Monday, September 16, 2024

Message from the President

Dear Campus Community,

My letter planned for last week was replete with encouraging news about our students. Unfortunately, Hurricane Francine’s quick trip across the Gulf and her last-minute wobble toward New Orleans trounced those plans, and we had to shift quickly into emergency planning and then aftermath assessment mode. Fortunately, the damage to campus was minimal and our community appears to have made it through safely. It also served as a good exercise for our systems and practices related to emergency management that have not been deployed to this extent since Hurricane Ida in 2021. We debriefed earlier today at our Executive Cabinet meeting on what went well and what needs improvement, and we will endeavor in the future to make decisions as early as possible, in order to give people more time to plan and prepare their homes.

Now for some delayed good news. Friday, September 6 was our fall census date—the date at which our fall enrollment is deemed official. Thanks to each and every one of you, and especially to our colleagues in the Division of Enrollment Management, we have recorded significant improvements in undergraduate enrollment, particularly among new beginners (increased 20% over Fall 2023) and transfer students (increased by 60% over Fall 2023). These increases helped to mitigate historical declines in undergraduate enrollment, yielding a 3.5% overall increase in undergraduate enrollment compared to this time last year. Graduate student enrollment declined, and when you take into account the students who graduated last year, as well as the students we failed to retain (67% freshmen-to-sophomore retention rate), our overall enrollment of 6,488 students remains 1.7% below that of last fall. However, we will double down on efforts to expand graduate enrollment through certificates and master’s degrees, as well as accelerated master’s programs that can be combined with undergraduate degree programs.

We have an incredible opportunity to further strengthen enrollments at the University of New Orleans by offering a holistic array of supportive programming and experiential learning opportunities to retain the students we do enroll. We will work hard to ensure that we are a transfer-friendly university that engages in policies and practices to help transfer students to quickly reach their degree goals. Finally, we will be working to shift our scheduling practices in the spring semester so that we are offering the courses that students need at times that they are able to take them, including an expansion of courses that meet twice per week for 75 minutes.

There is so much more to share, and this message is already long enough. Let me close by inviting you to a Town Hall on Tuesday, September 24, from 12:30-1:30 p.m. in the University Center Sen. Ted Hickey Ballroom. I will provide an update on our 2024-2025 budget, describe plans for continuing to realign our budget with our student enrollment, share updates on the UNO 2030 plan, and seek your comments, suggestions, and questions about any or all of these issues. I hope to see you there!

With Privateer Pride,

Kathy Johnson, Ph.D.
President
The University of New Orleans