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USA Weekend
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 1:29 PM

Higher enrollment just the beginning for OU

By JODIE GARCIA, Herald Staff Writer

Bright spots of increased enrollment, new leaders and programs are shining upon local higher education institutions.

Ottawa University reported a more than 13-percent increase in its enrollment for 2008 — 554 students compared to 487 students.

Of those, 245 were new degree-seeking students compared to 221 last year. That represents a new student increase of 10.85 percent over the previous year and the most new students in a decade.

In October, the university inaugurated its 21st president, Kevin Eichner.

Eichner, an OU alumnus, succeeded Fred Zook, who had been serving as interim president since August 2007.

In 2009 and beyond, OU will focus on Vision 2020, Eichner said in his inaugural address. The plan is intended to group initiatives into four, three-year planning phases to the year 2020.

“I believe very strongly that strategic planning, when done properly, is the most powerful device for moving an organization from wherever it is today to some good and new place in the future,” Eichner said in an interview in the university’s Annual Report.

Some of the plans include increasing enrollment and the university’s endowment.

“What I would like people to know is that it’s Ottawa’s time,” Eichner said. “It’s time for Ottawa University to step up to a whole different level of effectiveness — whether it’s in terms of the student experience, which I would put first; whether it’s in resource generation and financial management; whether it’s in the capabilities and qualities and the characteristics of our people; whether it’s in the degree to which we’re advancing the cause of Christian higher education on this earth...

“We are certainly aspiring to better and different outcomes than we’ve had in the past, and because of that, we’re all going to have to change our behavior... and if the right people with the right degree of commitment and resources will help us do that,then I don’t see any reason why we can’t achieve Vision 2020.”

For the full interview and full text of the Annual Report, visit OU’s Web site at www.ottawa.edu.

Notable accomplishments in 2008 for Neosho County Community College included expanding allied health programs into high schools for dual credit and the start of a mobile lab for those high school students, Dale Ernst, dean of the Ottawa campus, said.

The lab — a “hospital room on wheels” — provides training for students in the allied health programs, Ernst said.

The lab was funded with a national grant awarded to the college in 2007. Neosho beat out more than 70 applicants to win a share of $3 million from the U.S. Department of Labor to address area long-term care services.

“That was nice national recognition,” Ernst said.

He said challenges in the future include continuing to deal with commuters and effects of high fuel costs, as well as state financing and associated challenges.

He said the college remains focused on working with partners in building a community center, which, among other things, would house the college.

Ernst said the college provides a great value in terms of its tuition and types of programs offered, and that’s a continued goal for the future.

“Overall, we’re going in the right direction,” he said. “I think we’re doing great.”



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