The unofficial online home for fans of the Western Michigan University Broncos. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(01-08-2018 07:49 AM)Doo Wrote:  There are two things going on here, 1) WMU v GVSU. 2) and most importantly the decreasing enrollment at WMU. We in part compete wit GVSU for students...sure. But GVSU is not the main reason for our enrollment decline. If it were our entire leadership should change.

WMUs enrollment decline has several factors. Some are being addressed, some are getting band aid fixes, and some are being purposely avoided. We can debate the merit and value of these things, but in large part WMU feels less modern than many major institutions, and we seem unwilling to embrace the opportunities to provide convienence out of fear of devaluing our product.

The concern is if we attempt to operate like say GVSU we will reduce our cache, but we seem incapable of attempting to operate like a major land grant type school. Admin knows this dilemma and you see a shifting message lately with the whole Big School/Small School mantra.

WMU has even shifted its operational capacity goals way down. The expansionist mindset of Dr Floyd is long gone. Personally I’m not thrilled of aiming to be medium sized. I think in the long run it’ll limit us. I get the sense that many of our decisions are made in reaction to events, and not proactively. WMU need to chart its own future, not continually trying to figure out where it can fit in.

Just curious, what are some examples that you are thinking with addressing the enrollment issue, band aid fixes, and avoiding the enrollment issue?

I only graduated a few year ago but I thought WMU had about 30K enrollment at one time. Maybe around the early 2000's?

There is a lot of opportunity to grow the GR campuses. I had one of my classes at the Beltline location. It was a good location for commuter students and the class room was in good shape. It would be nice to see the enrollment go up by growing in GR.