Flatlining enrollment rates continued to be a major theme during the eleventh meeting of the ETSU Board of Trustees on Friday.
“You all have asked me what keeps me up at night,” ETSU President Brian Noland said. “I’ve told you my answer is enrollment, enrollment, enrollment.”
During a Strategic Plan Progress Update and Key Performance Indicator review, Chief Planning Officer Mike Hoff said overall enrollment is still flat. Enrollment is down for undergraduate first-time freshman and international students, but it’s up for first-time transfers, out-of-state students and graduate students.
Hoff noted the increased overall graduation rate, with significant progress in both the male and non-white populations.
After creating and implementing significant changes in structure, policy and process related to enrollment over the past 12 months, Hoff said they have received a “very positive” response in applications with ETSU already ahead in applications for fall 2020.
“We have an opportunity to convert all of those students into enrollment, and we have two more months than we had with them last year,” Hoff said.
To combat the flat enrollment, Noland said they will be pushing the focus on outreach, branding and marketing in 2020.
“We’ve got to do a better job of telling the people who are at university and the people who are in this community the level of excellence that exists here,” Noland said. “That’s going to help enrollment.”
New billboards that say, “The Region’s University” and “Come Home to East Tennessee,” went up this past week across the region. This is the beginning of the launch of an internal and external marketing campaign that will be present in the spring semester.
“We’ve got to be able to tell our own story before we expect others to buy our story,” Noland said.
During the President’s Report, Noland presented strategic goals for 2020. These goals include the enrollment of 18,000 students, a graduation rate of 60% for first-time, full-time students seeking a degree within six years and a retention rate of 85%.
Although a major theme of the meeting involved addressing areas in which the university is not meeting its objectives – areas like enrollment – Noland said another goal of these board meetings is to address areas where the university is meeting its mission.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, but when you pull that work to the side and you look at the work that individuals are doing, I hope that you can see we are ‘One ETSU,’” Noland said. “We’re ‘One ETSU’ focused on our mission. We’re ‘One ETSU’ focused on our values, and we’re ‘One ETSU’ in which one people – one person – can have a transformative impact.”
Some of these people who have had transformative impacts at ETSU were represented throughout the meeting through updates given on the history, growth and success of programs like the Nursing Stacked Credentials Pathway Program and the Federal TRIO Programs.
Dean of the College of Nursing Dr. Wendy Nehring presented updates on the accelerated LPN to BSN program that was created after seeing a strong student demand for easily accessible and affordable LPN to BSN programs during a statewide tour to community colleges and Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology to recruit for the RN to BSN program in summer 2017.
In cooperation with TCATs in fall 2018, the four semester, 23 credit hour hybrid accelerated program started with three locations: Johnson City, Crossville and Nashville. Since then, they have expanded to locations at Erlanger Hospital, in Newbern, Shelbyville and Sevierville. A location at Vanderbilt Health System and Pulaski is planned for spring 2020, and four additional sites in Athens, Ripley, McMinnville and Livingston are planned for the future.
ETSU is the only public university in Tennessee to offer an LPN to BSN program. Nehring said as of this summer, there have been a reported 1,000 inquires per week about the program, some coming from as far as South Korea. There are currently 261 students enrolled in the program in total, and 94 students enrolled this fall. One hundred seventy-eight applications have already been submitted for spring 2020.
“Overall, the state is experiencing a nursing shortage, especially in the rural areas,” Nehring said. “And there [is a] need for nurses, and they will certainly say that in our area here through Ballad Health. … So, this is a case where ETSU is really meeting a workforce need.”
“We are the only public institution providing this service,” Noland said. “We are the preferred provider for the state, and I think the market potential here in many respects is unlimited.”
Director of TRIO Programs Ronnie Gross gave updates on the Federal TRIO programs during the meeting.
The Federal TRIO Programs are outreach and student services programs designed to find and connect individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds with support services. With seven programs, TRIO is intended to help low-income individuals, first-generation college students and individuals with disabilities to achieve academic success.
ETSU hosts nine TRIO projects, and it is one of only five universities to have all seven TRIO programs.
In his journey with higher education, which he said has had “more detours and potholes than Interstate 26,” first generation college student Noah Lions told the board how the TRIO programs helped him during his time at ETSU. After feeling lost during his first semester, he was directed to TRIO student support services, which he said changed his educational trajectory.
“I met faculty and staff and students who took an interest in an individualized approach to me,” Lions said. “They made me feel like I mattered. They made me [feel] I was meant to be here.”
The TRIO programs led him to participate in the Ronald McNair scholarship internship in which he is now a Ronald McNair scholar. He said the internship helped him develop life-long connections and monumental research skills. Lions is now a peer mentor and tutor for the student support services that had once helped him.
“So, without TRIO programs, I can’t help but think where I might have ended up,” Lions said. “And I attribute my success and thousands of other students’ success on ETSU’s campus to these programs.”
In other business addressed during the meeting, October 2019 revisions to the 2019 to 2020 budget – roughly a $2 million increase – were approved. Due to low enrollment numbers, tuition and fees were adjusted with a tuition decrease and a course fee increase. The revisions also involved various adjustments to budgets for the College of Nursing, the Quillen College of Medicine, Family Medicine and the Gatton College of Pharmacy.
Also during the meeting, College of Nursing Associate Professor Dr. Deborah Dumphy and Department of Family Medicine Professor Dr. Trena M. Paulus were awarded tenure.
