No longer a
'residential campus'?

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As East Carolina’s undergraduate enrollment continues to grow, the university is in danger of losing its identity as a “residential” campus, a distinction that applies to schools where at least 25 percent of undergraduates live on campus. That’s one reason the Board of Trustees is considering partnering with private developers to build more dormitories.

There were 4,656 beds available in Main Campus dorms fall semester, which meant that only about 22 percent of the 21,424 undergrads were living on campus then. Although higher admissions requirements instituted last fall held total enrollment to 27,659, the campus needs more beds to climb back above the 25 percent threshold.

“We are headed to becoming a commuter campus with a lot of apartments around the campus,” said trustee David Redwine ’72, chair of the facilities and resources committee. “Personally, that is not what I want to see.” Redwine’s committee held a special meeting to discuss partnering with private developers to erect more dorms on campus. “ECU has grown faster than its facilities,” said trustees Chair David Brody.

“Public-private partnerships have been around for a while,” Redwine added. “It is something that the university needs to continue to look at and get a handle on.”

The General Assembly pays for construction of academic buildings at all UNC system schools, but each campus can work with private companies to build dorms and other types of buildings. Campuses use the revenue from renting the dorm rooms to pay for construction. Twelve of the 16 UNC campuses have built dorms this way.

The Board of Trustees also is considering the purchase of Campus Towers, a privately owned housing unit that abuts the campus. Campus Towers would add 343 beds to the campus. But the building is 25 years old and may not offer what students and parents have come to expect from quality student housing, officials said.

The expectation for more amenities and more space for each student should be a driving factor in the board’s future decisions, Chancellor Steve Ballard told trustees. Ballard wants ECU facilities to remain competitive with similar universities to continue attracting good students.

“A high percentage of our housing stock is not competitive,” Ballard said. “We have to decide if we want to keep renovating or build brand new, which is what I want to do.”

Trustees decided to devote time at future meetings for a closer look at how housing fits into the ECU master plan, how any new buildings will be paid for and operated and the potential purchase of Campus Towers.
—Greenville Daily Reflector


ECU’s now number two

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ast Carolina now has passed UNC Chapel Hill in undergraduate enrollment—and so has UNC Charlotte. Figures from all 16 campuses for the fall semester put ECU’s undergraduate enrollment at 21,424, Charlotte’s at 19,419 and Carolina’s at 17,981. N.C. State is the biggest, at 25,255.

But Carolina’s much larger graduate school enrollment, at 10,935, keeps it in overall second place, about a thousand students ahead of East Carolina. A campus task force is examining plans to increase ECU’s current graduate enrollment of 6,196.

East Carolina’s fall enrollment actually fell by 23 students in a planned move by the university to raise its admission standards as a way of attracting brighter students and lowering its dropout rate. The move obviously paid off; the average SAT score of incoming freshmen shot up 21 points, to 1046, the biggest point gain in the system.
Enrollment in all UNC campuses grew to 222,322 in 2009, up about 3,400 students.


News Briefs
Engineering program accredited: The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has accredited ECU’s fledgling engineering program. ABET is the recognized accreditor of college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering and technology. East Carolina’s bachelor of science in engineering program accepted its first freshman class in 2004 and had its first graduates in May 2008. The program now has more than 300 students.

Sleep center accredited: The Sleep Disorders and Research Center of the Brody School of Medicine received program accreditation from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. The accreditation process involved detailed inspection of the center’s facility and staff, including an evaluation of testing procedures, patient contacts and physician training.

Rebel wins award: The university’s student-run literary magazine, Rebel, won the Associated Collegiate Press Magazine Pacemaker award at the 88th annual ACP/College Media Advisers National College Media Convention held in Austin, Texas. Rebel won for general excellence in the category of four-year literary magazine. The winning issue was Rebel’s 51st edition, produced and published in fall and spring 2008–09. Chris Schwing was the edition’s editor. Paul Isom, director of the ECU Office of Student Media, and graphic design faculty member Craig Malmrose served as advisors. This is the ninth time ECU’s Rebel has won the Pacemaker award. It was the only finalist from North Carolina. “Being named one of the three best literary magazines in the nation is an amazing honor,” Isom said.

Advanced learning: ECU was picked as the home of the eastern chapter of the North Carolina Advanced Learning Technologies Association (NC ALTA). More than 50 faculty, staff and students at ECU’s Creative Technologies/Cybernetics Innovation group will form the core of the new chapter’s membership. NC ALTA is a nonprofit organization that provides a bridge between educators, legislators and technology developers for the use and creation of advanced learning technologies, which include innovative web-based approaches.

Too many Northern accents: East Carolina will have to pay a $260,000 penalty for admitting too many out-of-state freshmen. According to a January report to the UNC Board of Governors, nonresident residents made up 18.7 percent of this year’s freshmen class, or 738 out-of-state residents compared to the 3,218 in-state freshmen. That’s 26 too many. The fine was imposed because this was the second year in a row that ECU has exceeded the 18 percent threshold imposed on all UNC campuses. The money will be transferred to a state financial aid program. The top three states sending students to ECU are Virginia, Massachusetts and New Jersey.


Financial aid needs soar
Financial aid needs for East Carolina’s in-state undergraduate students soared from $98 million in 2008 to $135 million in 2009 and will worsen next year when a state scholarship program ends, a victim of the recession. But new data also show that the cost of attending a UNC campus remains low for a family living at the poverty line.

ECU, like most UNC campuses, reports seeing greater numbers of students needing financial aid since the recession began, and those students are qualifying for larger amounts of loans. Congress raised Pell grants this year from $4,731 to $5,300, which helped some, but the General Assembly’s decision to end the Educational Access Rewards North Carolina (EARN) Scholars initiative, which gave $4,000 grants to students in families with incomes up to twice the poverty level, operated for only one year. The program, championed by former Gov. Mike Easley to make college debt-free for the neediest students, gave 13,798 students $48 million in grants, according to N.C. State Education Assistance Authority data.

“It was a really good idea and a really good program (because) you didn’t have to take on a ton of debt,” said Julie Poorman, financial aid director at East Carolina, which had 575 EARN recipients last year. “Your parents could afford to send you to college.” All EARN grants end next year.

The federal stimulus package approved last year raised the maximum Pell Grant for low-income students by 17 percent to $5,550 next year, and the Obama administration is considering federal loan changes. The legislature also appropriated an additional $23 million to provide need-based aid to UNC-system students.

After all grants and other aid currently available, a student from a family of four with an adjusted gross income of $37,000 a year would need just $3,125 in loans to attend a typical UNC campus, according to a January report from the UNC Board of Governors. That cost rises to $5,341 a year for a student from a family with an adjusted gross annual income of $51,000 and to $12,441 a year for a student from a family earning $75,000 a year.


Year at ECU to cost $8,900
The $90 increase in tuition and $70 increase in student fees that East Carolina has proposed for next year would raise the cost of a year of college here to about $8,900, up 3.7 percent from this year. That’s below the UNC system average of a 5 percent increase and within the legislatively mandated figure of $200 or 8 percent, whichever is less.
However, UNC President Erskine Bowles is asking the General Assembly to consider an alternative plan that would give the 16 campuses more latitude in setting tuition rates. That plan would raise about the same amount of money over the next four years but would see tuition go up less for in-state undergraduates and more for out-of-state students.

Swiss foundation aids ECU
East Carolina’s Second Century Campaign has raised more than $160 million of its $200 million goal, thanks to the generous support of individuals, corporations and charitable organizations. One such donor is the Oak Foundation, based in Geneva, Switzerland, which in November announced a two-year grant of $304,699 to the College of Education’s Project STEPP (Supporting Transition and Education through Planning and Partnerships). STEPP offers academic, social and life-skills support to students with learning disabilities who have shown the potential to succeed in college, students who traditionally may not have access to college.

“Project STEPP is groundbreaking in its comprehensive approach to supporting students with learning differences to earn a college degree, beginning with identifying these students in high school and supporting them from the application process through graduation,” said Stacy Parker-Fisher, program officer of the Oak Foundation’s Learning Differences Programme. “Ultimately, these students are a critical resource to the NC economy as 21st century thinkers and problem solvers.”

Students who are accepted into Project STEPP receive guidance in their transition from high school to college and participate in courses such as self-advocacy, time management, study skills and note taking, in addition to their regular course work. STEPP participants receive support from a network of advisors, assistive technology specialists, tutors, counselors, instructors and other experts whose services are customized for each student.

“We are very grateful for the Oak Foundation’s support that recognizes the great work of Project STEPP,” said ECU Vice Chancellor for University Advancement Mickey Dowdy. “The Oak Foundation’s very generous investment will help Project STEPP to further develop its integrated and collaborative system of support, research short-term and long-term outcomes, and create a program that is not only successful at ECU but ultimately at other universities.”
The Oak Foundation commits its resources to address issues of global social and environmental concern, particularly those that have a major impact on the lives of the disadvantaged. The foundation’s Learning Differences program supports programs, research and activities that contribute to the body of knowledge and strategies available to students with learning differences.

The Oak Foundation has a special interest in programs that can be replicated in public school settings; use research- and evidence-based programs and strategies; support parent/guardian advocacy; provide services to students regardless of ability to pay; extend the knowledge and research base on the use of assistive technologies to support students with learning differences; provide information such as materials and web sites accessible to users with learning differences; extend the research to address learning needs not addressed by current programs and approaches; and provide strong methods for measuring outcomes.

Through its Second Century Campaign, East Carolina University seeks to raise critical resources necessary for many aspects of the university, including the success of programs such as Project STEPP. In these difficult economic times, private support for programs is more important than ever. Please consider supporting East Carolina—our university—through the Second Century Campaign.

For more information about Project STEPP, contact Project STEPP Director Dr. Sarah Williams at 252-328-1101 or by e-mail at williamssar@ecu.edu. For more information about how you can contribute to the Second Century Campaign, visit www.ecu.edu/devt or call 252-328-9550.

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uffin McNeill ’80, who grew up in Lumberton and starred at East Carolina as a four-year letterman, was named the university’s new head football coach, succeeding Skip Holtz, who resigned to take over the football program at the University of South Florida. McNeill, 51, comes to Greenville from Texas Tech, where he was an assistant coach for the last 10 seasons. He will earn a reported $5 million over five years.

McNeill began assembling a staff by hiring Texas Tech’s wide receivers coach, 26-year-old Lincoln Riley, as offensive coordinator, a clear sign the Pirates will be employing the same high-scoring offense as the Red Raiders. He also named Texas Tech cornerbacks coach Brian Mitchell as his defensive coordinator, putting former Tech assistants in all the top jobs.

“I’m honored, humbled, and excited to become your next football coach,” McNeill said when introduced at a Jan. 21 press conference. “This is a dream come true for an East Carolina boy. This is a my alma mater.”

“Coach McNeill’s interview revealed his strong commitment to doing things the right way and his love of coaching young men to grow in every part of their lives,” athletic director Terry Holland said.

McNeill vowed to make sure his players graduate. “Again, I’m witness to graduating while playing football,” he said. “It will be done. It will be expected here. If I can do it, everyone can do it.”

McNeill concluded his 24th overall season at the collegiate level as Texas Tech’s interim head coach by rallying the No. 21 Red Raiders to a 41-31 victory over Michigan State at the Valero Alamo Bowl Jan. 2 after the dismissal of Mike Leach. Seen as a father figure by Texas Tech players, McNeill was credited with promoting a family-type atmosphere and disciplined instruction on the field. He said he wants to assure ECU parents that he will treat “their most prized possessions” as he would treat his own.

McNeill began his coaching career as a defensive coach at Lumberton High School from 1980–84, before entering graduate school at Clemson University in 1985 and becoming a linebackers coach there. He got his master’s in counseling from Clemson in 1987. McNeill later spent three seasons on the staff at Appalachian State and returned to Boone after a year as defensive line coach here in 1992. He was defensive coordinator at Appalachian from 1993–96.

At ECU, McNeill was a three-year starter at defensive back and was the team captain for two seasons. He helped lead ECU to the Southern Conference Championship in 1976 and an Independence Bowl berth in. McNeill and his wife, Erlene, have two daughters, Renata and Olivia, the latter of whom is a sophomore at Appalachian State.

 

Fewer freshmen dropping out
East Carolina came within an eyelash of meeting its 2009 goal of raising its freshman-to-sophomore retention rate to 79 percent, ending the year with a 78.8 percent retention rate. That’s up from 75.9 percent in 2008. ECU will have to make a similar dramatic improvement to achieve its retention rate goal for 2010 of 81 percent, which is about the level that the UNC system now expects all campuses to achieve.

East Carolina also boosted its four-year graduation rate to 32.5 percent, up from 31 percent a year ago. Across all UNC campuses, 35.2 percent of students who enrolled in 2005 had graduated by 2009. UNC Chapel Hill is tops at 75.2 percent; UNC Wilmington has the second-best rate, at 42 percent.

The more typical way of evaluating graduation rates is after six years. ECU’s goal was to raise its six-year rate to 56.5 percent in 2009 and beat that by a fraction. The system-wide six-year graduation rate is 58.8 percent. By 2013 East Carolina hopes to graduate 60 percent of students within six years.

Increasing retention and graduation rates is a priority for UNC President Erskine Bowles. ECU Chancellor Steve Ballard is serving on a committee of six chancellors to recommend ways to do that. That panel is expected to issue its recommendations in March.

One of Bowles’ policies to improve both rates is to push more high school seniors toward community college, and then to transfer to a UNC campus after two years. At ECU, 68 percent of such students graduated two years after transferring. Most other campuses saw such high graduation rates among community college transfers.