Let's not get into politics.
Yes, I agree. But this is an economics issue, especially concerning Valparaiso if the "influx" recommended above did occur.
It remains a tough sell to get the immigrant or otherwise minority families to send their kids here.
Obviously, it's NOT representative of your average Valpo resident and there has been plenty of push-back -- but for instance, just this year Valparaiso had an outright Neo-Nazi with swastikas and white supremacy posters in downtown Valpo, and that was all over the news ( https://www.nwitimes.com/opinion/columnists/jerry-davich/nazi-protester-in-valparaiso-100-years-after-kkk-in-indiana/article_5423ca36-dc5b-11ee-b03e-9b3a129aa7b8.html). So too, it is not that rare to see the the flatbed truck convoys with Confederate flags coming in from around NWI to drive thru Valpo and rev their engines really loud.
If you are a Chicagoan Haitian or Ecuadorian parent wondering about whether you can scrounge up tuition $ to send your kid to Valpo, this stuff would probably give you pause too.... safter to stay in the city and send them to DePaul or City Colleges of Chicago etc.
Yes, these issues of racial and ethnic diversity have been a deep challenge for Indiana for over a century, and by extension for Valparaiso. In the current climate, it does not surprise me that they are rearing their ugly heads.
Racial tensions certainly were present on the VU campus and surrounding community when I was there some 45 years ago. Indeed, as a native-born Hoosier who happens to be Asian American, that atmosphere and the lack of racial diversity in Indiana were why leaving the state to create a life elsewhere significantly informed my decision on where to go to law school.
So I understand that NW Indiana is in a bit of a bind when it comes to attracting racially diverse individuals -- US-born or otherwise -- to settle down there. For immigrant groups, however, it may be possible to attract larger numbers who can build their own sub-communities and support systems that create a critical mass. It is also the case that education has traditionally been a top priority for many immigrant communities in the U.S. That eventually leads some of their kids to the area's universities.
Valpo has a top ranked public school system and has had one for quite some time. Other top ranked NWI school systems are Crown Point and Munster. Hopefully the prep schools can be enough of an attractor to prospective families. The major turnoff from people I have asked is the price point and the accommodations. VU does offer a healthy pot of scholarship money, but that initial price tag(coupled with the bad press, lack of marketing, and the low quality student accommodations) is enough of a turnoff for students to not apply at all.
In my opinion, the school needs to offer tours to region schools systems again. I remember going on 2 tours of the school while a student in the Valpo school system. If the school wants to get a regional mindset back. Start with getting back into the region schools.
Valpo has a top ranked public school system and has had one for quite some time. Other top ranked NWI school systems are Crown Point and Munster. Hopefully the prep schools can be enough of an attractor to prospective families. The major turnoff from people I have asked is the price point and the accommodations. VU does offer a healthy pot of scholarship money, but that initial price tag(coupled with the bad press, lack of marketing, and the low quality student accommodations) is enough of a turnoff for students to not apply at all.
In my opinion, the school needs to offer tours to region schools systems again. I remember going on 2 tours of the school while a student in the Valpo school system. If the school wants to get a regional mindset back. Start with getting back into the region schools.
I see no reason why VU cannot engage in both strong regional and national student recruiting.
I don't know how the current situation compares, but during my VU days, you had a strong contingent of students drawn from Porter and Lake Counties, as well as Chicagoland (esp. suburbs). And generally these students came with very respectable academic credentials.
However, I tend to look at student recruiting as pre- vs. during- US News rankings, which quickly changed the game across the board -- especially once the rankings started to include regional universities. Those of you who came along after these rankings had become an annual ritual may have no idea how institutional reputations and prestige, while important, were much fuzzier and less rank-ordered. IMO, this also led to more students making decisions based on overall fit with interests and dispositions, finances, etc.
If you'd like to read about enrollment challenges facing universities that have attracted a national student recruitment base and competed in national rankings, here's the latest from Brandeis University outside of Boston:
Brandeis University stands apart in the higher education world with its combination of an intimate, liberal arts feel and powerhouse research operation that produces scientific breakthroughs and wins Nobel Prizes.
But what worked for Brandeis for decades can also work against it: Its unique character has long forced the school to live on the budgetary edge, stretching tuition from a few thousand students and a medium-sized endowment to compete with institutions that are several times its size.
Now, in the midst of widespread financial trouble in higher education and declining enrollment at Brandeis in particular, the Waltham school finds itself in an intensifying budget crunch and trying to fend off what some fear could be the beginning of a long-run decline.
Point being, the financial challenges in higher ed are confronting just about everyone. If I may attempt to find a common denominator, I see some similarities in the private university sector of plans for growth or assumptions of stable enrollment that simply haven't worked out. In other words, VU isn't the only school that had grander enrollment visions coming out of the Great Recession that now seem like magical thinking.
David81 - As always, you make good points. Nonetheless, private universities like Valpo face two options: 1. Find a way to make the financial model work (obviously tied to enrollment and discount rates, but also in managing costs and making hard decisions or 2. perish. I just get fearful that people can have a tendency to lessen the sense of urgency when they believe there are external factors that caused this to them and their peers/competitors.
David81 - As always, you make good points. Nonetheless, private universities like Valpo face two options: 1. Find a way to make the financial model work (obviously tied to enrollment and discount rates, but also in managing costs and making hard decisions or 2. perish. I just get fearful that people can have a tendency to lessen the sense of urgency when they believe there are external factors that caused this to them and their peers/competitors.
vu84v2, then I should clarify why I made the point. It's not to lessen the urgency, but rather to soften blame and to establish a context that includes both VU's own unique challenges and the external forces that are affecting VU hard.
I agree that VU has to dive into problem-solving mode. In the face of both school-specific and external challenges, some universities in this comprehensive category will perish, a good number will hang on, and a few will thrive. Right now, I think VU is more likely than not to hang on, but I don't see it thriving absent some big developments that may not even be on our radar screen at present.
I think there's a chance, however unlikely, that VU could fall prey to the higher ed grim reaper. Perversely, perhaps, this could occur either by (1) doubling down on some variation of its traditional mission, failing to market and deliver it well, and falling short; or (2) bending itself out of shape in the name of innovation to the point of being unrecognizable, and falling short.
It's a treacherous set of circumstances.
The Brandeis example is a sobering one, since they do have some national name recognition, national ranking, and an ECoast/urban location that should give them some advantages in today's enrollment economy. So yes, the fact that they're struggling too does demonstrate that Valpo is hardly alone in facing enrollment declines and a lot of it is beyond any one institution's control.
It does make me wonder if the perceived religious or sectarian identity adds to some of the struggle to appeal to prospectives? A lot of religiously affiliated schools are at particular risk of closing. And though Brandeis isn't officially religiously affiliated, it is pretty unique and well-known for being a historically/demographically Jewish university (founded by Jewish intellectuals, named for first Jewish SC justice, etc). Right now, it seems like most undergrads are pretty allergic to anything that seems religiously/ideologically partisan, so I just wonder if that is a factor when it comes to Catholic, Lutheran, and maybe also Jewish institutions all struggling to convince students to come? I say this sadness since I would rather there DID exist more institutional and religious/ideological diversity in US higher ed. But as we watch the students populations shift ever more towards public secular universities, it's hard not to wonder if having the mental affiliation (oh, that's a Lutheran university, oh that's the Jewish university), is adding an extra element of turn-off? Most undergrads seem pretty disgusted by 'religion' and 'politics' in general (even if they maybe unfairly associate what they see on the media with actual religious or cultural communities, who may or may not actually agree with the pundits and politicians).
Even if Brandeis actually has a lot of enrollment advantages over Valpo (ranking, location, demographics), I wonder if they may be similar to Valpo in struggling to overcome this dynamic of students just being kind of allergic to anything that seems sectarian?
On the other hand, you have a school like Liberty University that seems to be doing well.
I would argue that Valpo has lost its identity. Valpo was never a school that appealed to everyone. But in its efforts to grow enrollment, it abandoned the things that drew students in. We’ve lost our natural constituency; we’ve become lukewarm.
It doesn’t help that the current leadership is in over their heads. And so Valpo is left chasing trends.
Well Liberty isn't really a good comparison considering they have had sports success and capitalized on it. Same could be said about BYU. IN my opinion the school hasn't lost its identity, but merely adapted said Identity to better fit the current times. The school is still a deeply religious and Lutheran.
Well, I think Valpo is probably closer to Brandeis in having a mostly secular-ish student body (where in both cases, students may be Christian or Jewish more in a sense of cultural heritage), as opposed to Liberty and BYU which are drawing on very particular populations of impassioned self-identifying Evangelical/Fundamentalist and Mormon young adults.
As for why that is, we can blame Valpo for not trying harder to cultivate and court an invested Christian/Lutheran population, and many on this e-board have; or we can soften the blame with some recognition that it would be hard for any school to recruit a population that isn't there. After all, if we're making comparisons like BYU versus Valpo, well, Mormon growth and youth rates simply blast the trends of Lutheran/'main line' type Protestant youth out of the water, and the relative non-existence of young Lutherans is not really anything the university can fix. Notwithstanding some distinct pockets (like Fort Wayne), if there just aren't that many active Lutheran-type Christian 17 or 18 year olds in the Midwest, then there's not much the Admissions office can do to enroll them out of thin air. Obviously, the Admissions office should make every effort to try where some do exist! But from what I can tell, most American Lutheran churches (whether ECLA or LCMS or any other synod) have a lot of empty pews and mostly grey hair.
This is not to say I think the solution for VU is to go secular in some generic way. I largely agree with voices on this e-board who feel that Valpo does need to hew to or figure out some distinctive profile/vision in continuity with the past and the future in order to distinguish itself to prospective families. Just saying it's a hard needle to thread when there isn't much of a clear pre-existing youth population to capitalize upon, since the uni does have to find a way to present the Christianity to the (secular-ish (?) Gen Z-er prospective student) as a positive distinguisher rather than a negative sectarianism.
I have always advocated, though I am not Lutheran, that Valpo should try to leverage its Lutheran heritage - not for the dogma associated with it, but for the values associated with that heritage. Thus, Liberty and BYU are not reasonable comparisons because both universities have rigid rules for what students can and cannot do that are tied closely to their associated religions. Additionally, BYU's finances are vastly subsidized by the Mormon church (one of the places that 10% tithing goes). BYU's listed annual tuition for Mormons is $6,688 and $13,376 for non-Mormons.
The more accurate model to use (as I have stated in prior postes) is the Jesuit Catholic model. Plenty of active religiously oriented activities for those who desire that, but a model that welcomes all based on common values of service, learning, developing the entire person, etc. and does not force dogma on anyone.
I do believe VU is attempting to Leverage that Lutheran heritage. Vu72 posted some of the promotional materials used by the school into the News thread and there is a great emphasis in Lutheran roots, but with room for everyone. Ultimately these should be made clear in letters to students, in commercials for the OTA service, and the school needs to return to region schools for college fairs and emphasize this.
Probably the biggest non-comparator point with Liberty is how they have been one of the leaders in creating this huge set of distance learning offerings at lower cost delivery that have brought mega-millions into the university.
Schools like Grand Canyon are doing the same thing.
I hope VU never tries to go that route, i.e., offering a huge portfolio of distance learning degrees that are mostly intended to be high-volume, cookie-cutter money makers to support the on-campus operations. Even if it were to succeed at doing so, it would give off a cheesy smell to the place.
Thinking outside the box.
Johnson & Wales University in RI has gotten approval for a 96 credit, 3-year bachelor’s degree in their wheelhouse majors. First such program in the nation. Benefits: lower total cost, earlier entry into the workforce, maintenance of a traditional academic calendar and core curriculum, eliminates/reduces non-major elective courses among others.
J&W is well known throughout New England as one of the preeminent institutions for those interested in the hospitality, computer science, graphic design industries.
