Since the start of the fall semester is just around the corner, I thought I'd ask you some questions about the new school year. Let's start off with this one. What is enrollment looking like this fall?
Williams: Well, our teams have been working really hard right now. It's looks really positive. It's always hard to tell because the climate has changed in the United States, where back in the day, you could have a student that's coming, and they put a deposit down on their house, they put a deposit down, they come to Soar and they come. Now you can have a deposit down, you come to Soar, and then they don't show up. And so right now our first year students looks positive compared to the last two years. Our transfer students look strong. Our retention looks really good with students. The only area where we're a little cautious is international students because of the student visas and not being approving some of the student visas, that's where we're really paying close attention.
Do you think at this point that maybe that's going to be down this year? I know you can't say for certain.
Williams: I can't say for certain, but I think it — more than likely our international student enrollment will be slightly down. And that's really because of what's happening federally and whether or not they're doing the visa applications as well as the interviews.
I keep hearing about an enrollment cliff. Are we anywhere near that yet?
Williams: Oh, yes. I think we've been in the enrollment cliff for quite some time. And so we're doing a lot with regards to enrollment. I think you saw the Welcome Center is under construction. We're doing some improvements there. We just hired Don Medley, Dr. Don medley, as our vice president for enrollment management. She's actually on campus today. So that was like a three week turnaround so she's excited to come. We're also focusing in our new strategic planning 30,000 students by 2030. And so there'll be a lot of efforts really focusing on our degree seeking students moving forward.
One big change this school year is MSU's move from the Missouri Valley Conference to Conference USA. What has the university had to do to prepare for that move?
Williams: Well, we've really had to create a plan. Patrick Ransdell — first we had to hire an athletic director, which we did last September, and he has done a wonderful job of getting their plan together, their teams, making sure that we have the travel arrangements. It's all new to us, and we're going to different places. We're going to Delaware, we're going to Florida, we're going to New Mexico, going to Texas. And and so really having the coaches' mind down into where they're going, how they're doing this. We've had a lot of improvements to Plaster Stadium. Our field had lived its full life — probably five years past its full life. So we've put in a new field, new lights for ESPN. As you know, we'll have several televised home games this year. CBS sports for SMU, which will be big. So having those light candles right where they need to be, we had some press box changes that we had to do, but for the most part it's been internal planning on how do we get from here to there and what that looks like for conference USA.
And I know MSU has had several construction projects underway for awhile on campus. It looks like the Blunt Hall renovation is wrapping up. Where do construction projects currently stand, and will there be some finished in time for the new school year?
Williams: So Blunt Hall, we — they have been moving in there. They're still adding furniture and doing the punch lists. And that is on the new edition side. So they have started the renovation side, and that will be probably done at the end of this academic school year to mid-summer next year.
And I always want to remind everyone that students will be back on campus for class on August 18th. They'll be coming in before that, so just watch out as you're driving through campus. That's a lot of students coming back to Springfield.
Williams: We'll get very full very quickly.
Anything else you want us to know about the upcoming fall semester?
Williams: We're really excited to launch the strategic plan, so that will start on September 22nd. Right now, we are identifying the goal leaders in the strategic initiative working groups. And we're putting together the software to track that. Really excited because it's been our plan. And so I'm really anticipating a fun year of implementing that plan.