I had a couple of calls this week from reporters and journalism students who had attended a Board of Governors meeting and heard it stated that enrollment in FASS would be down next year.\u00a0 They wondered if the Faculty was worried, and, if so, what we were doing about it.\u00a0 There was so much that I wanted to say in response that the first words out of my mouth were \u201cWhere do I start?\u201d<\/p>\n
Applications from Ontario high-school students to the Bachelor of Arts degree, and particularly for majors housed within FASS, are indeed down for next year, continuing a recent trend.\u00a0 This can be attributed to a number of factors, of which the foremost are probably the following: demographic change which shows that the number of high-school graduates in Ontario is dropping (particularly outside the Toronto area); and increased focus in the press and elsewhere on the STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), resulting in a shift to those subjects.\u00a0 And the latter observation is indeed reflected in the university\u2019s application numbers.\u00a0 But this is a province-wide phenomenon, and possibly a national one, not something unique to Carleton.<\/p>\n
Should we be worried?\u00a0 Yes and no.\u00a0 What counts in the end is not the number of applications that we receive, nor even the number of \u201cconfirmations\u201d.\u00a0 The only statistic that matters is how many students actually choose to register and pay tuition fees, and, even more specifically, how many remain registered on the \u201cofficial count\u201d day (November 1), thus generating government grants.\u00a0 And as long as those numbers hold up \u2026 and in the current year they actually increased a bit, for which I am most thankful \u2026 there is no reason to be alarmed.\u00a0 That said, if the number of applications continues to decline, then the number of students who register is also likely to fall eventually.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the recent past our considerable efforts to convert acceptances into registrations have been quite successful.\u00a0 Many units have asked faculty members to phone all their prospective students, encouraging them to choose Carleton, and we have also participated enthusiastically in university-wide recruitment events in both Ottawa and Toronto.\u00a0 Indeed, if you happen to be reading this on Wednesday February 12th<\/sup>, then you should know that the largest-ever FASS team is currently in Mississauga for an annual information evening that routinely draws more than 1200 people.\u00a0 And we have also been working hard to retain those students who do choose Carleton, even if the retention rate is still not as high as one might wish.\u00a0 Chairs and directors have been talking about this a lot, and every unit was asked last year to develop a “recruitment and retention” plan.\u00a0 Some now have standing committees, charged with addressing this subject on a continuing basis.<\/p>\n But there is no room for complacency.\u00a0 The possibility of financial loss resulting from declining student numbers is far and away the single largest threat to the continuing viability of the arts and social sciences at Carleton, and this is a matter which every member of the faculty and professional staff needs to take seriously.\u00a0 No one else is going to resolve this issue for us.\u00a0 And thus I hope to see a great turnout for our annual Spring Break recruitment day on March 15th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had a couple of calls this week from reporters and journalism students who had attended a Board of Governors meeting and heard it stated that enrollment in FASS would be down next year. They wondered if the Faculty was worried, and, if so, what we were doing about it. There was so much that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n