OK, so maybe it’s more of a bribe than a scholarship. Whatever Wichita State University wants to call it, each grant drawn down from a $750,000 pool by qualified local students during the 2006-07 school year surely will encourage some students to attend WSU who otherwise wouldn’t. With its enrollment down for a third year, and other regents institutions’ enrollments up, WSU needs to be thinking creatively about recruitment. Besides, those who stay here for college may decide to stay here for good, and Wichita’s future work force will need them.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- satatom on Open thread 11/22
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/22
- Regular on Open thread 11/22
- Regular on Open thread 11/22
- DavidB on Health care reform would save state money
- DavidB on Minority status in Senate; majority approval at home
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/22
- American_Way on Open thread 11/22
- American_Way on Open thread 11/22
- cosmos_originally on Open thread 11/22
13 Comments
WSU needs a law school, but I know the elites in the N.E. part of Kansas doesn’t want to see it happen, but at least give them a business law school. Forget about criminal law, KU can have that.
Why just grants for students in high school this year?What about the students that graduated last year, but couldnt’ afford college?What about the adults who would go back to school if the funds are there?
I heard that President Beggs wants WSU to be a more traditional college. At K State, only 15% of its students are Non-Traditional or returning adult students and 85% traditional, just out of high school students. At KU, it is about 30% non-traditional. At WSU, being a metropolitan state university, it has 50% non-traditional students.They are trying to attract more traditional students.They would do better by putting that $750,000 by starting up a football team. That would attract more traditional students.
A more “traditional” college.
That’s what they’ve been trying to be for 20 years now, and it’s why they’re losing students while other colleges keep gaining them.
Their student base is clearly non-trad, returning students. They are doing everything they can to avoid dealing with that reality.
Thanks
Exactly right, Galahad.
WSU has always had this strange inferiority complex about who they are.
That is exactly what they are doing. In the meantime, Butler Community College is wiping the perverbial floor with them. They have better teachers (especially in math), a wide variety of online courses and it is cheaper.Not only that, but the people graduating from WSU are flocking to other schools for their graduate degrees. Only the business school is highly rated. The chemistry and psychology departments are ok…they offer PhD programs. If someone stays at WSU for a graduate degree, it is usually because they have family obligations here in Wichita.
After seeing WSU’s stupendously ugly airplane billboard along the airport road, I would hesitate to think much of the place. Is that really what they teach their engineers? Anyway, the airplane(s) they show was designed by a Cal Poly grad who specializes in odd-looking prototypes. Why is WSU taking credit for it?
When WSU hires its administration, staff and teachers for their relevant abilities, instead of their status in some protected victim class, they might begin to be competitive. After all, there are only so many victims to go around, and they are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
First of all, 95% of the students in the WSU engineering department are from out of the country, mostly Indian, Arab and Asian. So are the teachers.I am not prejudiced, but just stating a fact.If a Kansas kid has the math abilities to get an engineering degree, they go elsewhere (usually KU).
WSU has some major communication problems between colleges. The advising centers are a total joke. If I had a dollar for every story I heard that started with “my advisor told me I had to take these classes and I didn’t. Now it will take an extra year to graduate.”I am not exagerating.
Actually… WSU’s goal is to stabilize enrollment. Being vested heavily to returning adult students means being tied to the swings of the local economy. In fall 2002 when the economy sank, other KS colleges enrollment declined and WSU numbers sky-rocketed. Moving toward a more traditional base of students allows WSU to have more stabilized enrollment… which allows for better planning for class offerings, faculty positions, tuition revenues, etc… Returning adults are serviced well at WSU; but when the economy picks up, adults work more hours and take fewer classes. This is common for all urban institions.
$750,000 would not put a dent into the $30 million needed to bring back football (that figure according to a community study from the late 90s).
Butler has better instructors? I doubt that. Butler is cheaper for a reason. It is a community college.
I disagree. Butler isn’t cheaper because it has bad teachers. That is a completely elitist viewpoint.Many of the teachers at Butler have taught in high schools and middle schools. Many worked years and are still working in their fields (and teach at night). The teachers are actually accountable for the education they are providing.At universities, teaching is usually secondary to research. If a teacher is ineffective, they are not accountable. Many of the “teachers” teaching the 100 and 200 level courses are graduate students with none or very little teaching experience.You have a better chance of learning something in the 100 and 200 level courses at a community college.
I didn’t mean to imply that Butler was cheaper because of less quality instruction; I was just responding to your comment that Butler was cheaper…. cheaper because it is a community college. I don’t doubt that Butler has knowledgable instructors.
I attended WSU. My english 101 and 102 professors had PHDs as did two other professors for sub-300 level history classes. My sociology professor was considered an expert in his field and is interviewed often by the media for his reaction to various news. My communications instructor formerly worked for the Eagle and a local TV company. The list goes on. Obviously everyone has a different set of instructors at their respective institutions… I’d be surprised if Butler’s instructors stacked up against those I saw in my first two years of college.
Back in the early 90’s I did some adjunct teaching at Butler and at that time they almost seemed to want to sell themselves on the basis of – “We’re not WSU”. The idea being that the faculty was more accessible, that students were more important to the teachers than the course subject matter, and etc. I think that might have been helpful for some students, but it did seem to me that it was almost too much of a counter-reaction.