What the University of Missouri’s Enrollment Decline Might Teach Us

briangrey
BGrey Pubs
Published in
5 min readJul 24, 2017

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College campuses are important training grounds. They have historically provided the critical environment where late stage teenagers matriculate to learn, socialize, and take big strides towards becoming the well rounded and worldly adults that they (and their parents) so desperately desire they become. Today, however, the four year college experience is under assault. Some critics claim the cost-benefit equation is way out of whack, and that except for the top tier of four-year higher ed institutions, high school graduates might be better off starting out at a community college, a trade school, or simply learning to write computer code in a series of a la carte courses from a ready made program served up by the likes of a General Assembly.

While the cost-benefit dimension of the four-year college degree (or five or six-year degree for those hearty souls who change their major a time or two) will continue to be scrutinized, an even more alarming theme has emerged on a handful of campuses in recent years that may threaten how the university experience may continue to serve our future adults. The firestorm of racial, ethnic, and political divisiveness breaking out on college campuses multiple times per academic year threatens the very fabric that has enabled a diverse community of students and faculty to live and learn together. And while the recent outbursts at Middlebury College, the University of California at Berkeley, and Evergreen State College in Washington state all step forward as “Exhibit A”, it is the current situation at the University of Missouri that portends what could befall campuses across the United States if we allow college campuses to devolve into polarizing protests that simply mirror life off campus.

Why is Mizzou’s situation so special? Well, as highlighted by a recent New York Times feature on the university, the racially spurred protests that spread across the school’s campus in the fall of 2015 are today cited as the culprit in major enrollment declines that first hit with the freshman class that entered last fall (2016). Missouri’s enrollment is down 35% post the events that rocked the university less than two years ago. And not surprisingly, the freshman class of 2016 (the last year for which the university has released detailed data) saw enrollment by African American students decline by 42%.

What makes this turn of events particularly sad for the University of Missouri is that it has been barely three years since Mizzou football player Michael Sam became the first openly gay college football player to be drafted by an NFL team (the St. Louis Rams). In the spring of 2014 when Sam was drafted, the university could have seized that momentous event to position itself as an exemplary example of true inclusion for each and every student who might seek out the University of Missouri as a campus where they might grow personally. Indeed, it may have been somewhat poetic justice that it took a threat by the Missouri football team in early November 2015 to not play in a SEC game (God forbid!) to ultimately force the resignation of both the system president and the chancellor of the main campus in Columbia.

So what now for the University of Missouri? Well they are taking some important — yet expected — steps to reposition the campus as a truly welcoming space for all students. Earlier this spring the university hired a chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, and as the Times reported “the university was formulating a marketing campaign to correct what [it] called ‘misperceptions’ about the extent of the unrest”. It will be interesting to see what Kevin McDonald (the new chief diversity head) does to bring a more positive and inclusive environment back to UM — and I’ll be be curious to see how the school markets itself to prospective students from the high school graduating classes of 2018 and beyond. But reading the Times story made me think of a few specific ideas that all colleges, not just Missouri, might pursue to foster the collaborative communities that turn university campuses into special environments where all emerging adults might thrive.

  • It seems that many colleges now require a freshman writing class or seminar beginning first semester. Many of these courses have alluring titles and cover wildly interesting topics (perhaps almost too wildly interesting!). In most cases, the students get to select their course which means by default a form of selection bias exists in how these writing courses are filled. Why not randomly place freshman in courses and even consciously work to ensure that these writing courses, which also include important discourse and debate, include a representative cross section of the campus community. And perhaps narrow the scope of topics to ensure that students are engaging with one another in non-confrontational ways in courses that have in their title important words like “feminism”, “race”, “ethinc”, and “gay/lesbian”, not just “anime”, “media”, or “sports statistics”.
  • Next, how about colleges invest more of the prodigious tuition received from students (um, I mean parents) in more robust speaker series that span the academic year. From week one through the last week of the spring term, bring a guest to campus every week to speak on an important topic. Better yet, bring two speakers to address opposite sides of an important topic. And even better yet, link these speaker series to the freshman writing courses and require that students attend a minimum number of speaker events and incorporate those discussions into their writing in an integrated way. I know this effort will be challenging for all schools fiscally, and that in some cases demonstrators may attempt to block some speakers from appearing on campus, but if we can’t bring this type of conversation to college campuses then where can it exist?
  • Colleges might also be more concerted in their efforts to actively recruit students that help create a diverse student body. Specifically, this means recruiting talented diverse students into programs beyond athletic programs. The Times article on Missouri highlighted a rising senior African American student who decided not to transfer from the school despite the unrest because “she decided to stay because she is in Missouri’s prestigious journalism school”. These are the unique assets of colleges, their special programs and opportunities that they can proactively make available to a diverse set of students. Colleges should market their marquee programs — whether they be Journalism, Nursing, Engineering, or Political Science — to students of every background as compelling reasons to attend great universities like the University of Missouri. Further, colleges should earmark scholarship dollars that enable true diversity to appear in these programs. Finally, they should actively recruit faculty members that mirror this diversity so that these special programs continue to be the magnets that attract and help build the vibrant campus environments all higher education leaders want to see thriving at their schools.

I know that the list above can be lengthened with many others ideas that would also help engender positive campus community dynamics across colleges nationwide. While hiring chief diversity officers and creating strong brand marketing campaigns are part of the equation for universities, the heart of the matter will come down to people of all backgrounds being together engaged in empathetic discourse happening in thought provoking courses, by attending public forums, and by rubbing shoulders with diverse colleagues in every program on campus. College campuses can no doubt reestablish themselves as unique training grounds for all young adults so long as higher education leaders commit to bring diverse student and faculty bodies together in meaningful collaboration every day.

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