Collegian T he Cameron University
www.aggiecentral.com
Monday, April 27, 2015
Volume 92 Issue 10
Cameron faces downward enrollment Charlene Belew Managing Editor @cbelew15
Enrollment is down for Cameron University and has been decreasing slightly since 2011 brought 6,463 Aggies to campus. Cameron University President John McArthur said Cameron is not the only regional institution with lower enrollment, and although the Black and Gold’s may be a slightly larger decrease than other Oklahoma institutions, two factors, including the decline of students attending college and the number of students completing college, play into lower numbers. “Cameron’s enrollment follows our economy fairly closely, but in the opposite direction of what you might think. When the economy is weak, our enrollment grows because that’s the time when people are unemployed,” McArthur said. “As the economy’s gotten better and your classmates are able to find jobs or improve their jobs from part time to fulltime, some of them no longer take classes or they don’t take as many classes.” McArthur said other things influence lower enrollment numbers at Cameron compared to other higher educational facilities in the state. As the population in southwest Oklahoma decreases, enrollment
Photo by Kaley Patterson
statistics reflect the downward trend. For example, fewer students attend area high schools. “Half of our students come from Lawton, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Cache, Duncan and Elgin [high schools],” McArthur said. “As the high school classes get bigger and smaller, we follow those patterns.” Military students, those who are deployed or shift missions while in school, also play a role in the decreasing numbers. As the enrollment numbers slowly decrease, students may begin to feel the effects in and outside of the Photo by Charlene Belew classroom. With enrollment comes Incoming freshman: About 60 freshman enolled during one of the Aggie Enrollment Days, held on budgeting, and according Friday, April 24. The enrollment days, which occur almost every Friday of the summer, provide orientation to McArthur, half of the budget comes from taxpayers and registration for incoming Cameron students. of Oklahoma while the other half comes from student Student Activity Funds and the requests alphabetically and makes As an institution, we try to keep our tuition and fees. faculty-student ratio about one to 20. amount of classes offered are also financial decisions about which “[The legislature] allocate[s] a affected by enrollment. requests could bring the most impact If it gets much lower than that, say lump sum to the State Regents, 18 to one, when someone retires or Currently, SAFAC fees are $10 to students. and then the State Regents divide resigns, we look at refilling the lines. per credit hour per student. Most semesters, requests out up shares among the different “The more students and then number the amount of SAFAC funds We don’t fire people. Our enrollment institutions,” McArthur said. “The the more classes they take, the more available, and because of this, Naifeh doesn’t usually change enough to resources we have available to support SAFAC money there is. So we’re said no organization this year should terminate employment.” students is directly proportional to That means professors change down from 6,000 students to about expect to receive more than they did the number of students.” curriculum as they pick up other 5,400 students. That’s that much less last year. courses to instruct from professors money the SAFAC committee has to While it is possible for SAFAC who retire, leaving behind open spread out,” McArthur said. charges to increase, McArthur vacancies that aren’t quite ready to be The SAFAC committee, which said he would prefer the idea filled. is comprised of Dr. Deidre Onishi, come from students as opposed to To combat the effects, McArthur Dr. Justin Walton, Dr. Holly Rice, administration, noting an increase said programs, some of which are Colton Rancourt, Kristina Hill, isn’t planned on at the moment. set up by the Office of Prospective Alexandra Kolinski, Madison Geiger, This year’s SAFAC allocation Students and the Admissions Office, Cody Jackson, Sidney McCormack, committee should wrap up their put a lot of emphasis of bringing in Nikki Kirk, and Casey Meek or meetings in June, and departments new students. this year, is in charge of handling receiving money from the pool of Outreach into high schools proposals and divying out funds to funds will be notified at this time. not only informs potential future departments on campus. McArthur said faculty members students about Cameron, but also Zeak Naifeh, Debbie Mefford also feel the sting of a downward about attending college. and Leslie Cothren also serve on the enrollment. “We track the number of students committee to provide instruction and “The faculty are the primary by grade in the area high schools, training. influence because their first job is so that kind of gives us an idea of This year, SAFAC received 32 teaching you,” McArthur said. “If budget requests. Naifeh said the there are fewer students to teach, then the population that’s incoming,” committee works through the we need fewer faculty to teach them. McArthur said, noting projections for the upcoming semester come from the 11 surrounding counties CU serves. Other outside measures to bring students into the Black and Gold community includes talking to younger students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. “Right now, we’re putting a lot of emphasis into science, technology, engineering and math,” he said. “So we’re putting efforts into that, but because of their age, we probably won’t see any results from those initiatives for four to six years.” The final area of recruitment for CU is with adult learners, McArthur said. Because Cameron offers associates degrees and bachelors degrees, some students have attending the two-year degree and have already started working. Reaching out to these former students, acknowledging that they have the skills to come back and complete a bachelor’s degree and asking how the University can help these people come back to school is also an ongoing initiative. “We’re very early in, but right now it looks like fall of 2015 is going to look fairly similar to fall of 2014. Not all of you enroll early, so it’s hard to predict,” he said. For more information on enrollment statistics, visit www. Graphic by Charlene Belew and Krista Pylant cameron.edu/iraa/factbook
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