Friday, April 10, 2009 The Behrend Beacon I 3
CAIVIPUS NEWS
Expansion
from front page
our admissions criteria lies in
high school GPA, while the rest
lies in SAT or ACT scores."
For Madigan, who has been
working at Behrend for 22
years, and as its Director of
Admissions for 18, those
admission criteria have been
the biggest change she has
seen at the college. "We've
grown up," she says. "We used
to be open admissions, really.
Kind of a 'backup school.' Now,
we have high admission stan
dards, high quality of pro
grams, students, and faculty."
Admission numbers become
increasingly difficult to pre
dict, though, due to personal
factors within first-year college
students. Dave Christiansen,
the Associate Dean at Behrend,
says that the "summer melt"
could throw off the numbers
significantly.
"Basically, we send out
acceptance letters to a certain
number of students"
Christainson says. "The num
ber of students who actually
act on that acceptance usually
goes down over summer. For
various reasons: they might get
their first tuition bill and
decide they do not have the
money for college, they might
head somewhere else."
With the recent state of the
economy, he says, financial
concerns will very likely drasti
cally increase the summer melt
before the fall semester. Even
that is speculation, making it
difficult to aim for a certain
number of students.
How has Behrend
gotten so big?
According to Mary-Ellen
Madigan, the reason for
Behrend's drastic growth over
the last decade or two has been
or' , PLAd:4 1"A g , 6
uwohipilkw.t ,
Behrenl alumnus recognized faracade • rformanc
By Ashley Rodrigo
staff writer
asrso74«/ psu.edu
"I know I did a lot during
school, but not the giant
accomplishments that would
draw the attention of this type
of award" said Julie Elkins,
recipient of the 2009 Ralph
Dorn Hetzel Memorial Award.
Elkins expressed her grati
tude for receiving the Hetzel
award. "On one hand, the
knowledge and experience
that I gained, plus achieving
the goals I set for myself, made
all the time and effort entirely
worthwhile. On the other
hand, it is a tremendous honor
to be recognized, and it is real
ly nice to know that others
thought I was on the right
track and making a differ
ence," Elkins said.
The Schreyer Honors
College student holds a dual
degree in political science and
Warrant
from front page
served at the warehouse. State
police and liquor control offi
cers cited 82 individuals at the
party for underage drinking.
Additionally, 30 gallons of beer,
tap equipment, six beer kegs
and $395 were seized.
According to a receipt of
seized property attached to the
warrant, the confiscated items
Breach
from front page
computer was only compro
mised for a matter of three
hours. The University has
taken a cautionary stance
involving the matter despite a
lack of evidence suggesting
any Social Security numbers
were released.
On Saturday, University
Park mailed letters to each
alumnus whose information
due to the increased interest in
academics at the university.
"With the creation of the
REDC," she says, "we saw a
jump in admissions. When
they built Senat, too, we saw a
bigger ability to grow without
raising incoming criteria."
The growth of campus is par
tially an interesting phenome
non. Behrend is only permitted
to "recruit" students out of
high school in the Erie area -
including only four or five
counties nearest to Behrend.
That' rules out being able to
recruit as heavily in places like
Pittsburgh.
So, what has caused so many
students to have an interest in
the Erie commonwealth cam
pus?
"A lot of our growth is helped
by alumni," Madigan says. "We
have a lot of alumni out there
that not only advertise for
Behrend by word of mouth, but
by their actions. A lot of them
are very successful, and it
speaks a lot for the college."
Also, she says, the continuity
of leadership at Behrend sets it
apart from other common
wealth campuses. The strate
gic vision of administrators has
provided the University with a
common goal of expansion,
and the Admissions
Department has been able to
follow that.
As with any discussion of
growth, the obvious question
remains, though: how far does
the school plan to go?
Behrend: The next
University Park?
Forty years from now, alum
ni will return and view a com
pletely different university
than what they remember in
the 2000 s. What, though, will
they see? A campus of tens of
thousands of students?
psychology, along with a 3.97
cumulative grade point aver
age. Additionally, Elkins was a
receiver of an Academic
Excellence Scholarship and
Chancellor's Scholarship.
Finishing up her college edu
cation, Elkins wrote an honors
thesis entitled "Defibrillating
the Freshwater Heart of Africa:
The Plight of Lake Victorio and
Responses to the Local,
National and International
Levels" and accomplished a
research projected titled
"Democratic Engagement: The
Influence of Relationships and
Participations." She was con
stantly involved with her
school, from academics to
community service.
Elkins was a Center for
Strategic and International
Studies Global Strategy
Institute intern. In addition,
she held other job positions
such as a peer writing tutor,
campus tour guide and teach-
belonged to Nicholas Mahoney
and Glenn Palmer, both
Behrend students.
According to the document,
12 officers took part in the
raid: three troopers, two ser
geants, six liquor enforcement
officers, and one supervisor.
No other information was
available as of press time. The
investigation is ongoing.
was compromised. The letters
contained instructions on noti
fying credit-reporting agencies
about the situation. The alumni
will then have to place an ini
tial fraud alert on their file,
which will let creditors and
other agencies know that they
are a potential victim of identi
ty theft. In some cases, this
could decrease their chances
of receiving credit.
e.OO .
Freshmen Campus Choice
1,2 ,, ..... 1 a-ti
1 800 1 ,:
I 639 ' Ni s 1 6:4
1 60G
...a: i5l
1 , t
-.4%%%. 1.1
1,41. , 1.4111
1 2i6
1 20C,
.....o ."' '4
1 I ,5
I , '3,
1 1,000
'... 06 "'
----ft., ) .1.11......,2:~ww.'' .10.....40,0 !,1imm....,
,4m......1108 `i
........ilk 8-9
.0.000 0111,71
..''-..41.%....
~.,
• r,.......... / ', 9
...a... 4F ' P " '
81 , 0
~•••
4,70 0...41"1".......ir c , ......,„*, ~...e....e., I ,...mosmilrbf,7
..... ...dr 56'
11 ,
600
...00•A U . 4 a ...........*. 9
-*-Total Freshmen Enrolled
40
41 ^ Behrend First Choice- Applied
-ikr- Behrend First Choice - Enrolled
.2N
:994 169`, 1997 1 , 198 2
,
s
; /1" : A 10 , ', 2(:'8
According to Dave
Christiansen, the answer is
likely a no.
"We can't expand up to ten,
fifteen thousand unless the
University, supports that." he
says. "And I really don't see
that happening."
Space concerns, he says, will
limit Behrend's expansion as
far as admissions go. "Housing
always has affected admission
yields," he says. "As beds
increase, the yield of students
increases. But it goes beyond
housing. Most of our classes
are pretty close to one hundred
percent full, too."
More than that, most admin
istrators at Behrend express a
desire to stay with the charac
teristics that make students
stay at the college for four
years. "We don't want to lose
quality," Madigan says. "We
want to offer students the abil
ity to study at a small college,
with classes taught by faculty.
We don't want to reduce the
quality of our faculty, or the
ing assistant. Elkins exhibited
leadership skills as both treas
urer and vice president of
Behrend's College
Republicans, and as the presi
dent of the Psychology club
and Omicron Delta Kappa
Honor Society.
Community service, being
one of the requirements for the
Hetzel Award, has also been a
big part of Elkins college
career. She has volunteered as
a You "Can" Recycle
Aluminum Can Drive coordi
nator, English as a Second
Language student visit coordi
nator, and an English tutor for
recent immigrants. Also, she
was a V0.1.C.E. student visit
leader as well as a Lake Erie
Coastal Cleanup volunteer.
Being such an active student,
Elkins had to prioritize her
time in order to manage all of
her activities while maintain
ing top grades. "Of course, it
wasn't the easy route, and at
12 officers took part in the raid:
three troopers, two sergeants, six
liquor enforcement officers, and
one supervisor.
"Its important to note that it is a
potential breach. We've found no
evidence that suggests that Social
Security numbers actually left the
computer, or were received by
any other third party."
campus, because by doing so
we reduce the quality of our
students."
Behrend "Loyalty"
Perhaps the most interesting
statistic over the past decade
has been the rise in both stu
dents who are applying to
Behrend as a first-choice cam
pus, and students who choose
to stay at Behrend rather than
transfer to University Park.
Since 1994, there has been
over a 50 percent increase in
students who marked Behrend
as their first-choice campus
over University Park on appli
cations. In the same span of
time, there has been an 82 per
cent jump in how many of
those "first-choice" students
are admitted.
According to admissions
data, 870 students who marked
the Erie campus as their first
choice were enrolled last year.
This group of students
times it was overwhelm
stressful. Every sequen
semester, I would think, `thi
my worst semester ever, —
Elkins. However, she kept
and continued to work har(
wouldn't accept failure as
option, though. I pus'
myself to keep going, and
I can look back and be prt
that I made it through with,
losing sight of my goa
declared Elkins.
Elkins and her incredi
award will hopefully ins
many students to achieve
same goals. As an intelli,
and well-rounded student,
Elkins revealed, "To me, the
most important thing is to fig
ure out your goals and decide
your priorities. Set ambitious
goals; don't sell yourself short.
You have to be willing to try
new things, to commit, and to
push yourself to keep going
even when things are hard."
State police warrant
Bill Gonda
Director of marketing communication
accounts for a whopping three
fourths of the entire freshman
class.
The results point to Behrend
quickly shifting away from a
"branch" or "hack-up" campus,
and indicate that the college is
a sought-after destination by a
majority of their students.
Also rising is the amount of
students who are choosing to
stay at Behrend for four years
rather than transfering to
University Park after their sec
ond year.
"Right now, we're at about
twenty-five percent for stu
dents who choose to transfer,"
says Christiansen. "You can
compare that to about fifty or
sixty percent that transfer out
of other commonwealth cam
puses."
An interesting comparison,
he adds, is to Behrend itself a
decade or two ago, the college
saw opposite statistics, with
two-thirds of its students trans
ferring to University Park.
With such obvious trends, it
Contributed photo
Julie Elkins
JEREMY KORNATK The Behrend Beacon
is easy to see that Madigan's
assessment of Behrend having
"Grown up" is more precise
than most realize. Surely, some
of the increased student inter
est in the campus is due to
expansion within buildings
like the REDC, Senat, or even
other improvements currently
taking place.
Most faculty at the school,
though, will smile and refer to
the school's name as an adjec
tive in describing why students
stay. "We want to stay
Behrend," most administrators
will say.
Madigan, in her two decades
in the Admissions Department,
knows what that means.
"We used to be a two-year
college. Mainly commuters,
technical students," she says.
"Now, we're a full-fledged col
lege. We offer a successful,
high quality program here that
clearly sets Behrend apart."
information.