Indiana University Southeast student Johnny White, of Jeffersonville, walks into class in the Paul W. Ogle Cultural and Community Center on Thursday afternoon in New Albany. Staff photo by Christopher Fryer
NEW ALBANY — A dip in enrollment, subsequent loss of funds and upcoming changes in key administrative seats were some of the main talking points for chancellor Sandra Patterson-Randles’ State of the Campus Address at Indiana University Southeast on Thursday.
Though coming off a record year for enrollment in 2011 with 7,256 students, the campus lost nearly 5 percent of those students, bringing total enrollment to 6,904.
Patterson-Randles said after last year’s address that the campus was bursting at the seams and expected a plateau or drop in enrollment. This year, she said she didn’t quite expect that much of a dip, but several factors in the economy, changing demographics and job openings had a hand in the loss.
“Some of these issues we knew about but were unable to gauge their depth,” Patterson-Randles said. “Others we had no control over, much less knowledge that they would occur and impact us to such a large extent.”
She said with 30 percent of the student body driving from across the river, the closure of the Sherman Minton Bridge affected enrollment as well as construction on major roads in Kentucky and Indiana as well as the Kennedy Bridge. Students taking advantage of the reciprocity agreement — which allows students in five Kentucky counties to get in-state tuition at IU Southeast — dropped by 7.4 percent.
But hiring by companies also affected the campus’ number of nontraditional students. With General Electric, Zappos and Amazon adding jobs, fewer students who are 25 or older enrolled.
“When good jobs become available, they very often take those rather than go further into debt,” Patterson-Randles said after the address.
But the campus also placed more than double the number of students on academic suspension compared to last year, totaling 202 in fall 2012. Patterson-Randles said that came from more centralization of academic suspension.
While the number of credit hours were projected to increase 2.7 percent, they actually decreased 5.5 percent.
Patterson-Randles said those and other factors came together to cause an estimated loss of $2.8 million. She said while her administrative team was able to find efficiencies of about $2 million in the budget to help make up for that, other departments need to come together to make up the remaining $800,000.
But she said wherever those come from, they will not come in the form of salary reductions.
“I’ve worked far too hard to get salaries in good shape,” Patterson-Randles said after the address.
The campus is also losing two vice chancellors. Ruth Garvey-Nix, the former vice chancellor of student affairs, left her job at the end of May. Also, Gilbert Atnip, the vice chancellor for academic affairs — who has worked at IU Southeast in one capacity or another for 37 years — will retire at the end of September.
Indiana University requires top administrators to retire the year they turn 65. Patterson-Randles would normally be required to retire at the end of 2013’s academic year, but the other administrative losses led to a one-year extension from president Michael McRobbie.
“I asked for it,” Patterson-Randles said. “We’re going through some major transition. When you’re losing two vice chancellors out of four, that’s tough.”
The campus also begins construction on a new residence hall this year, Timber Lodge. Final counts aren’t in on occupancy, but estimates at the beginning of the school year came in at about 97 percent of current space taken.
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