Belmont addresses ‘growing pains’
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ISSUE: 11/29/07 > News > Belmont addresses ‘growing pains’
Belmont is facing the pressures of rapid growth, especially when it comes to academic and residential space, but the university has plans to continue to better the student experience.
Having passed the fall 2007 goal of 4,000 students by more than 600, Belmont is now projecting 5,000 students by 2010, said Dr. Dan McAlexander, university provost. While the school is growing, it is also increasing in selectivity with the admissions rate dropping from 97 to 63 percent since last year.
“No one’s saying that this growth is going to be massive and forever. It isn’t,” McAlexander said. “We’re not going to become a large university, but we’re quite comfortable being a small to midsize one.”
While McAlexander wouldn’t specifically address the pressures of growth, he did explain some of the university’s plans to deal with it: constructing a new quad like the one in the one bordered by Circle Drive and hiring more faculty members.
“What we envision with the move of our outdoor athletic activities, especially with the movement of the soccer field to Rose Park, is a new quad,” McAlexander said, meaning the new quad will be where the current soccer field is.
Although it will probably be a 10- to 15-year process, work has already begun with a new residence hall behind Hail. The new quad will also include the second phase of Inman Health College of Health Sciences and Nursing, two more residence halls in addition to the one under construction, and more academic buildings, McAlexander said.
The additional residence halls will help meet the rising demand for on-campus housing by providing about 900 spaces for freshmen in the center of campus and opening up spaces in other residence halls including Kennedy and Thrailkill for upperclassmen.
“What that allows us to do is create six freshmen communities all at the heart of campus,” McAlexander said. “Our whole point is to help people really acclimate to college.”
Amy Dunning, 18, a freshman Christian-ethics major and campus resident, lives in Kennedy Hall, away from the quad.
When she and her friends from Kennedy walk through the quad, they feel disconnected from other freshmen. “There are freshmen that live in Heron and Pembroke that I’ve never seen,” she said.
If Belmont had a freshman-centered community, it would be easier to get to know other freshmen, Dunning said.
When she moved in, most of the upperclassmen around her already had friends. While she got to meet them, it would’ve been different moving into a community where everyone else was looking for new friends, Dunning said.
The new residence halls will be back-to-back with Heron, Pembroke and Hail halls. Academic buildings will face these new halls across the quad, much like the Sam Wilson School of Music and the Massey Performing Arts Center, McAlexander said. The exact number of buildings hasn’t been determined.
The timeline for the academic buildings depends on raising money, especially donations. “It depends on how many friends we’re able to make and how many of our friends decide to step forward and help us,” McAlexander said. “We don’t like to use tuition dollars to build buildings.”
The specific purpose of each building also depends on donations. If a donor specifies a certain school, then the building that donor funds will be set aside for that school, McAlexander said.
One of the new buildings, which the university expects to start building in fall of 2008, will be for the School of Pharmacy. Another is phase two of Inman, the purpose of which hasn’t been determined.
One possibility for this space is a relocation and expansion of the school of sciences. “Hitch is under pressure with size and the number of students,” McAlexander said.
Robert Grammer, associate dean of the school of sciences and chair of the biology department, said Hitch is, in fact, facing the pressures of university growth. “We’re busting out the seams.”
With lab classrooms only holding 24 students, the growing student population has increased the number of biology classes, he said. Some classes have doubled and tripled in size; one has quadrupled.
Growth has provided money for lab equipment and undergraduate research, but now the school is “bumping up against facilities,” Grammer said. “I couldn’t hire another faculty member in biology if I wanted one; there isn’t enough space,” he said. “The restrooms are about the only thing that’s left.”
While there isn’t space for new biology faculty, the university is hiring new faculty to maintain a small student-to-teacher ratio. The ratio has gone up to 13:1 since the 9:1 ratio in 2000, McAlexander said.
Sue Trout, assistant professor of English, said the student-teacher ratio plays an important role in the English department. “You should never have a more than 20 students in a writing class, ever.”
Even though Belmont is growing, the English department is incredibly conscientious of these ratios, she said. “As long as there is a continued emphasis on quality instruction and effective student-to-teacher ratios, I think we’re going to be fine.”
But, that quality depends on the hiring of new faculty, Trout said.
Belmont is aware of the need for more teachers, and has 16 new faculty positions for next year in addition to the 13 faculty members added this past year.
Because more students are attending the university, there are more tuition dollars, and Belmont has been able to “pay teachers more and more,” McAlexander said. The university is now able to hire more teachers and to hold onto the ones it has, he said.
