By President M. Duane Nells in response to the article “Flagship or land-grant?” in the March 29 publication of The Argonaut:
Your March 29 article, “Flagship or land-grant?” missed some important points that merit correction.
First, enrollment at the University of Idaho has been growing. What’s important is to make sure we’re using the right measurement. Our Vision 2020 goal was never articulated as a “Moscow-only” policy, nor was it simply my goal. It was one developed in conjunction with university leadership and enrollment management. As a goal for enrollment of all types across the university, it is an achievable target. When counting all students, we had 13,081 students as of Oct. 15 last year. That number is different than the new state board measure that didn’t included all of our students to be counted. However, it is up significantly from the fall 2008 enrollment of 11,791.
We gain regardless of whether those students physically attend here, at one of our centers or even virtually via distance learning. Our aim is to increase enrollment numbers to sustainable levels. This is consistent with many successful universities nationally who have set such goals and have been seeing growth even during the recent economic downturn. It also is consistent with the 60 percent goals of the Idaho State Board of Education, who advocates for 60 percent of Idahoans between 25 and 34 years of age to have at least a two-year degree or better by 2020.
Second, the opening argument about flagship and land-grant universities not being compatible is specious. Though it’s true that not all land-grant universities are flagships, the truth is that many are. Further, any perceived conflict has nothing to do with enrollment success. If anything, both should benefit enrollment efforts.
The College Board defines flagship universities as “the best-known institutions in the state, generally the first to be established, and frequently the largest and most selective, as well as the most research-intensive public universities.” In their list of state flagship universities (which includes the University of Idaho), 32 have all or part of their state’s land-grant mission.
Thus, if we work together, we can use our status as the leading university in the state, in part because of our land-grant status, to grow our enrollment across-the-board to 16,000 by 2020.
This is a great university whose impact on our state needs to continue to grow as this institution contributes to the state’s economic development and quality of life.