrollment and graduation rates among his primary initiatives. "Increased enrollment is not only critical to GSC but to our community and our state. For GSC and the community, some level of increased enrollment is critical to our survival as an institution. But if we, as a state and nation, are to be competitive in the 21st century, we must dramatically increase the number of college graduates.
Although this is a reality throughout the United States, it becomes more acute when you examine the existing percentage of college graduates in our state and region. For instance, the percentage of persons aged 19-64 who are college graduates in the nation is 25% compared to 17% throughout West Virginia and just 10% in our thirteen county region," said Barr.
An aggressive approach to student recruitment has been adopted by the GSC Admissions Department. Duane Chapman, Vice President of Enrollment Management at Glenville State College, said, "I give much of the credit to my Admissions Counselors. J.T Fox, Tommy Oldaker, Annie Pugh, Michelle Wellings, and Emily Jones have been working hard to make GSC more visible and aggressively recruiting students from an expanded geographical area and using a variety of tools to reach them." GSC counselors are attending fairs, regattas, and other events in addition to traditional visits to schools.
The GSC Admissions Department is giving free thumb drives to any high school senior who completes an application with a 3.0 or better grade point average and at least a 21 score on their ACT or 950 or better on their SAT. Chapman is confident that enrollment will continue to grow. "We are making numerous contacts with potential students including personal visits, mail, and phone calls. You have to hang up on us twice before we are going to give up," said Chapman.
In the fall of 2002, there were 2,197 students enrolled at GSC; however reorganization by the West Virginia State Department of Higher Education took the Nicholas County satellite campus away from GSC, and by fall 2004, enrollment fell to 1,318. President Barr says the College's strategic plan includes a goal of increasing enrollment to 2000 students by 2010. |
