Here’s a different article with troubling quotes from faculty and the Mayor of Blacksburg.
**According to a letter sent by engineering education professor Marie Paretti to fellow members of the Tech Faculty Senate, the university should’ve seen the numbers coming.
“Frankly, it is unacceptable to me to hear anyone in the administration suggest that these numbers are unexpected,” she wrote.
She wrote that a colleague in the College of Engineering had predicted more than 2,600 new freshmen, an oversized class for that college, based on the numbers from the university and shared that with administrators. The prediction was ignored, she wrote.
She wrote that the increase in students would create unnecessary strain on Blacksburg.
“As the Faculty Senate, I believe we need to hold the administration accountable not only for the over-enrollment itself, but for the persistent disregard of faculty and staff on the ground who saw this coming and tried repeatedly to raise concerns and be proactive,” she wrote.**
That’s a pretty damning internal communication that has me concerned going forward. The Mayor added her .02 about the potential strain on the community.
**The town of Blacksburg has braced for growth, Mayor Leslie Hager-Smith wrote in a statement, with town council approving “thousands of beds of student housing in the last few years,” and “buying new buses and planning new routes.”
However, she wrote, she is “very concerned about the Town’s capacity to house and transport all of these new students,” especially in light of a section of Terrace View and Sturbridge Square student housing complexes soon temporarily coming out of commission because of redevelopment.
“The student experience at Tech, and quality of life in Blacksburg are the reasons that Hokies express some of the highest alumni loyalty in the nation,” Hager-Smith wrote. “Will the next cohort of incoming students have the same kind of positive experiences?”**
That final paragraph is the crux of my concern based on the last 3 years of Admissions stubbing it’s toe. The Class of 2019 leaves a campus with 22,670 undergrads(the sum of freshman students enrolled in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015). When the Class of 2020 graduates there will have been 23,112 students. For 2021 it’s 24,584, then for 2022 it’s 25,375 and finally, in 2023 the undergrad population will be 26,636. In the 4 years from this graduating class to the graduation for the incoming freshman class the campus undergrad community will swell by 3,966 students. That’s a 17.5% increase.
People have good reason to be concerned.