A record number of IPFW students returned to school this fall to enjoy new apartments, fresh educational opportunities and a revamped orientation program.
The university enrolled 14,192 students for the fall semester, an increase of 3.8 percent from the record 13,675 enrolled at the same time last year, according to officials. Full-time student enrollment reached a record 9,007.
Chancellor Michael Wartell attributed the increase to IPFW’s growth of residential housing. The university has 1,204 rooms on campus, and 448 are new to campus this year.
“The growth in full-time students has come because we’re becoming more of a residential campus, and students see us that way,” Wartell said Wednesday.
As enrolllment has soared, the student body has become more diverse.
Wartell said that 17 percent of IPFW’s students come from outside Indiana, compared with 11 years ago when 8 percent were out-of-state students.
The number of minority students grew 12.5 percent, with 1,929 attending this semester. International enrolllment has also increased, with 197 international students this fall, a 19 percent increase from last year.
To give students exposure to cultures they might encounter in the workforce, Wartell said the university has actively recruited more Chinese and Korean citizens.
“We’re becoming less narrow demographically, more cosmopolitan,” he said.
Because of increasing enrollment, Wartell said IPFW was able to avoid the effects of Gov. Mitch Daniels’ cuts to higher education last year.
“There isn’t a whole lot of money around, but we’re accustomed to living on very little money,” Wartell said.
Faculty salaries have remained flat, but the university was able to add 11 full-time tenure-track faculty positions in time for this fall.
IPFW was also able to complete more repair and rehabilitation projects than expected, Wartell said.
In addition to new housing, students returned this fall to a new bicycle path and a partly remolded Liberal Arts Building.
They also returned to fresh and ongoing construction projects.
The university broke ground on a 1,000-space parking garage this fall, an alumni center is scheduled for completion this winter and a new Analytics and Visualization Center is coming soon.
Construction also continues on an expanded student center.
In the classroom, IPFW has added the upper two years of a medical program and a concentration in music technology – a program in partnership with Sweetwater Sound.
The university also implemented an updated orientation program that puts more emphasis on student responsibility and student choice.
To ensure that IPFW continues to expand its programs and facilities, Wartell said he planned to lobby the General Assembly this winter.
“We are bigger, more mature, more developed, and more successful by almost any measure than our college campuses,” Wartell said during his opening convocation last month.
“We educate more students, grant more degrees, conduct more research, and collaborate more with Ivy Tech. And we will continue to remind the Indiana Commission for Education, our legislators, the governor, and our constituencies of exactly that.”
