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By 2005 the enrollment effort began to make significant headway. Associate Vice President
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While the campus was expanding so too was enrollment, which had dipped to a low of 857 students in 1997. In 2002, the full-time equivalency 1240 was still only around 1060 900 students. One of 991 951 954 941 Braaten’s first priorities was to reverse the trend. It was not easy.
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The College’s most recent building sensation is the Hank Norton Athletic Center, for which Ferrum broke ground in October 2010. Its anticipated completion date is spring 2012. Kim Blair, vice president for institutional advancement, says that it will cost the College $5.5 million, “but it looks like $40 million. It’s really impressive.”
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Not since Dr. Arthur’s tenure has Ferrum College seen such a decade of campus expansion. In the past 10 years, four residence halls—Moore, Arthur, Clark, and Dyer—have been constructed. The most recent, Dyer Hall, was funded in part through an estate gift from the Horace Dyer family and built in less than five months in partnership with local construction company Mod-U-Kraf. Three “smart classrooms” in Swartz Gymnasium, each with projectors, screens, computers, and cameras, were brand new in 2011. Laboratory classrooms in Garber Hall have been remodeled. And the Hart International Plaza was ready for commencement in spring 2011. Sandra Via ’04, assistant professor of political science, calls the physical changes to the campus in the past 10 years “stunning.” She is especially impressed with the improvements to Franklin Hall, such as the Blue Ridge Mountain Room, funded primarily by the estate of the late Ferrum history professor Earl “Bud” Skeens.
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During this time, Ferrum continued to improve its academic standards, and today students are learning in an environment that offers a more classic liberal arts approach to education, thanks to Dr. Dr. Leslie Lambert Provost and Leslie Lambert, provost Executive Vice and vice president President for academic affairs, who came to Ferrum in 2005. Lambert’s intention was to get the College to see itself as an exclusively four-year institution, to look at other strong four-year colleges and to consider other models. She gathered the division chairs and, with their support, restructured the College from six divisions to three schools —Arts and Humanities, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Social Sciences and Professional Studies.
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Feature—A Decade of Progress
New Residence Halls
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for Enrollment Management and Dean of Admissions Gilda Woods ’92 explains that Dr. Douglas Clark, who came to Ferrum as vice president for enrollment management in 2005, began using an Gilda Q. Woods ’92 extremely aggressive Associate Vice President and Dean recruitment model. of Admissions Instead of advertising, Ferrum now puts its admissions budget into marketing directly to high school juniors and seniors through mailings, e-mails, and telephone calls. Admissions counselors personally talk to almost 400 prospective students a month, says Woods. As a result, the number of students on the Ferrum Campus has steadily grown to 1,500.
2011
A Decade of Historical Enrollment Ferrum Magazine | Winter 2011–2012