Pitt-Bradford Reaches Longstanding Enrollment Goal, Shatters Previous Records

By Pat Frantz Cercone
Director of Communications and Marketing

The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford has reached its longstanding enrollment goal of 1,500 full-time equivalent students and also shattered previous enrollment records, including having its largest student body and biggest freshman class.

The enrollment figures became official today in a report submitted to the University of Pittsburgh.

“This is a magnificent accomplishment for our campus and for our region,” Dr. Livingston Alexander, president, said of reaching the 1,500 FTE goal. “We’re very proud that we were able to reach this milestone three years in advance of our projected time frame.”

Full-time equivalent is a measurement used by colleges and universities that serve both full- and part-time students. The measurement allows administrators to better plan and budget for the demands placed on the faculty and student services.

This year the campus has 1,535 FTE, a 10.2 percent increase over last fall’s 1,398. The university also has recorded the largest total enrollment in its history at 1,657 students -- 1,455 full-time and 202 part-time – and its biggest freshman class of 418 freshmen, an increase of 11 percent over the 377-member freshman class last fall.

Also contributing to the enrollment success was a slight increase in the freshman-to-sophomore retention rate to 73.4 percent, the fourth year in a row that that number has increased.

This is the fourth year in a row that Pitt-Bradford has shattered enrollment records, growing from 1,124 FTE in the fall of 2005.

Alexander cited several factors that account for the recent rapid growth, including a five-year strategic plan implemented in 2004 that established enrollment growth as the priority. He also pointed to 12 new baccalaureate majors added in the last five years and major improvements to campus facilities over the last decade.

Students are also coming from a wider geographic area. The class of 2013 has students from four foreign countries, Washington, D.C., U.S. territories and 12 states: Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Ohio, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Illinois, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Virginia.

The most popular majors for freshmen are nursing, criminal justice, athletic training, elementary education, biology and business management.

“We are grateful to our admissions staff that has been working very aggressively and farther afield to help us reach and surpass our enrollment goals,” Alexander said. “Additionally, we are fortunate to have dedicated faculty and staff who are also committed to helping Pitt-Bradford and its students succeed.”

The mix of students is also favoring more traditional students, said James Baldwin, assistant dean of academic affairs and director of enrollment services.

“Six or seven years ago, nearly 30 percent of our students were nontraditional students,” he said. “Now that’s about 20 percent.”

According to Alexander, with the achievement of this milestone, the campus’s physical plant is at capacity. Aggressive recruitment and marketing will continue, he said, but primarily to enable the campus to sustain its enrollment numbers.

“It is possible that we may not be able to accommodate all of the students who apply in future years. We may have to resort to waiting lists,” Alexander said of future enrollments. Whether more space is required will continue to be assessed, he added.

For now, a new residence hall is planned to open sometime in the fall of 2010, which will allow the university to house an additional 103 students. Currently the campus has about 800 beds available.

Alexander said the current strategic plan calls for additional faculty and improvements in classroom and laboratory space, beginning with the renovation of Fisher Hall, the campus’s science building.

Dr. K. James Evans, dean of student affairs, has been involved with the effort to reach 1,500 FTE since the University of Pittsburgh assigned the enrollment target to the campus in the early 1990s.

The college used that assigned enrollment target as a guide to create a master plan to accommodate 1,500 full-time equivalent students.

Under the master plan, the Sport and Fitness Center was renovated and expanded in 2002; the Frame-Westerberg Commons, renovated and expanded in 2003; Blaisdell Hall, home to communications and fine arts, completed in 2004; two new residence halls, completed in 2005 and 2008; and an interfaith chapel will be completed in 2010.

“When students and parents visit,” said Alexander Nazemetz, director of admissions, “their first impression of the campus is always positive. It pulls them in and gets them asking questions about other things.”

Nazemetz said that persuading students to enroll at Pitt-Bradford is easier now than before because of the name recognition and higher visibility.

Thanks to a targeted marketing and branding program that works in tandem with admissions, “people recognize Pitt-Bradford as a destination unto itself,” he said. “Admissions counselors help spread the word, but the word is already there.”

Admissions counselors visit 300 schools each year, and one thing they’re finding is that students who attend Pitt-Bradford are going home and speaking positively about the school.

“Success breeds success,” Nazemetz said.

Other factors he cited are admissions’ use of geodemographics to determine where students come from and who are the best fit for Pitt-Bradford.

“Admissions is definitely recruiting smarter,” he said, “We can concentrate on areas where we know we will have success, and I am really grateful for a professional staff that goes out of its way to work for university goals and overall enrollments.”

Pictured, Shani McKay, front, a freshman nursing major from Nanuet, N.Y., at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, moves in with some help from Natalie Leibig, a nursing major from Mohnton. This fall’s freshman class at Pitt-Bradford totaled 418, an 11 percent increase over last year and the largest freshman class in the university’s 46-year history.
(Photo courtesy of Pitt-Bradford)