FACULTY
Yes
Thank you for sharing the strategic enrollment plan and giving us an opportunity to provide feedback. While I’m sure there are many laudable areas of this plan to talk about, you are likely looking for feedback on potential issues, so early apologies for the lack of good/not so good/good feedback sandwich: - Housing: This is a big concern I have for the success of this outlook. Available housing is already a significant concern for students. Due to the shortage, on campus and off campus, many students struggle to find a place to live and/or leave because they can’t find a place to live. They are sleeping on each others couches or in cars for the quarter—a difficult lifestyle to lead while trying to focus on your studies. Adding a 400 bed residence hall is not going to make a dent in the addition of 1,946 to the on-campus student population because housing is a problem right now at current population. Adding 400 beds might fix today’s problem, but it’s not dealing with a 4 year issue. The community cannot absorb the housing for these students because it’s not there. But, don’t take my word for it and the Runstad study outlines this shortage: http://realestate.washington.edu/wp- content/uploads/2018/05/2018SpringApartmentMarketRepo rt.docx.pdf We have a .9% vacancy rate in Kittias and 5% is considered a tight market; we are well, well below a tight market and will increase the number of homeless students. - Diversity Goals: Welcoming URM students to campus is both good for a campus and the right thing to do. I’m concerned that it’s disingenuous to make that projection if we don’t have the high touch support required to retain those students—which has an added cost. From my understanding of the need to grow our student population is that it’s required to pay the bills of running this institution. Adding high touch support systems are an expense. I fear that those supports will not be added, or will be added too late to adequately support these students, as a financial saving to the university but potentially at the detriment of these students.
FINAL DRAFT 2/11/2019 Page 54
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