Another update and response from the Administration.
…“It is a bastion of the old South.”
Really poor handle on history there. Missouri is usually known as the “gateway to the west” It was split during the civil war and actually had two competing state governments. If it had been a big slave holding state it would not be only 7% black. Do you consider Harry Truman a southerner?
It will take a few years, but if Penn State can recover from a scandal that was arguably much worse than what has happened at Mizzou, I’m sure Mizzou will recover.
We are monitoring the situation as our son looks at applying their later this year. The protests are not helping and continue to drag on with the film festival and Spike Lee. How the administration handled the initial protests, the reaction of the football team as portrayed in the media and the pendulum swing from the State Legislature, all have consequences that we are following.
Then there is the black on white attacks off campus in Columbia as well as the rape and attempted rapes. We are getting feedback from the handful of students from our local schools that go there or went there. Three of the seven left at Christmas and two more are transferring out at year end. They site these issues as a real concern. Furthermore, some had problems with feeling left out as they are not from either KC, STL or Chicago even though they are in the same sorority/fraternity. This last part I believe can be overcome as did our eldest at another SEC school and it is part of the experience living in another region in the US.
But add those factors to the loss of revenue ($32M budget deficit I believe was the last report I saw). 1,500 estimated fewer students, mostly freshman. And budgets are usually hopeful, even revised ones. I can assume it will be slightly worse than revised. Since most of the applications were filed prior to the protests, I would imagine this coming Fall there will be a a much larger decline in applications filed for 2016/17.
What we don’t like is that only one group is allowed to complain or protest and if another counters it, they are shut down. We are seeing this currently during our national primaries on both sides of the aisle. But when it gets down to the college level and impacts my child’s safety, education and experience, I have a real problem with it.
When one race matters more than another. When one philosophy can only be right? When one calls for muscle to shut down an opposing thought or reporting of something that for whatever reason you are publically protesting but don’t want it recorded.
Where is my kid’s safe space? A campus should be a student’s safe place. Safe from bigotry and biases. Safe from hazing from other students. Safe from violence and threats. Safe!
Missouri, you have a mess on your hands and we will continue to monitor it as I take him on other trips. I avoid taking my youngest for now. Fortunately I do have a say or a vote and that’s with my money. As of now, I join hands in those others not willing to send their kids to this University until they get their act together. Again, we will be monitoring the situation on this beautiful campus and what appeared to be very welcoming people.
Update (kinda) on specifics of decline in enrollment:
Interim Chancellor Hank Foley spoke today at a meeting and said that out of the projected 1,500 decline, 800-900 are attributed to lower MO graduates, 500-600 are thought to be because IL is a big feeder state but recently a lot of their schools have made entrance standards easier/made their schools affordable and students are choosing IL schools, and ~600 is from disinterest after the fall.
I know a lot of people have said it’s completely due to the fall and that the admissions office is trying to spin their own narrative, but if you look at the numbers of the state, it makes sense that some is from a general decline in high school grads. Plus, this year’s freshman class had fewer students than last year’s, so that also falls in line with that part of what Foley said.
As a journalism student, I’m not a 100% believer in saying, “The media did terribly at portraying Mizzou and is making it seem worse than it is,” because I’d like to think some journalists did a good job covering it. At the same time, some people seem to think that there’s complete chaos on campus and that’s completely untrue. I think that objectively, the administration is doing a good job moving forward, and you can’t expect everything to be completely back to normal. Whether people believe mistakes were made in the fall or not, what’s done is done, and with new administration, now we just have to give it time.
The Penn State situation was one individual and possibly a couple of other who knew about it and should have stopped it. Mizzou’s issues are systemic – I think the road to recovery is longer, and it is harder to stop repeats/additional incidents.
Here’s a perfect example of what @CE527M points out. The story title is, “Mizzou To Close 2 Dorms Because Of Enrollment Drop.” If you read the article it seems they planned to close the dorms to demolish and replace them; they’re just closing them sooner.
http://www.kmbc.com/news/mizzou-to-close-2-dorms-because-of-enrollment-drop/38548716
@CE527M The press isn’t to blame for Missouri’s problem. The problem is weak governance. If they were to put Tim Wolfe back in charge and just tell anyone who doesn’t like it to get the hell out of Dodge, starve if you want to, applications would go through the roof.
@EarlVanDorn From what I’ve heard, there were some underlying issues with people not being fully in support of Wolfe because of his lack of educational background. I think there were a lot of things at play and there are clearly a lot of varying opinions about the right way to handle what happened, but I also think the press has had an impact. The events of November were significant, but I think from an outsider’s perspective, things were a lot more chaotic than they actually were, or at least, than they were in the aftermath. Nothing’s radically different; we have different administration, but people act like they’re completely bowing down to Concerned Student 1950 and that’s untrue. Concerned Student 1950 is all but finished anyways; the word on the street is that a lot of the original members had problems with the direction the group was going in and have unaffiliated themselves with the group.
@CE527M I’d love to see the end-of-term grades of all of those protestors. The Chronicle of Higher Education had a story on the academic and psychological toll of spending a semester protesting based on the Missouri protestors. Unfortunately it was behind a paywall, but obviously it had some interesting info.
From what I’ve read, you are absolutely correct with there being some faculty dissatisfaction with Wolfe having nothing to do with race, and the faculty just took advantage of the racial conflict to push him out of the way. Words can’t express my lack of esteem for the faculty senate. In any event, my observation and experience is that capitulation of the type that occurred last semester tends to be followed by more demands, more frustration, and more protest. Concerned Student 1950 as it existed last semester may be finished, but I don’t think you’ve heard the last of them.
Here is an interesting read on this topic:
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/13/special-snowflakes-at-mizzou-drive-enrollment-down-by-25/
Until Mizzou can fully implement the changes that it has agreed to, enrollment may continue to suffer as prospective students realize that the university is not sincerely committed to diversity and equality for all.
Hi and welcome to CC @concernstudent1950! As the mom of an incoming freshman, I have been following this closely. May I ask, are you a current student at Mizzou?
My son (a high school senior) sent in his admissions cancellation today. His decision was not based on the protests or perceived lack of diversity at Mizzou, but he got better scholarship offers at private schools. I paid the $300 enrollment deposit in August so the refund I will receive is like found money!
@KCEdition, my son had three out of state choices that were cheaper given that Mizzou’s merit was so tied to test scores, which were his weak spot unfortunately. He still wants to go to MU, but I admit, it is a bit hard to see those numbers and let those other ones go. Good luck to your son!
FYI — [Excellence and Respect res halls are closing for the fall unless enrollment numbers become higher.](Two residence halls to be on standby because of declining enrollment)
Update, since we now have real numbers and not projections. It’s shocking…
That’s a potential lost of over 1,400 new freshmen. They also saw a drop in transfer students and graduate student applications (749 fewer applications).
Another article on Mizzou:
http://heatst.com/culture-wars/more-misery-at-mizzou-as-enrollment-plummets/?mod=sm_tw_post
Wow! Though I’m not surprised. My D had no interest of going to Missouri (the state, not just Mizzou) after all the news coverage.
“Some wonder if Mizzou will survive.” That’s very sensationalist; yeah, it’s obvious this isn’t good and it’ll definitely hurt some, but we’re a large state school that’s part of a four-campus university system. We’re not going to close down.
Also — Yes, people’s perceptions about what happened in the fall absolutely had to do with the drop, but they were also expecting somewhat of a drop. We’ve had an enrollment bubble for a while, and this was the year it was going to burst. It was just bigger than expected because of the combination of that and the fall events.