欢迎来到春季学期

发送日期:2024年1月31日

From: Vincent J. Del Casino, Jr., Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Dear Colleagues,

I hope this message finds you well and gearing up for a fantastic spring semester. There is, as always, a lot happening in California, across the higher education landscape 在全国范围内，在校园里. We continue to track the Governor’s budget and legislative response to that budget and many of us will be in Sacramento this month as part of the CSU’s advocacy week to continue to emphasize the amazing value of our work. At the national level, higher education has been challenged by the dramatic shifts that machine learning and generative artificial intelligent systems are bringing into the 学习环境. I remain neither a techno-optimist or techno-pessimist; we must engage these trends and discuss how we are going to respond to them. On campus, we continue to see our investments in RSCA and in student success paying off: faculty are winning more awards, grants, and contracts than ever before, and the fall-to-spring re-enrollment of our first year students (entering F ‘23) is trending to be some of the highest rates in the last ten years at 菠菜网lol正规平台.

Given there is so much going on, I have decided to provide two key updates in this message and will follow up with other topics over the next several weeks. I want to begin, therefore, with a bit on enrollment trends and budget and course schedule. I will follow this message with weekly updates throughout February. I have a lot to share and look forward to hearing back from you as you read them. 一如既往，我鼓励 you to reach out with questions and comments.

Enrollment Trends
As you know, the president made the decision to merge Enrollment Management into the Division of Academic Affairs in the fall. Our new Senior Associate Vice President, Aretha Minor, has integrated into the 教务领导 Team and on campus quickly! 我们的春季入学人数看起来很多. For example, 菠菜网lol正规平台 is enrolling more new 本科(增加3人).5%) and graduate (up 25%) students than it has in past spring terms. Students are also taking more classes (average unit load is currently up from Spring ‘23), a result, in large part, of our deeper investment in first-year student 建议与成功. Unlike many northern California CSU campuses, 菠菜网lol正规平台 is hovering at just over 100% of our California Enrollment Target for 23/24 and our overall non-resident target is also at just over 100% of our budgeted allocation for this year. The CA enrollment positions us well within the system for new enrollment dollars next year. In addition, our enrollments in self-support programs continue to climb, a result of the investments made not only in 菠菜网lol正规平台 Online but in the entire portfolio of Professional and Continuing Education (PaCE) and thanks to leadership of Vice Provost Ron Rogers 以及副教务长Nami Shukla. According to the 科罗拉多州立大学招生数据系统, 菠菜网lol正规平台 increased self-support enrollments 18% between Fall ‘22 and Fall ‘23. The spring semester looks equally solid as 菠菜网lol正规平台 continues to find ways to meet students where they are. These programs allow us to respond to the differentiated enrollment landscape, providing students in CA (and beyond) with multiple ways to find success at 菠菜网lol正规平台. Put differently, the students in self-support are looking for programming, course schedules, and tuition models that are different from what we can offer in state-supported programs. This is what makes this catalog of programs so valuable to our students.

预算及课程安排
Our enrollment efforts are helping us with this year’s budget, and while there have been some significant cuts in our divisional budget this year, through the hard work of deans, associate deans, department chairs and directors, as well as staff and faculty, we have a schedule that is meeting the needs of our students. 我们用 only a marginal increase in class size across the division; depending on the college, course-based enrollments are up 1-3 students per lecture and seminar class (1.7 students 每门课程(校园级). This has been accomplished, so far, with a decrease of only 1.5% of the total number of lecture and seminar sections on campus compared to Spring ‘23. What we are seeing with a slightly tighter schedule is increased fill rates in our course sections and a growing recognition that we have to build a schedule that meets student demands and spreads courses out across a broader part of the day. This work should bring us back to the student-faculty ratio of 2017, a goal set out by the Budget Advisory Committee this year. I want to send a big shoutout to all the leaders in the division—deans, associate deans, DROs, and chairs and directors—who have had to do the lion’s share of this organizational work. 我们的学生似乎 be succeeding as well, as there appears to be no demonstrable change in fall-to-spring enrollment.

最后的想法
Despite the challenges we are facing financially this year and the reality of a rapidly changing higher education environment, I believe 菠菜网lol正规平台 continues to excel and the work of the faculty, staff, and students of this campus are being noticed locally and nationally. I am confident that we will continue this trajectory even as we have to tighten some belts and manage shifts in student interest in higher education. 我很有信心 我们有能力做到这一点. 菠菜网lol正规平台是一个神奇的地方. 我仍然很荣幸能参与其中 of this community.

I hope that you have a great start to the spring semester. 我相信有很多 more to come.

Sincerely,
Vin