Valparaiso University officials site new Access College, other measures for stabilizing enrollment
Chloe Kiser, one of two professors leading “The Human Experience: Empathy and Dialogue” for a class of first-year students in Valparaiso University’s new Access College for Success, went over a few of the foundations of the curriculum on a recent Friday afternoon.
“We intend to balance sharing and listening,” she told the more than two dozen students in Room 160 of Wesemann Hall, formerly the location for the university’s now-closed law school.
The Access College, a two-year associate degree program started as pilot with three students last academic year, now has 26 enrollees. The program, according to university officials, is geared for incoming students who need additional support as they begin their college careers. It was created to open the college experience to a greater number of students while providing those students a direct path to a four-year degree if they so choose.
“It’s to provide access to students who don’t necessarily have a traditional background for college,” said Lucia Lopez, executive director of the Access College.
Brooke Harrell, who graduated from Portage High School in the spring, said she got an email about the Access College after she applied to the university. She’s found the support and resources helpful so far.
“I feel like your first two years are your biggest and when you grasp for help and to get your voice, and I felt like the Access College really did that,” said Harrell, who wants to get her bachelor’s degree in nursing, a transition she expects also will be easier since all of the credits from her associate degree will transfer if she continues on at VU.
Officials also credit the budding program with helping stabilize the university population, part of a multipronged approach to meet an ever-changing market.
The university has more than 600 first-year students, including those in the Access College. An official census of the student population is expected this week, but Jill Schur, the university’s vice president of enrollment and marketing, said she expects this year’s first-year class to be about even as last year and up from two years ago.
The university had 564 first-year students for 2021, according to enrollment data on its website, and 589 students in fall 2020, before the pandemic. For comparison, Valparaiso University had 737 first-year students in the fall 2007.
“The Access College is part of the future. We know we need to shift to meet the market,” Schur said. “A four-year degree is not for everybody.”
The university, she said, also saw a 14% increase in domestic graduate students, including in its MBA program, and has seen its overall enrollment the past few years buoyed by international students, particularly in information technology.
The university’s most recent strategic plan, outlined by President José Padilla last fall, included a focus on becoming a Hispanic-Serving Institution, or HSI, and the university saw “a 53% increase in Hispanic students in first-year classes this year,” Schur said.
The market is shifting, Schur said, a point Padilla made a year ago. He said then that the whole dynamic of higher education has changed, with the COVID-19 pandemic bringing those changes to the surface. The percentage of Indiana students attending college dropped from 65% in 2015 to 53% seven years later.
Additionally, a “demographic cliff” has been predicted to hit by 2026, with a significant drop in the percentage of young adults ages 18 to 24 attending college, particularly in the Midwest and the Northeast, Padilla said then.
“It’s all about right-sizing ourselves,” Schur said, adding the university is not going to be what it was five or 10 years ago. “And without that pressure of trying to be something we aren’t, we can focus on retention of students we worked so hard to bring here.”
The stabilization of the student population, Schur said, is the result of several factors, including the university’s intentional marketing strategy, the Access College, becoming an HSI and the university’s leadership.
“There’s more opportunities for nontraditional thinking,” including online, part-time and two-year programs, Schur said.
Access College students are considered incoming freshmen in a twofold process, Lopez said. They receive an associate degree after two years with the option to continue for another two years for a bachelor’s degree, with all of their credits counting toward that degree.
The Access College, Lopez added, offers the resources of the university’s career center and alumni network to provide them with those opportunities.
“It was initially intended for students who wanted to commute to campus,” Lopez said, but 22 of the college’s students are living on campus and four are commuting. The majority of the students are from Northwest Indiana.
That includes Christian Kim of Valparaiso, a recent graduate of Wheeler High School, and Axel Orozco, who graduated from Valparaiso High School. The two are both working on associate degrees in business and have become friends, sharing tips on using planners and offering each other additional support.
“It was a good opportunity to figure things out,” Kim said. He did well his junior and senior years of high school after a tough start as “a terrible student” who “hit that level of maturity” junior year and worked to improve his grades.
Orozco also liked the appeal of the program.
“It’s the fact that they will help me go along and will give me good tools to succeed in college,” he said.
Areas of study in the Access College include education; biology, as a preface to nursing; and business, Lopez said, with a handful of students still exploring what they will focus on.
“We’re excited to see that we can already incorporate those key classes they need, especially with nursing,” she said.
The students in last year’s pilot program are all continuing in the program, with one focusing on education and the other two on business. All three are living on campus.
“The data will show that the students who live on campus are more likely to be successful,” Lopez said, adding they receive support from the campus community, save time from not having to commute, and can take advantage of on-campus employment, something else the Access College assists with.
The program plans for measured growth in the coming years, with around 35 new students next fall and perhaps 50 in 2025, Lopez said, adding the pace will be dependent on the support services available and will be reassessed over time.
The university, she added, is not replicating an institution but rather maximizing its resources.
“I think we’re changing the face of education. An associate degree is typically from a community college,” Lopez said, “and we realize there’s the capacity to offer that here.”