Record enrollment at WVU and its divisions, Clements reports to BOG

November 4th, 2011

Enrollment on all three West Virginia University campuses hit a record 32,733 this fall, including growth in high-achieving, minority and international students, President Jim Clements told the Board of Governors Friday (Nov. 4).

The enrollment at WVU’s main campus, the WVU Institute of Technology in Montgomery and Potomac State College of WVU in Keyser combined was up 382 students, or 1 percent from fall 2010

Clements reported that when the official numbers are released from the Higher Education Policy Commission next week, WVU’s main campus will report 29,617 students, an increase of 311 or 1.1 percent. Also, there are 1,480 international students in Morgantown, an increase of 77 students or 5.5 percent. Most of that growth came in undergraduate students, which shot up 20 percent.

Clements said the diversity on campus – a key element of the 2020 Strategic Plan for the Future – also had improved and that almost half of the 408 increase in undergraduate students came from minorities.

Further, he said, the academic profile of the freshman class improved in all three measures: average ACT, SAT and high school GPA.

Other increases included first-time graduate enrollment, up 3.9 percent overall from 1,363 to 1,416, with an 8 percent increase in minorities, from 241 to 260.

The Board also heard reports on selected diversity efforts at WVU.

“Inclusion is expected at West Virginia University,” said Jennifer McIntosh, executive office for social justice. “Our students must be prepared to live and work in a highly diverse world.”

McIntosh presented representatives from the Chancellor’s Scholar program – Dr. Chaun Stores, Dr. Joseph Nyache, Jason Staples and Dr. Damien Clement; Health Sciences Technology Academy – Dr. Ann Chester, program director, and Stephanie Henderson, a dental student; and the STARS program – Marjorie Fuller, director of the Center for Black Culture and Research, and students Joshua Puller and Ellis Roper, as a sampling of programs available to help support and expand diversity and inclusion on campus.

The presentation concluded with Staples reciting his poem Perhaps, an ode to an inclusive campus he wrote as part of the oneWVU campaign.

The board also received the audited financial statements, including a “clean” opinion from outside auditors. “A ‘clean’ opinion is highest opinion that an auditor can render,” Vice President for Administration and Finance Narvel Weese said.

Actual results outperformed both the prior year and the Fiscal 2011 plan, Senior Associate Vice President of Finance Dan Durbin said, and the University continues to experience “positive trends” in both revenues and expenses,

The Board also approved $1.166 million in new Research Trust Fund contributions for submission to the state for matching funds, bringing the total approved by the Board to $23 million.

The new private funding, certified by the WVU Foundation, comes from 16 sources, said WVU Provost Michele Wheatly, who presented the gifts and pledges for approval.

Gifts/pledges include:

  • Mabel Phares Leukemia Research – $49
  • Grace C. Clements Speech Pathology & Audiology Research Endowment – $50
  • James P. Boland MD Dept. of Surgery Endowed Research Fund – $642
  • Academy of Chemical Engineers Graduate Fellowship – $2,100
  • Women in Science and Engineering Giving Circle Endowment – $7,000
  • Raymond Brooks Vanscoy Cancer Research Endowment – $8,516
  • Branson-Maddrell Endowed Professorship in Orthodontics – $20,000
  • Dr. Mohindar S. Seehra Doctoral Award – $25,000
  • Norma Mae Huggins Cancer Research Endowment – $30,040
  • Shaw Pathology Research Fund – $50,000
  • Robert T. Bruhn Physics Research Endowment – $52,603
  • Oleg D. & Valentina P. Jefimenko Physics Scholarship – $66,667
  • Nesselroad Family Glaucoma Research Fund – $70,000
  • Oleg D. & Valentina P. Jefimenko Physics Fellowship – $91,667
  • Oleg D. & Valentina P. Jefimenko Library Resources Fund #2 – $341,666
  • Bowlby Wood Science Graduate Research Fellowship – $400,000

With this request, private and state dollars combined now bring WVU’s RTF total to $46 million in investments key research areas.

In 2008, the state created the Research Trust Fund with an initial appropriation of $50 million ($35 million for WVU, $15 million for Marshall) to leverage public and private investments that will help transform West Virginia’s economy.

WVU is able to tap into the fund to double private gifts that support expansions to research faculty and infrastructure in key areas linked to economic development, health care and job growth.

In other action, the Board:

  • Wheatly updated the Board on how the University conducts academic planning in support of Goal 1 in the strategic plan: Engage undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in a challenging academic environment.

-WVU-

jb/11/05/11

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