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VP for Enrollment Roger Thompson gives faculty credit for application surge

Not really. He credits the UO administration, for doing a good job communicating about academic strengths. OPB here:

“This is an exciting milestone for us,” said Roger Thompson, UO’s vice president for student services and enrollment management, “to move from where we were 10 years ago with 18,000 applications all the way to 32,700 basically.” …

At UO, Thompson said the institution’s record number of applicants is not necessarily surprising, even during the pandemic, given the university’s recent trend of increasing application numbers.

“I think we’ve done a good job of communicating the academic strength, the quality of our programs,” he said.

Of course what President Schill and our Board of Trustees believe, as measured by who they are willing to give raises too, is that UO’s success depends on paying Duck AD Rob Mullens and coaches Mario Cristobal and Dana Altman shit-tons of money.

9 Comments

  1. It's Classified. 02/10/2021

    Or possibly… students took a gap year, and enrolling in hopes that the pandemic will be over, and classes will be in person? When is the refund deadline?

    • honest Uncle Bernie 02/14/2021

      Seems to me Roger was pretty gracious toward academics while taking some personal administrative credit for success? Is he supposed to insist that he had no part in it?

  2. Sage 02/10/2021

    Football is big part of this. Kids want to be a part of a winning school. Thank you Rob Mullen’s and Coach Cristobal. Go Ducks!

    • uomatters Post author | 02/10/2021

      The empirical evidence for your claim is mixed at best:
      .
      10/30/2016: First it was the survey revealing that students cared more about UO’s Urban Farm Program than big-time college sports. Now, according to sports reporter Kenny Jacoby in the Daily Emerald and his report on the brief student turnout for the Arizona State game, the list of things our students prefer to watching the Ducks has grown to include a nap, Halloween, and yes, homework:
      .
      Oregon was winning 30-22 when masses of students started heading for the exits. I was curious why they chose this point in the game to leave, with the Ducks on the verge of their first win since Sept. 10. So I went down to the concourse level, stood at the top of the stairs above the South Gate and asked departing students why they were leaving. Here are some of their responses:
      .
      “I’m really, really high, and I want to lie down,” the first student said.

      “It’s Halloween weekend,” said another.

      “We’re tired from last night. We’re trying to nap and recover before going out to tonight. I just turned 21.”

      “We’re tired. I have homework to do.”
      .
      From https://uomatters.com/2016/10/uo-students-just-not-that-into-the-big-time-duck-stuff.html
      .
      And last week UO’s student gov’t voted to stop paying the athletic department $1.7M for “free” tickets.
      .
      So maybe it’s time to stop calling our students “kids”?

    • charlie 02/16/2021

      Uh huh…,

    • ScienceDuck 02/16/2021

      Sage carefully ignores that OSU applications are up 30% this year, despite a 2-5 football record. When applications are up at UO, OSU and schools all over the country and someone decides that at UO, it must be because of football, maybe they need to examine why they are rushing their conclusion?

  3. Dog 02/10/2021

    Dude,

    So maybe it’s time to stop calling our students “kids”?

    we all know that they should be called paying customers …

    • Quint 02/15/2021

      In the big administrative picture, they are demographic and revenue targets.

      In my classes right now, on zoom, they are hard working, imaginative young people who crave companions and friendships and serious conversation. They are wary of speaking too freely, uncertain of themselves, but they are more than eager to talk through some serious subject matter when I create the right habitat for it. I hope that I am up to the challenge.

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