Clarion University Wrestling and Basketball

Early on a recent autumn morning Clarion President Joseph Grunenwald welcomed a capacity crowd to a community breakfast where he outlined yesterday, today, and tomorrow for Clarion University. He left little doubt that quality would be a part of the future, just as it has been in the past. The following article presents excerpts from his presentation. teachers and later saw an influx of males after A University In Change World War 11 and the tremendous growth of the We are a university in change. Wc arc a university thai '60s as wc broadened our majors. has a proud tradition. A proud set of values. A proud back In the lasl lew years, we have witnessed yet ground. Bui wc arc a university lor the future. And we're another change in the nature of our enrollment. making the changes necessary al our university thai will approaches are in any way weaker. Indeed, they are There are now more off-campus programs, there are more stronger. If you can maintain your market share in a falling take us into the next decade and beyond. people taking advantage of programs over the Web and Our values have not changed. Our basic core values arc segment, as many in business have done, you become there arc more people involved in lifetime learning oppor more and more aggressive and more and more efficient in fundamentally Ihe same as they have been for more than tunities with the university than at anytime in our history. 100 years and they wrap around our belief in Ihe ability of a tougher recruitment market and that is what we have We still remain traditionally constructed in terms of our done. We anticipate it will flatten out this year. our students, faculty, and staff to do outstanding work 18-year-old freshmen and transfer beyond their imaginations, given Students, and those are our bread that they pui forth the kind of and butler markets. However, that Enrollment Growth In The Future hard work it takes to be success market is essentially flat in terms of As the slow growth rate comes back, it still will not be ful. That's a bedrock value for 'We are going to commit to possible enrollment growth. from the typical 18-year-olds. It is going to be more likely Clarion University. quality. We are going to be The demography of our prime people returning to school after a layoff and graduate The most important pari of a leading high-quality insti marketing and service area of west students. When our enrollment increases, it will likely be whom and what we are is found because we have more upper-division transfer students and tution in the western part of ern Pennsylvania shows that the in the students we serve, ami thai number of 18-year-olds has flat graduate students on the campus as opposed to a larger has been changing. Since we the state. That will be the tened out and is starting to fall. The number of 18-year-olds. We expect that the 18-year-old have become a university in mantra of our promotion. changing demographics will have student population will be roughly the same. 1983, we haven't turned our back That will be the core of our an impact on Clarion. Over the next This is good news all around. We're a leaner university. on our original mission of educa four or five years we will have sta We're moving our students more quickly through. We're tion. Our education enrollment of business.' ble enrollments in our traditional more responsive to community needs in terms of curricula 40 percent of our students is still students, with the traditional 18- and all of the kinds of programs students need to be the highest proportion of educa year-old population falling slowly successful in the world and that's part of the change we've tion majors of any university or and the transfer population rising slowly to offset it. What gone through over the last three or four years. Change can college in the stale of Pennsylvania. Wc will never turn oui thai will mean is that our enrollment on the Clarion be painful and I can tell you that an enrollment change like back on our core business of producing the besi teachers in campus is going to remain roughly steady, between 5,000 that does have financial implications by way of tuition and Pennsylvania. That part of our tradition is alive, well ami and 5,300 students over the next five to 10 years. appropriations, so we have to tighten our belts in growing. In the decade prior to 2002, the university enjoyed significant ways at the university. The next year or so we slow, steady growth. anticipate we'll be similarly challenged financially as we Student Body Changes In 2002, there was a significant jump in enrollment don't anticipate large changes in appropriations or tuition. What it means then is we will focus on enrollment and On the other hand, wc have seen a significant change attributable to an influx of funding from the state to devel- enrollment management and we work on those market seg in (hat student body. Wc went through a period in our op new programs, particularly off-campus programs. As a ments where we can be effective growing our university. history when the students were predominantly female and result, our enrollment jumped by about 250 students or almost a 4 percent increase in 2002. We have held on to those students, so what accounts for Economic Impact the decline in enrollment over four years? We know it's important to not only us, but also the Students Graduating Faster community. We have a significant economic effect on this Some of you will remember a new policy region. Our basic budget in direct spending is about $94 instituted by the State System of Higher million, including our auxiliaries, dining hall, residence Education lo reduce the number of credits in a halls, tuition operations, maintenance and all degree to a more normal, national average total of the other things we do here. When you credit count of 120 from 128 credits. When you take the $94 million and turn it into second reduce the credits, your hope is that your stu- ary and tertiary spending (when you get it dents gel through the system faster, thereby and spend it on something else) that sort of spending less time and less of their parent's and impact on our region amounts to about $206 their own money in the process of getting a million. degree. That has been exactly the outcome at the When you look at a county like Clarion, university. And that's a good thing. It's a good where the total domestic product is a little thing for students, for parents, and a good thing over a billion dollars, you can see the eco for the commonwealth. nomic impact of the university on the coun What it means, though, when your students ty. About 15 to 20 percent of all the spend get through your program quicker is that for ing here is the direct result of what the uni some period of time the enrollment of the univer versity does. We understand that and we sity will go down as the students who would appreciate that. We do what we can to keep have been there graduate, on average a half as much of our purchasing local as our legal semester early. restrictions will allow us to do. About a Students arc graduating quicker than they did third of our purchasing is local and that is President Grunenwald explains the design of the the direct impact of Clarion University. planned Science and Technology Center. before. It does not mean our admissions CLARION AND BEYOND I 03 QUALITY, QUALITY, QUALITY :: . r m across the country. They were good for their time, but Ihey of products. Here we're committing ourselves, both as the weren't durable for here or anywhere else. Those buildings private sector and the university, to putting these types of are outdated and now need to be replaced. We're going lo developments together. The Trinity Point development, have a new science building with all of the amenities for too, will be a LEED-cerlified building with lots of direct the future that support nanotechnology, that support sunlight and heating and other features as well. biotechnology, environmental science and all of the other Science is the key to technology and it can take us to types of technology with names we can't pronounce. where we need to be in terms of family-sustaining jobs and The science building is huge for us. It is a major that's what thai building is all about. investment central to the future of the university and lo this region. The design orients one of the wings more directly to Strategic Planning Looks the southern sun so that we can heat a portion of that To The Future building with direct sunlight. The building is going to be While we won't turn our back on education or our fine LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Ecologic Design) professional programs we have in business administration Certified. Part of the Pennsylvania Green Buildings and nursing, there is a change afoot in terms of the Program, the new building will be an environmentally strength and recognition the university receives. friendly science building. That doesn't mean we're going As a result of that, and as a result of looking at new to go over the top wilh amenities that make no sense finan recruiting markets, we have started a new strategic plan cially.

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