This year marks the 22nd consecutive year of increased enrollment at the University of Mississippi. An increase in enrollment is good for the university, but growth on campus can also bring about problems.
According to a university press release, enrollment across the main and satellite campuses reached 24,250 students this year. The freshman class alone is 3,982 students. Total enrollment is up by 412 students, or 1.7 percent, from last fall.
According to the university’s Office of Institutional Research, total enrollment 10 years ago during the fall 2006-07 semester was 15,220 students with a freshman class of 2,570.
Over the past 10 years, total enrollment has increased by nearly 9,000 students, meaning the university has had to grow in order to accommodate the influx of students.
Senior Associate Provost Noel E. Wilkin said the university aims to add faculty, services, staff, resources, infrastructure, parking, transportation and space at a pace just faster than the growth curve.
With the growing number of students, faculty and staff are being added to the university every year. Facilities are continuing to expand with many new projects in development, and construction work is constantly occurring on campus.
Wilkin detailed some of the ongoing projects on campus that are set to make the university more efficient.
“In the next 2-3 years, a larger student union will reopen, Jackson Avenue Center renovations will be completed and Johnson Commons East will be finished,” Wilkin said. “We will open a new School of Applied Sciences facility, the parking and transportation hub will be completed, the new parking garage will be finished, the large-court and outdoor recreation facility will be done, the science building will open as the largest building on campus and there are other facilities in the early planning stages.”
Despite what seems to be major growth, Wilkin said admission of students has actually slowed compared to data from a few years ago.
“Over five years ago we were growing at a rate of 7 to 8 percent a year (over double our annual growth rate today),” Wilkin said. “Knowing that we needed to have the ability to control growth in light of capacity, we implemented a supplemental review process for non-resident applicants who fell below certain thresholds on ACT and GPA. That process has enabled us to slow the growth to 2 to 4 percent per year, which gives us sufficient time to add personnel, resources, infrastructure and space.”
Wilkin said university officials work hard to make the moderately-sized university seem small to each student through opportunities to take part in smaller communities like honors college, degree programs, fraternities, sororities and more.
Lionel Maten, assistant vice chancellor for enrollment management and housing, said housing has been able to accommodate students as the campus continues to grow.
“We’ve continued to evaluate housing as it relates to enrollment growth,” Maten said. “We’ve been very fortunate at our institution to add several new properties.”
Two new residence halls, temporarily named Residence Hall 2 and 3, were opened this semester to house students. They are able to house around 620 students, according to Maten, and are used primarily to provide housing for international students and returning undergraduate students.
Administration is constantly creating solutions to problems faced by students, like being unable to get into classes that they need or wanting smaller class sizes with more direct interaction with instructors.
“These enhancements are added pursuant to careful planning by our faculty, departments, deans, directors and administrators based on the best possible information available,” Wilkin said. “For example, the student-to-faculty ratio has remained constant over the past 5 years at 19:1, and most classes on our campus have fewer than 30 students. This is because we have implemented efficiency in how we schedule classes and increased the number of faculty each year by 12.9 percent in 2013, 3.3 percent in 2014 and 3.1 percent in 2015.”
Wilkin said the university’s student-to-faculty ratio is actually smaller than some surrounding schools.
“Of the flagship SEC universities in surrounding states, we have a lower student-to-faculty ratio than LSU and Alabama, and we have the same student-to-faculty ratio as MSU and Arkansas,” Wilkin said.
Parking seems to be one of the most important and often discussed problems among students.
Director of the Department of Parking and Transportation Mike Harris said the department has looked at different ways to handle growth in regards to parking. He said the department’s main goal is to offer options, and one of those options is buses.
“We have added some buses and changed a route or two to help with the increased number of riders,” he said. “We will be adding an additional campus loop route next year to help get folks around campus. We upgraded our Kennon Bus stop which serves as our South Hub and are adding a North Bus Hub at the Union during the renovation that is currently taking place. This will allow us to bring in the off campus buses and drop at the two hubs and then one would utilize the interior campus bus loop to get around. This should be more efficient.”
Harris said there is also a new parking garage under construction that will add 1,500 spaces to the residential area. It will provide parking for all residential students and allow a few parking designation changes and clearing of some of the on-street parking to make room for bike lanes and shuttle bus access.
“Currently we have 9,765 spaces for students and have sold 13,507 permits for a ratio of 1.38 permits sold for each space,” Harris said. “The utilization of these spaces varies and normally a space will turn over 2-3 times a day.”
Harris said he encourages students looking for a parking spot to use the app called Parker to search the commuter lots for availability. If the P-icon is red they are full, if the P-icon is blue there are some spots available in the lot and if the P-icon is green then the lot has plenty of parking. The app is free to download and helps to show students where parking is available.
Wilkin said it is difficult to predict, but he expects growth in the 3 to 4 percent per year range over the next five years based on the rate of growth that has occurred over the past several years and our university’s ability to add resources to handle that level of enrollment.
“As the flagship university in the state of Mississippi, I do not anticipate any change of our admission standards by the IHL board,” Wilkin said. “Our metrics indicate that we have better success than any other state institution at educating students. Therefore, we embrace and accept the responsibility of educating more students, particularly Mississippians.”
