To keep in line with the university’s 2020 Vision, the Undergraduate Admissions Office plans to enroll approximately 1,150 freshman into the incoming Class of 2022.
The growth of the university, especially through enrollment, is a large part of NSU’s 2020 Vision. In the Class of 2024, which would be the entering class of the year 2020, Undergraduate Admissions expects to enroll 1,505 incoming freshman and 515 transfer students, adding up to a class of 2,020 students.
Enrollment of students has increased steadily since 2016. In the class of 2020, there were 665 incoming freshman and in the Class of 2021 there were 992. This 49 percent increase does not include transfer and international students.
As of last week, there was an estimated 11,700 applications being processed through admissions.
As the university paves its way toward the strategic plan of the 2020 Vision, some students are concerned about the university taking in more students than it can handle.
“A lot of people come to [NSU], like I did, for the appeal of small classes and the small school environment,” expressed Rachel Sheppard, a freshman psychology major. “Bigger schools overwhelm me. I like the attention from professors and it helps me learn better. That appeal might go away [with the acceptance of so many students].”
Daniel Alfonso, vice president of facilities management, said that the growth of the university is part of the reason graduate housing at Rolling Hills will be converted to undergraduate housing for the 2018-2019 academic year.
“This is not an easy decision to make,” said Alfonso.
Other than housing arrangements, another concern is food services and providing these services for the 1,150 freshman that will be enrolling. The university is working on plans to expand the options in the food area, but that may cost some space.
“We are expanding the footprint of the food area in the UC and into the UC pit which would now be part of the food service area. That will limit the uses of the pit area during the service hours,” said Alfonso.
Understanding the problems that might come from taking away a widely-used study and gathering place, the facilities staff and other departments are working together to look into other possible options. Voss said that the university doesn’t have plans to grow without making sure that the student experience and the student learning environment can still be positive.
“As part of the strategic plan, the university is planning for that,” said Voss. “As the university gets bigger at the undergraduate level, they are planning for classroom size, use of the library and use of [other student facilities] all around campus.”
