Remarks

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to give you a brief overview of what is going on in Student Affairs. I could go on for much longer than five minutes, but I will keep my remarks brief. Oftentimes universities can be very divided organizations: As you know, there are numerous areas such as Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Financial Affairs, Facilities, Research, Outreach and so on. Universities can feel disjointed at times. I believe however Auburn University is fortunate to have a seamless structure, where lines are actually nicely blended. In Student Affairs, we have the opportunity to work closely with our academic colleagues sharing information and providing the most beneficial opportunities for our students. I would like to talk to you about three areas, which have a direct impact on you, our faculty: enrollment management for the 2003-2004 year, Scholarships, and our Diversity Initiatives.

At this time, admission of freshmen for Summer/Fall 2003 is nearing completion. Following last year’s record freshmen enrollment of 4,184 the University Enrollment Management Committee, the Provost, and the President recommended a freshmen enrollment of approximately 3,700 – 3,800 for Summer/Fall 2003. Auburn University finds itself in a unique position: As other state universities are struggling to meet enrollment goals, we are exceeding them. It is our challenge now to maintain the level of interest in Auburn AND to increase the interest of those students who who are under-represented and who are best-prepared for success in higher education. As of the first week in March, we have 11, 247 applications, 9,282 admits, with approximately 3,000 students who meet our admissions requirements on our “wait list.” The entering class for this upcoming academic year so far has presented the best credentials in the history of the University with an average of 24.64 on the ACT, a high school grade point average of 3.54, and average SAT scores of 1143 for students who have already deposited. In addition, I want to let you know that deposits for minority students are up approximately 20% over this time last year.

I would like to now share some good news about our University Scholarship program, which is evolving to recruit best-prepared students. We redesigned the Freshman Academic Scholarship program to be more competitive with our peer institutions, sent scholarship awards earlier than ever, and partnered with the individual colleges to maximize the amounts of awards offered to students. Additionally, The Legacy Waiver Program, which began in 1997 as a 1/3 tuition waiver for out-of-state students of Auburn graduates who were Lifetime Members of the Alumni Association is currently under review. We plan to develop this into a Legacy Scholarship with academic criteria, which will help in bringing the best and brightest to your classrooms.

At the request of President Walker, we are in the preliminary stages of designing a scholarship program that will target under-represented populations in specific high schools in the state of Alabama. Dr. Walker has asked us to design a program similar to the Century Scholars Program at Texas A & M, which has experienced much success in the recruitment and retention of under-represented groups. Initial discussions of the scholarship suggest that the scholarship will be available to 100 students and will include tuition, room, board and books. Additionally, retention efforts will accompany the scholarship to keep these students at Auburn through graduation.

Our Diversity Initiatives for the spring have gotten underway and are going forward, including our monthly student luncheons and our Habitat for Humanity Build at 929 Holmes Avenue, which is currently in progress. Over the last year Student Affairs has sponsored or co-sponsored many programs and activities focused on diversity, including “The Conversation Begins” video and the “Learning for Life” sessions at Camp War Eagle designed to start dialogue which educates our students on the valuing our uniqueness as individuals; the Freshman Convocation, which included a diversity presentation by John Gray; a variety of programs for our Greek leadership and community; a visit to Auburn from Don McPherson who spoke to many groups, including our student athletes with his program “You Throw Like a Girl.” Upcoming events include a presentation tonight by Felicia Hall, the former Vice President of Team Operations for a WNBA team, will speak on valuing people for who they are.

In Student Affairs, we are planning on introducing the National Coalition Building Institute as a model for Community building, diversity training, and sensitivity awareness. The NCBI organization will bring people on campus to train a number of faculty and staff to be able to conduct training programs for other groups. The program lasts three days and at the end of the three days, participants are officially certified in diversity training. Currently over 65 universities in the U.S. use the NCBI model on their campuses. Auburn will be the first university in the SEC to adopt this model.

In the Enrollment Management area we also have many exciting and progressive activities going on, including the creation of a Minority Student Recruitment and Retention committee to explore how Auburn University can improve these areas. We are continually exploring additional avenues to enhance the minority experience at Auburn from the first contact to graduation.

I invite you to be a part of Student Affairs while you are a faculty member at Auburn. We are always in need of faculty to assist us in programming, advising, and educating outside of the classroom. Faculty can be a welcome role model to all of our student organizations, and especially our Greek organizations. I welcome you to contact me or a member of our staff if you are interested in becoming involved in Student Affairs. My e-mail address is simple: wes@auburn.edu. Thank you for this opportunity to update you on just a few of the activities in Student Affairs.