BOLIVAR, MO – “When returning students and faculty came to formal convocation yesterday morning, they found the chapel teeming with new freshman,” said Dr. Stephanie Miller, SBU’s Vice President for Enrollment Management. “The final enrollment numbers could fluctuate in the next few days, but this week we welcomed 450 freshman and 97 transfer students.”
SBU President, Dr. C. Pat Taylor, said, “We will enroll students until September 3. At this time, it appears that we are going to have another increase in total enrollment.” Last fall, SBU enrolled 410 freshmen, and we had 459 freshmen in 2006, which is the only year we have had more freshmen than this year. Our admissions staff members have done a tremendous job recruiting this freshman class, and I certainly appreciate the work of Dr. Stephanie Miller, Darren Crowder, and the entire admissions staff.
“Our retention of students from last spring also appears to be strong. As of today we have 991 returning students enrolled. Based on the number of students eligible to return this fall from last spring, and looking at historical retention patterns, we projected that we would have 960 returning students. We have done much better than we projected. There are many people responsible for this success. I especially want to express appreciation to Dana Steward and the University Success Center faculty.”
SBU’s Springfield campus, which is the home of the St. John’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences, also welcomed several new students this week. “Enrollment on the Springfield campus is at capacity,” Dr. Taylor said. “The size of the building and the number of faculty dictate a capacity of about 600 students. As of today, we have 622 students enrolled on the Springfield campus.”
Graduate programs at SBU are experiencing strong enrollment, too. Dr. Taylor said, “We had strong enrollment for our graduate education programs this summer, and, hopefully, that trend will continue throughout the year. The first-year class of the physical therapy doctoral program is at capacity with 40 new doctoral students. This is the second consecutive year we have been at capacity, enrolling 40 first-year doctoral students. We are nearing our total capacity of 120 students. The MBA program has several new initiatives that should substantially increase enrollment. Last week we signed an agreement with Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to begin an MBA program on their campus. Graduate students would take 30 hours of business from SBU and 9-19 hours of theology, pastoral ministry, and ethics from Midwestern to earn a degree.”
Southwest Baptist University is a leader among private universities in the Midwest in truly integrating Christ-centered academic pursuits with comprehensive professional programs at an affordable price. At SBU, the faculty and staff create a caring, academic community to prepare students to be servant leaders in a global society. For more information, visit www.SBUniv.edu.
Important Dates
September 3, Last day for adding classes
October 21, Midterm Grades Due
October 22- November 21, Enrollment for Winterfest (January term) and spring classes
December 15, last day of classes
December 16-19, Final examinations
December 19, Commencement, 7:00 p.m.
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