Bowling Green State University’s enrollment is flat as the fall semester begins. And that, compared to what’s happening on other campuses, is “relatively speaking good news,” President Rodney Rogers told Faculty Senate Tuesday during its first meeting of the semester.
“Traditional” undergraduate student enrollment has declined by 2.2 percent on the Bowling Green and Firelands campuses. However, that decline was offset by graduate student enrollment in the eCampus and graduate distance learning. That was up 518 students, almost 38 percent.
“Relative to what we’re seeing on other campuses we’re really pleased,” he said.
Rogers credited the work done through the Design My BGSU program. Personnel in that program worked loosely with students to help them get the right mix of courses they felt comfortable with, whether online, remote, which occur at a specific time, or hybrid, which include some in-class person-to-person instruction.
Rogers said that 25 percent of undergraduates are taking all their courses online. That “greatly” reduces the number of students on campus, he stated in a message to the BGSU community last week.
At that time, he reported, more than 2,700 students had availed themselves of the Design My BGSU program
He said that Glenn Davis, vice provost for academic, estimates that the university was able to retain 300-400 students through the initiative.
Early this summer BGSU administrators were expecting enrollment to decline by as much as 7 percent.
