Friday, August 31, 2001

Academic, housing resources strained by enrollment
By Sarah McClellan
staff reporter

The university is experiencing academic and on-campus housing strains because of increased freshmen enrollment, said Ray Brown, dean of admissions.

A record 1,515 freshmen enrolled this year, an increase of about 3 percent from 2000 when the freshman enrollment was 1,493, Brown said.

Brown said the enrollment increase will create larger number of students in freshman level classes and alter the student-to-faculty ratio.

David Vanderwerken, acting chair of the English department, said two additional sections of Writing Workshop I were added and the class size cap was raised from 20 to 22.

“I don’t see any significant difference in the quality of instruction,” Vanderwerken said. “The classroom experience will be the same. If it were five more students, that would be different, but there are enough seats for everybody.”

Brown said the increased enrollment stems from a 17 percent increase in new student applications last year. TCU offered admission to 4,000 applicants for the 2000-2001 school year.

“I have never been in an admissions office that has been up even 8 percent in applications,” Brown said. “We thought fewer would accept because the yield has been going down nationwide.”

Brown also said growth is not a priority for the university.

“We don’t want to get big,” Brown said. “In Texas, people equate bigger with better, but with private higher education we don’t.”

Admissions staff said admission standards are rising as a result of the increase in applications.

“The ability, as judged by numbers such as class rank and test scores, has gotten higher,” said James Atwood, assistant to the dean of admissions. “But recommendations and leadership skills add to academics. That, to us, is a stronger student. It’s not all in the numbers.”

Brown said freshman male enrollment is up to more than 40 percent for the first time in five years, which has caused a shortage in housing for men.

Roger Fisher, director of residential services, said every bed on campus is full.

“The crunch is a little worse this year,” Fisher said. “There was always a crunch but we’ve never told people ‘no’ (to housing) ahead of time.”

Brown said enrollment of freshmean minority students is also up this year, from 12.5 percent in fall 2000 to 14 percent this fall.

Sarah McClellan
sarahlmac@hotmail.com