www.doo«edu/peiidiitutii
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Volume XXIIII, Number 2
Informing the Elon College Community
September 3,1998
Elon's growth raises concerns
p
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laJgvery issue
Academic Update
page 5
Organization Briefs
page 8
Staft/Faculty Profile
page 9
Horoscopes
page 15
Elon at a Glance
page 16
Comics
page 17
Opinions
The behtad
J. Fred Young
page 2
MiejKs
Elon makes Barron's
Best B«ys guide
pageg
Featafi^S
Freshmen talk
about moving in
page 13
Sjjfiiis
Elon bounces back in time
with “Coart Jesters”
page 19
Katie Bonebrake
The Pendulum
As the size of Elon’s fresh
men class has increased, so has
ElOn’s total enrollment. This fall
Elon’s enrollment is 3,836 students.
This increase, which has been
caused by many factors, gets varied
reactions from many around cam
pus.
According to Mark Albertson,
registrar, the largest factor in Elon’s
growth has been improved reten
tion. This means more students are
coming back year after year. Usu
ally about 80 percent of the fresh
men return for their sophomore year.
However, 85 percent of last year’s
freshman class returned this year.
This helped contribute to the enroll
ment growth. There has also been a
slight increase in the number of
freshmen enrolled.
Albertson says there have
been many changes in the 21 years
that he has been at Elon that might
help explain the college’s growth.
“The quality and number of
facilities have grown incredibly.
Elon has become a more beautiful
institution and far more opportuni
ties are available to the students,”
he said.
Each year the admissions of
fice must decide how many stu
dents to accept. Usually about 30
percent of the accepted students
enroll, said Nan Perkins, vice presi
dent for enrollment management.
pendulum F.Y.I
However, this year 32 percent of
the accepted students enrolled. This
contributed to a freshman class of
over 1,000 students, the largest ever.
“The quality of the applicant
pool has increased every year,” said
Perkins. “This year the average SAT
score jumped fifteen points.”
Elon’s reputation is also
growing and there
fore more students
are interested in the
college, Perkins
said.
“Elon is be
coming a very
popular school with
the move to Divi
sion I athletics and
the new library and
science building.
Visiting students
are very excited.”
One possible
effect of Elon’s
growth that has
many worried is a
possible increase in
class size.
Albertson said that
the class size has
actually decreased
over the years be
cause years ago
classes used to be
few and large in
size. Now, classes
are plentiful and
have smaller num-
fall between twenty and thirty-seven
students, but several classes have
limits of twenty or twenty-five,”
Albertson said.
“We tried to reduce the class
sizes limit to make for a better aca
demic environment,”
Student opinions are varied
when it comes to the subject Elon’s
growth. However, most were con
cerned with the student increase.
Several students said Elon’s size
was one of the major features that
attracted them to Elon College.
“I came for the small school
see GROWTH, page 5
Jenny Jarnecke/TAie Pendulum
bers of students.
“Most classes Friday's Organizational Fair gave students tlie opportunity to learn
about and sign up for the many campus activities.
Group to examine freshman year
Patrick Donovan
The Pendulum
Elon has begun organizing a
task force in order to help strengthen
the freshmen experience.
The group, which will con
sist of at least six faculty and two
students, will examine the fresh
men experience from an academic,
social and cultural level.
By systematically examining
from orientation until the end of the
spring semester, the task force hopes
to decide if new students are having
a true “learning experience.”
Although most new students
have expressed satisfaction with
their classes and social involvement,
the school feels that it can do even
better.
“Sometimes freshmen come
expecting a huge change, and many
times it isn’t,” said Julianne Maher,
vice president of academic affairs.
“We want to know if freshmen are
having the kind of experience we
want them to have.”
Chairman of the task force
Richard Haworth, a math profes
sor, said, “It is important that we
implant new students with high ex
pectations,” said Haworth.
Haworth says that the group
is still in planning and has yet to set
definite goals. “We will most likely
use a variety of surveys to discover
certain attitudes and behaviors.”
“We are trying to discover
what needs to be improved so that
students grow academically, so
cially and culturally while estab
lishing strong bonds with their pro
fesses,” he said.
Mike Heringslack, a sopho
more, feels that some things such as
cultural events should be more ad
vertised to new students and made
see TASK FORCE, page 5