Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
Montana State University-Northern is not taking a decline in enrollment lying down. “I believe that we just have to market a little better and do a better job of recruiting,” Chancellor Alex Capdeville said. Northern has seen an enrollment decline every year but one since 2001, and lost the largest number in enrollment in the state from last fall to this fall, dropping 173 students to 1,215 enrolled. Most of the six four-year campuses in the Montana university system saw a decline this fall, with the sole exception Montana State University-Billings seeing an increase of 43 students. The decline in the number of students graduating from high school in the state is generally considered the primary cause of the enrollment decline. The staff at Northern is working in several areas to try to stabilize and increase enrollment. Jim Longin, dean of the College of Education, Arts and Sciences and Nursing, said the decline in enrollment is uneven from program to program and class to class. “Some are more serious than others, but there are mainstays,” he said. In the nursing program at Northern, there is the opposite problem, he said. There are more students applying than the college can admit. “Nursing is capped,” Longin said. “It’s been steady and has held its own fairly well. I’m concerned mainly because we are capped and trying to figure out how to uncap it.” He said part of the difficulty is recruiting enough qualified instructors so the college can increase the number of classes it offers. Longin said one option to increase the number of students is bringing back some Programs Northern has been without for several years. In 2000, the Board of Regents of Higher Education cut 16 programs due to lack of enrollment, including most of Northern’s liberal arts programs. “Are we doing the things that will attract the people in the region we serve?” Longin asked. “We’re going to have to act quickly and instead of saying cut, cut, cut,’ we have to reactivate, re-energize the university.” He said Northern last year started a mathematics program, and now has seven people looking at majoring in the field. “A year ago we would have had zero,” he said, adding that even if the program stays at that level, after four years that wi l l bring 28 students to Northern who would not have been there otherwise. “And if we do well, I think it will attract more,” he said. He said the college also is looking at bringing in majors in fields including history, English, and political science. John Snider, professor of English at the university, said that for several years he and other faculty members have been t rying to persuade Northern to bring back English and other programs. There wouldn’t even be any expense in doing that, he said, because Northern already has the faculty and offers English classes for its general education requirements and in the teacher education program, as is true for other programs like communications. “That’s something that can be done with the stroke of a pen,” Snider said, adding that cutting programs is a mistake. “Adding programs is the only way to get enrollment,” he said. Longin said that while the declining enrollment has led to cuts in faculty and staff in order to balance the budget, he considers that a temporary solution solution while Northern rebuilds enrollment, and plans to refill those positions. “When it’s all said and done, the enrollment determines the staff,” Longin said. Greg Kegel, dean of the College of Technical Sciences, said the decline in population is making it hard to enroll enough students to supply graduates to the businesses that come to Northern to recruit students. “(What) we’re faced with in this region (is) our declining demographics in our main recruiting pool,” he said. Kegel said one option his college is pursuing is expanding its recruitment area. Northern’s tech programs have always attracted students from around the country, even from other countries, but it is looking now at more out-of-state recruitment, including trying to recruit students now attending two-year colleges. “We are going to try to reach out to a lot larger area than we have done,” Kegel said. He said Northern’s strong programs and state-of-the art facilities makes that possible. Graduates of the college are in great demand, and generally have their pick of high-paying jobs. “They are getting fantastic careers,” Kegel said. Improvements like the recently constructed Applied Technology Center, with some technology that isn’t available anywhere else in the western Great Plains in or out of universities, helps with recruitment. “Without a building like this and capabilities above and beyond the school they are at we would never be able to attract them to Northern,” Kegel said. Capdeville also commented on improvements including the ATC, work to improve the dormitories in 2002 Northern brought cable television, phone service and Internet service to the dorms for the first time a program to replace all computers on the campus in a four- to five-year cycle, work on improving the infrastructure in buildings where classes are held, and replaced a parking lot between Cowan Hall and the gymnasium, next to the Vande Bogart Library, with a grass walkway. “I can’t imagine where enrollment would be if we hadn’t done those things,” Capdeville said. “ I think it’s a long-term attraction.” The number in the dorms alone shows part of the result, he added. When Capdeville started as chancellor in 2000, there were 87 in the dorms; now there are 260. He said he thinks focusing on the athletic events could also help enrollment, both with athletes and with students who want to come to a university with winning programs. “Western and Tech have about 160 students out for footbal l , we have about 80, ” Capdeville said. “I think there’s some potential there. “Athletics is an excellent recruiter,” he added. “ The winning record we have in some sports makes for a lot of visibility, it opens that up.” He said he is also talking to Havre High School to increase the number of high school student s taking c las s e s at Northern. Even if the students do not stay at Northern and some probably would it will benefit them by giving them some college credits before they even enroll at a university, Capdeville said. Another opportuni ty i s recruiting from across the border. Capdeville said that, especially with the U.S.-Canadian exchange rate as low as it is, there is a major opportunity to bring people from Canada to Northern. “I think our potential here is to the north,” he said. Part of the job in marketing Northern will be doing a better job of getting the word out about the university offers, he added. “We have a lot of good things at Northern,” Capdeville said. Longin also commented on that, saying doing business as usual at the university won’t serve it’s needs or the needs of its students and potential students. “Northern has a rich history and we have to recapture that history,” he said. “ Doing business as we’ve always done won’t get the students where they need to be, so as a result the institution needs to shift rather dramatically. “The whole of Northern is immersed in this process of trying to redefine who we are in the 21st century.”
