The Undergraduate Student Government had a short meeting on Monday, which included Creed Day carnival updates and a visit from Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Planning Cecilia Castellano, who gave enrollment statistic updates.
USG Vice President Richard Racette gave updates on the coming Creed Day carnival on March 22 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Student Union and Union oval.
“There’s going to be a lot of fun stuff going on, (including) free shirts, cookies (and) popcorn,” Racette said. “It’s a great way to celebrate our Falcon spirit.”
According to Racette, the carnival-style celebration will be hard to miss.
Separately at the meeting, Castellano gave a short presentation on enrollment updates.
“It is my privilege to be a vice provost for strategic enrollment planning at Bowling Green State University,” Castellano said.
Castellano is a graduate from the University’s class of 1990 and was hired into her current position in the summer of 2015.
From fall 2015 to 2016, overall University enrollment was up 4.5 percent.
“In 2014, we sort of hit a five year low for enrollment at Bowling Green,” Castellano said. “I came in 2015, and we have been able to steadily increase… and see the trend move in the right direction.”
In regards to the freshman class that entered this past fall, it had an average ACT score of 22.8 and high school GPA of 3.4.
“That’s pretty significantly up,” Castellano said. “Bowling Green for a long time was about a 3.31 and a 22 or 21.9.”
To meet University goals, freshman enrollment for fall of 2017 will have to increase slightly.
“We are looking at enrolling a class of about 3,600,” Castellano said. “We are on target to meet that goal, that’s just one percent more on day one than we had last year and right now we are trending up (from last year)”
According to Castellano, the University is most struggling to enroll traditional transfer students, which is reflected in the current decrease in two year Ohio community college program enrollment.
On the flip side, international student and graduate student recruitment are both on the increase.
To help increase traditional transfer enrollment, the University now has a partnership with Owens Community College called the Falcon Express Program.
The program allows Owens students to identify intention to transfer to the University after two years at Owens.
“This program is brand new (and) we have about 500 students enrolled at Owens,” Castellano said.
Separate from University enrollment updates, Castellano has identified a few challenges for meeting future enrollment goals.
“There is new legislation that comes out all the time from the state of Ohio… and sometimes those things can impact enrollment,” she said.
One piece of legislation that worries Castellano is new high school graduation requirements that will go into effect for high school students graduating in 2018.
These requirements are meeting one of the following: certain ACT scores, including sub-scores such as a 22 on the math section; earning certain scores on end of course exams, which are difficult exams according to Castellano; or obtaining one of six available ACT WorkKeys.
“Currently, 40 percent of Ohio juniors do not meet the (new) requirements to graduate high school,” Castellano said Monday night. “That keeps me up at night.”
Castellano encourages students to go on the Ohio Department of Education website and write letters to representatives.
Next week, University Chief Financial Officer Sherideen S. Stoll will visit USG.
