WSU-LC numbers on rise

CELINA — Wright State University – Lake Campus has seen increased enrollment in its last seven years in a time where most regional campuses in the state have noticed the opposite trend.

Enrollment at the Lake Campus is up 53.3% since the 2014 school year.

From 2018 to 2019, the Lake Campus’ enrollment increased 8.7% and from last year to the 2020 fall semester, the school has seen another 5% increase. Since 2014, enrollment has gone up every year while most schools in the state have been trending downward.

The University of Cincinnati – Clermont has seen the second

biggest enrollment increase of 35.9% since 2014.

“You can see there’s a 7.5% decrease over the last 10 years at regional campuses,” said Lake Campus Dean Dan Krane. “In the face of all that, the Lake Campus is doing really well.

“I don’t know how you can twist these numbers around to tell you anything but a really happy story.”

Krane attributes the growth of the college to the school’s ability to recognize community needs and address them.

“I think there are a number of things that are responsible for the Lake Campus doing so well,” said Krane. “At the heart of it all, is the fact that going back to Dean (James) Sayer and Dean (Bonnie) Mathies, the Lake Campus has done an exceptionally good job of identifying and addressing the needs of the community that it serves. That has, in turn, caused the Lake Campus to develop programs that are extremely popular with the community and our students.”

The Lake Campus offers full-program nursing, education and engineering majors in addition to several others.

“I’m thinking specifically about our nursing program, which is growing like gangbusters,” said Krane. “I’m thinking about our education program, which is also busting at the seams. Last but certainly not least, is our engineering programs.

“We’re the only regional campus that has a four-year degree in engineering that’s recognized by the Ohio Department of Higher Education. That is a direct response to what the Lake Campus has recognized as a need of the community. The community has responded and students have come because they, too, recognized that it’s a need.”

While the Lake Campus does function as a full campus, the school was on the forefront of recognizing that remote instruction was a key factor to higher learning. Amidst the current pandemic, 85% of classes are being conducted online.

“Going back at least six or seven years, the Lake Campus has really been on the leading edge of doing remote instruction and I think regional campuses in general have been doing better at that than main campuses, where there’s much more of a focus on the residential community,” said Krane. “I think the Lake Campus had an advantage and it had already gone far down the path in delivering high quality instruction in a remote sort of mode.”

Krane mentioned that the Lake Campus has students from around the area that have transferred from schools in Alabama, California and Ohio State because they recognized that their classes were all online anyway and could save money by attending the Lake Campus.

As far as the current school year, Krane said he hasn’t heard any complaints.

“The faculty are troopers and they’ve adapted,” he said. “The staff are working at full-capacity, most of them remotely but many are on campus now. The students — I can’t get over how fastidious, how careful they’ve been in terms of doing the things that we’re asking them to do to keep a safe environment. Mask wearing is not an issue. We don’t have to tell people to put them on.”

The Lake Campus has not had a positive COVID test yet this semester.

Wright State has released numbers for the five weeks that school has been in session and there have been zero confirmed cases while the main campus in Dayton has had 14 students test positive.

“That’s a tough trend to buck, but our students seem to be doing a phenomenally good job,” said Krane.