A Presidential Perspective on the Challenges and Opportunities for Small Colleges

Dr. Jennifer Braaten
President
Ferrum College

At Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia we are most grateful for all the students who continue to be interested in attending. It has been an incredible period of growth for the institution over the years since I assumed the presidency. The College starts with an attractive? core. We have the honor and privilege of having a powerful mission of affordability and accessibility. We are all educators interested in doing all we can to inspire and motivate young people. We have a faculty, staff and administration who appreciate what it means to offer an applied liberal arts program within an extremely challenging and competitive environment.

Many investments have been made to keep the College attractive and competitive in a difficult market. We implemented a comprehensive, new recruitment and financial aid strategy. New athletic opportunities have been added and a new athletic center was recently completed. The faculty have designed and introduced new academic offerings and revamped the Honors Program. A new residence hall has been built and we have focused in recent years on a number of green initiatives. The investments have paid off. Applications are up 127%, new student enrollments have soared 78%, the number of students living in the residence halls has increased 106% and total enrollment has grown by 57%.

The good news is that we are a vibrant and welcoming community of scholars and learners, and that we continue to attract students to our institution. We so appreciate the enormous amount of effort that staff, faculty and coaches devote to recruiting, advising, teaching, mentoring and caring for our students in our classrooms and on our campus. The only reason students attend our private colleges today is that they still believe in the hope and dream of a comprehensive education that will help them secure a good job and that they believe the environment on a church related residential campus is caring, compelling and connecting. It is an imperative that we reiterate the message that we are here to assist students and families, that we are interested in them as individuals, that we embrace and ?love? them and that we demonstrate that we are invested in their success. We are committed to helping prepare students to develop their personal vocational goals, as well as deal with global issues. We believe that we, and they, can have a transformative experience and that they, and we, can change the world!

It is still hot: We need to remain flexible and proactive throughout the year, and assure that any student interested in coming to campus will be accommodated and that we continuously reinforce the message that the college experience requires inquiry and reciprocity. It is important to ask each student: Who are you? What are you interested in? What are you proud of that you have already accomplished? What do you want to do in college? How can we help you achieve your goals? New research indicates that character ? not intelligence, quality of instruction, class size, family situation, etc. ? is the crucial determinant of achievement in school. The old maturation/motivation/and money paradigm still is true ? effortful practice, self-discipline, persistence and pursuit of long term goals are the qualities that contribute to the achievement character that can make the difference between success and failure for students at any level of education. We can still push ?place and promise? as contributors to personal success as well as the opportunity to contribute to the public good.

We have worked very hard to create an environment where such students can be successful, and we have a wonderful ?team in place? who understand that we have a powerful mission to serve such students. As our Methodist presidents and pastors reiterate, we focus on the development of principled leaders who can change the world, and we recognize that the U.S. News and World Reports rankings do not begin to capture the significant work that we do.

Our work here is nowhere near done. We need to continue to refine our reenrollment and retention strategy, and we will be working on another layer/level of ensuring that student engagement is occurring in all facets of campus life and that there is assessment and accountability that focuses on getting and keeping able students at our institution. We do know that the ?opportunity, accessibility and affordability? mission colleges like Ferrum will always struggle to increase retention and graduation rates because of the huge challenges that our students face, but we know we/they can do better. Mandatory Academic Resource Center and English/Math tutoring time is helpful; athletic study halls are invaluable, residence life quiet hours and community standards are critical, campus wide civility campaigns are essential, and campus religious and spiritual life opportunities are meaningful. We appreciate that student athletes (particularly women) continue to generally have higher retention rates than other students, and we know that community and bonding with a teacher/coach/mentor creates that connectivity in unique and wonderful ways. The same thing happens with faculty who challenge their students and staff who accompany them. We are grateful that we have started a wrestling program that has a very proactive and widely respected coach, that we have a freshman scholar program that has attracted some excellent students and that the Honors and LOP program both have potential to grow. We are excited about a new international exchange program that will bring more excellent students to campus.

It is still challenging: Having just returned from NASCUMC, the president?s conference of the 120 United Methodist colleges and universities in the U.S., I have to restate the points I always make about the challenges we are facing as small colleges. This is not news, but some of us still may be in ?denial? that this has been, is and will be the reality for the future. Quite frankly, there are no positive trends and so we all need to understand the dynamics of this reality so we can collaborate and work together to do all we can to offer a quality educational experience within a context of greatly reduced financial support from every sector. At Ferrum, we do have the ?power of a positive community? and a strong heritage and legacy in the Methodist system, so we all need to be rowing in the same direction to try to counteract so much national and global negativity. Projections from experts continue to be that we will not have full economic recovery until 2020, and that students and families simply cannot afford private education and that any who do want to come to our schools, do so at great sacrifice. If they do come, we have to demonstrate the high value and good outcomes
that their investment will create. We know it is not easy and this strains our institution and personnel to the limit, but that is why we keep working on multiple learning modalities, creative and contemporary curriculum, extensive career planning, additional career placement options, enhanced technology and social media connections for classroom and admissions/business office usage, increased internships and experiential learning, better marketing, stronger athletic programs, more student clubs, organizations and leadership experiences, extended payment plans and reinforcing that we are a community that has vision, mission and values.

It is the future: Only 8% of all high school students are interested in attending denominational small private colleges and this percentage is declining every year. The majority of graduating high school students today, and in the next decades, will be going to community colleges and public universities, primarily because of cost and convenience. Almost all 23 ? 50 year olds will be seeking online education degrees and most states will mandate that students have several online courses before graduating from high school and many states are creating consortia and free online degree programs. The number of 18 ? 24 year olds who want to attend a women?s college is 4% and those who want to attend a rural small private is less than 2%. We know that the minority number of births outnumbered the ?majority? two years ago and that this demographic will continue to impact all of our institutions as these students will keep coming to college in record numbers, but will continue to be academically underprepared and economically disadvantaged. Federal, state and church aid has all decreased, donors are still skittish about giving gifts, drought will continue, food and energy costs will increase, many institutions continue to downsize, few give any raises, most have dramatically decreased benefits and all have suffered investment portfolio losses that will rarely be recoverable. Projections are for the average discount rate in our institutions to continue to grow, that the full-time tenured faculty rate teaching at all colleges and universities will continue to decline (it is now at only 33%) and that we will have more students per class.

And so where is the joy? It is here, and dwells among us. We experience it and we model it by our attitudes, words, and behaviors.? We have the ?blessing? of a community that encourages and lifts us up (in spite of rules, regulations, handbooks, litigation, guidelines, processes, and all other necessary prescriptive structures and order), we have a long history of overcoming adversity and
we have each other. Let us show attitudes of gratitude for our students, their families, and the One who gives us life and love. We have to believe that we are ?called to this work? and that we are ?edge leaders? ? more interested in meaning than money and that we have a broader purpose of bringing about the better world that God imagines rather than accepting the world we now see.