TheSkiffView
NEW DAY
Campus improvement now and in future

It almost doesn’t seem like school has started yet.

There aren’t students in make-shift rooms in residence hall lobbies. Residence Hall Assistants don’t have to share their rooms. We aren’t hearing about those lucky few that get put up in a hotel rooms waiting for spots to open up across campus. If you look closely, you might even see some empty rooms.

In past years, these types of stories were told to friends at lunch and were written about in the Skiff. Thankfully this year, they are not.

In January, the Board of Trustees approved a freshmen enrollment cap, which limited the number of freshmen admitted to 1,475. This year, of the 6,135 students that applied, 4,377 were admitted and 1,451 enrolled this fall.

What do these numbers mean for students? It means those who want or need to live on campus will have a bed to sleep in. It means that classes can be made smaller so professors can have more time to work one on one with students. It means the campus will have that community feel so many administrators and student leaders have been working for.

Ray Brown, dean of admissions, said that students at TCU pay a higher tuition than students at public schools because of the small-classroom setting.

And we do. We choose to pay this higher tuition because we enjoy the small-campus feel. We know we will have a better education because of the interaction with our professors. When people talk of the “TCU community,” we know that it actually exists, because we see it every day.

Granted, the economy may have played a part in some students’ decisions not to attend TCU. Brown said it just saved the university from being more selective, but it’s nice to see the university taking a step to help the population stay level while they look for ways to expand.

But it’s no time to stop. Administrators and faculty need to be looking at other ways to improve campus life, such as finalizing the Common Undergraduate Experience and working on the parking situation.

After all, the school year really has just started.