Just curious ... at this point, what are the benefits to VU private? I bring it up since many of the woes stem from a lack of funding, right?
As enrollment continues dwindling, programs are canceled, layoffs ensue, and so forth - the university seems to lack an identity. What is Valpo, in 2023, known as and known for?
I attended Valpo because of the following:
A) Wanting to be known as a "Division 1" athlete. I chose Valpo over D2 & D3 programs. At the time, I thought this distinction would make a tangible difference in my life. In short, I ended up quitting.
B) Wanting to go to Valpo Law School (no longer an option)
C) Wanting to be part of what I thought was a socially conservative-leaning institution.
D) Location. Not only would I be able to attend a school close to home, but that would mean I could be an active alumnus and be proud of the school I attended.
Since graduating from VU, I have attended public post-grad institutions. When I return, the things that made Valpo special aren't there. At the time, I never thought that would be a possibility 15-20 years later. But, alas, I'm disinterested.
Just curious what the benefits are, at this point, of being a private institution. Not that there's anything that can be done about it at this point. I suppose I'm just curious how Valpo basketball fits into the future of this institution. I remain hopeful because of the new administration.
But ... then I think about things like What's Valpo known for? What's "the thing" now? The Drew days are over. The Law School is gone. Most of the faculty I had are no longer there. The mascot changed, so my gear isn't applicable any longer. You get the point.
Definitely no longer a party school..
I suspect from your post that faith was not part of your decision to attend Valpo. That's fine. However it is a part of many students decision whether or not they wear their religion on their sleeve. So there's that, coupled with small classes taught by high level faculty in a college town not known (in the last 40 years) for party time. So perhaps it has drawn more serious students, in many cases able to have equipment available that isn't found at many smaller institutions--like the Doppler radar, the Solar energy facility, cadaver lab, it's own radio and tv station etc, and, D1 athletics.
Faith was part of my decision but why not both? I like my Lutheran Holy Water(beer)
You have gone to the heart of the matter...truly to the "heart." One can write vanilla strategic plan documents all day long with your "head." But where is the real heartbeat of the school now that connects to its prime alumni? My sense is that many of the 70s-80s alumni (large enrollment years) view themselves as conservative politically and to some degree view themselves conservative in religious terms. I don't know if "many" is an actual majority, but many were pragmatic 80s kids studied business, engineering, and beer. In a lot of cases, they were kids of older alumni. 60% were greek. They rode frat and sorority parade floats down Lincolnway to the square. And other aspects of VU also resembled Faber College. VU graduated over 500 kids per year in that mold.
Does the current faculty, student population, and campus culture align with those alumni? Heckler's veganism and intense wokeness felt out of step with the beer and brats memories.
I chose Valpo because of Option A, with academics being a close second. Vu72, you know what I will say about tying your enrollment wishes to a population metric that is steadily in decline :)
I went to Valpo because of scholarship money, engineering and university size. I was also a proud member of the engineering and beer crowd which worked hard and played hard. Why Valpo became stringent on alcohol and became parental in nature is beyond me.
Student life has been on back burner for a while at the School / within the community
VU 72 - interestingly enough - faith was a significant part of why I opted to attend the school. I tried characterizing this in a secular sense by referencing social conservatism. That said, my time there led to a rather substantive questioning of my faith as I had several professors push back on my views. At the time, this opposition (surprising to me) led to rather radical changes in my stances. I look back and am beyond thankful God brought me out of this season of my life and pointed me toward fully committing as a Christ follower.
I only bring this up in reference to your inquiry but glad you asked :)
My identity is not tied to any institution or athletic program. I'm thankful for that because these things are fleeting. I do hope, however, that VU - for its own sake - finds its "heartbeat," ... whatever that may be ... and sticks to it. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. As pointed out by others, the pulse of this university beats on its own. Tag lines, initiatives, slogans, marketing schematics, etc., may try and paint a given portrait of what the university wants others to see it as, but such matters are merely surface-level.
Selfishly, I'd hate to refer to my alma mater as others do when explaining what happened to St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer. When it closed its doors in 2017, it was down to ~1,100 students.
What Valpo was, is, and could / would / should be = the impetus of the question(s) at hand.
Total enrollment is 2964 as of 2022. Down ~600 from 2019. Down over ~1,580 from 2014 (~34.77%). Granted, the law school is a good chunk of that but still ... just sad.
What does (or should) Valpo stand for? Great teaching by people who care deeply for students. The faculty at Valpo were this way when I attended and the faculty now (different faculty) are the same way. Frankly, I have been surprised for many years that Valpo doesn't market this to the hilt. Valpo can promote a unique advantage for some students...not "A" students, but "B" students with a lot of potential. For students who want to study engineering, business, nursing, PT, etc., Valpo can offer a path to raise their abilities via support, caring, excellent teaching, etc.
Separately, I should note that I shared some of those beers with usc4valpo when I attended Valpo.
I'm going do some thinking out loud here that echoes some of the things I've said over there. It starts with what Valpo is and isn't:
-It values quality undergraduate education, which a lot of universities don't;
-It opens doors for those who work hard -- someone can take a step or two up a ladder with VU;
-It's neither evangelical nor woke, even though at times it may display elements of both;
-It leans right but has more room for different points of view than back in my day (late 70s/early 80s);
-It's neither a liberal arts college nor a professional/technical college;
-It's sorta suburban, but situated between the cornfields, the rust belt, and Chicago;
-It's selective but not elite;
-It's residential, even if many of the dorms kinda suck;
-It's neither a small college nor a large university;
-It's Christian, leaning Lutheran, but much less Synod than it used to be;
-It takes big picture ideas and faith seriously;
-It's small town/small city America, with a lot more going on than years ago, but not quite a classic college town.
One might say it lacks a strong identity, but I think they're wrong. I think the identity may be there, but the school won't embrace it.
I've posted elsewhere that Valpo should pitch itself as a place that embraces both values (liberal arts) and vocation (professional training). It means that both the larger lessons and critical thinking skills developed by the liberal arts and the vocational skills and experience that come with professional training are worth embracing in tandem, not in opposition. The dual focus gives people room to discover themselves personally and vocationally. It avoids having the liberal arts and the professions unnecessarily squaring off against each other. It avoids tiresome, unwinnable arguments over politics and identity. It creates a bigger tent without sacrificing the school's traditional values and core.
This values and vocation theme requires a school that can maintain that precarious balance, and in its own way, VU has been doing that for decades. So it's about building on a strength that has never been fully appreciated.
That's my two cents. Forgive me for my rhetorical excesses.
I never understood all the paranoia over social drinking and why Valpo got so stringent about it. I also enjoyed those times with vu84v2.
David81, your comments were outstanding. Times change but Valpo needs to figure out their identity. Perhaps a balance or synergy between different beliefs would help - my feel is that Valpo's loudest voices are on the woke side.
David81 - I would characterize the religious side a bit differently. Valpo has strong religious programs for those who wish to use those programs, but students are free not to be involved and welcomes people from all faiths or people who follow no faith. I care deeply for Valpo, but have never aligned with its religious principles.
It seems some loosening up on alcohol is occurring with the new bar on campus, tailgating areas and beer at sports games. I was definitely cracking down on alcohol while I was there with lots of students getting arrested and parties getting busted. I am unsure what the relationship to alcohol is now though in regards to enforcement. I do know that in general alcohol enforcement goes up and down on all campus and usually related to how people are reacting to greek life. When I was t here we were coming out of the 90s which had seen the increase in hard alcohol binge drinking and there was an attempt to stop some of the more active party times such as spring weekend (does that even exist now?). I also feel like we are in another down turn on greek life based on some news reports i've seen from bigger schools so maybe that is affected valpo as well?
Quote from: David81 on February 21, 2023, 11:25:59 PMThis values and vocation theme requires a school that can maintain that precarious balance, and in its own way, VU has been doing that for decades. So it's about building on a strength that has never been fully appreciated.
Well said. Don't know if any of our members have seen the short videos Valpo has produced, but here are two, featuring athletes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiONO0SNJgo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGr_Bbf3l3A
Quote from: usc4valpo on February 22, 2023, 05:35:30 AM
I never understood all the paranoia over social drinking and why Valpo got so stringent about it. I also enjoyed those times with vu84v2.
David81, your comments were outstanding. Times change but Valpo needs to figure out their identity. Perhaps a balance or synergy between different beliefs would help - my feel is that Valpo's loudest voices are on the woke side.
usc4valpo, I hear you on the woke stuff, because those voices are, well, comparatively unusual for Valpo, but please hear me out on this.
Those most voices might not seem so loud on a campus with a more liberal orientation. However, they're going to stand out at VU. I have long been pro-diversity and pro-civil rights. Though even I have some disagreements with what I'd call a hard woke culture, I understand where the voices are coming from. And, generically speaking, those who perceive themselves as being in a distinct minority (on any part of a social/political spectrum) may well feel a need to be more performative.
I've said this before, but if anyone thinks that those woke voices are suddenly going to turn VU into an Oberlin or a Grinnell or a Macalester, well, that's not going to happen. VU has its center of gravity, and even if it's pushed slightly left, it will remain a moderate to conservative institution in its overall outlook. That said, the current generation of college-age kids is much more receptive to messages of inclusion and openness, and it has been encouraged to speak its mind. So the decibel levels from that end will get loud at times.
We are in an age where the extremes are getting more attention than more moderate points of view. I think we need to work harder on finding common ground where it exists.
Thanks David81 - I just want to find out the morons promoting and pushing the new mascots.
I think USC4Valpo is closer to the reality of today's campus. Yes, I also went to Valpo in the 70s-80s and as I mentioned it had a conservative bent in the students.
Fast forward to 2020 or so and a Woke student council president gets a hearing with the board to capitulate to the woke movment.. The board either is also "woke" or it was docile enough to agree. In either case that one "inmate ran the assylum." She should have been thanked politely and sent back to class.
Quote from: valpo22 on February 22, 2023, 10:48:52 AMI'm just noting that the Lutheran identity is probably totally contradictory and confusing to the average student. Most are pretty allergic to any heavy handed ideology
Not sure where your concern about "heavy handed ideology" comes from. Valpo requires two semesters of theology. I don't think there is even one class on Lutheranism.
Here is part of what is published on the Chapel webpage. Doesn't sound heavy handed to me.
Since 1925, when Lutheran clergy and laity arranged to purchase the University, Valpo has enjoyed a long and positive relationship with many congregations, church workers, and laity of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. In these latter years, the University is also grateful for its increasing opportunity for collaboration and conversation with congregations, schools and denominational officials of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The University continues to seek out and treasure a broad range of relationship and partnerships with numerous Lutheran organizations, agencies, institutions, and schools, not only within the community of Northwest Indiana but throughout the U.S. and beyond. Distinguished by its Lutheran heritage of scholarship, freedom, and faith, the dreams of these modern founders continue to be fulfilled in the new chapters of Valparaiso University history.
As one crosses the campus, several examples of this intersection between faith and life can be discovered. From the engineers designing irrigation systems for remote African villages to nurses exploring elder care, from educators preparing for the classroom to business students assisting local businesses with ethical decisions, from artists preparing for service to the church to worship gatherings, this connection between daily life and faith radiates throughout the campus community.
I've gone back and forth as to whether or not I wanted to post here. As many of you know, I wear a lot of hats around Valpo. Alum. Professor. Reporter. Rarely do they ever combine and it's always been easy for me to separate those roles in my life.
Today I'll come at this post as an alum, and then as a professor. I'll attempt David81's bullet points. (TL:DR: subscribe to TheVictoryBell.com)
-I went to Lutheran schools from PreK-12, not because I'm Lutheran, but because the Milwaukee Public Schools weren't great. My divorced parents wanted to give me some stability in education.
-Because I went to Lutheran schools, I got into Valpo's database early. I had a Valparaiso pennant in my room from the time I was in fifth grade. I didn't know where the school was or really know anything substantial about it, but I liked the color scheme.
-When it came time to picking a school, I went to Concordia Mequon. Not because I was Lutheran, but because they gave me $10,000 off tuition because I told them I'd become a Lutheran High School History teacher.
-The truth is I went to a Methodist church when I was at my Dad's house and occasionally a Lutheran church when I was at my Mom's house. I always felt much more comfortable in the Methodist church. My dad then became a methodist pastor when I was 19. He's since become a UCC pastor.
-Concordia wasn't the right place for me. It was way too Lutheran. There were crosses and Missouri Synod flags in every classroom. It felt like every classroom discussion had to revolve around the church. I took a Public Speaking class that really felt geared toward teachers and pastors. Any other vocation was overlooked. Socially, the school was a bit off for me. I dated a woman for a month before she took me into the Chapel and broke up with me, telling me that she felt like she was going to hell because we made out and we weren't married. I repeat, she broke up with me in the Chapel.
-So, I got out of there.
-I visited Valpo in the spring of my freshman year and fell in love with the place. I loved it was 140 miles from home. Close enough to get back if I needed to, but far enough away that I could live my own life. Three things stood out to me in 1999 when I visited. WVUR (which I eventually joined), fraternities (which I eventually passed on) and Division I athletics.
-Those things got me to Valpo. What caused me to truly fall in love were the people. The diversity of the student body. Not diversity as a buzzword, but Valpo being a place where people from all walks of life gathered. Concordia was a fifth year of high school to me. Sure, there were plenty of people from all across the country, but they were mostly all Lutheran High School kids who had the same experiences that I had. Valpo was different. The basketball team was the perfect reflection of that. I cherished getting to know Lubos Barton, Milo Stovall, Jared Nuness and Greg Tonagel. Four different people with four different backgrounds.
-Another thing that I loved at Valpo was the bubble. We joked about it. The Valpo Bubble. When you came to Valpo, you stayed on campus. I didn't know if our dorms were better or worse than anywhere else because I didn't compare them. It's what we had. Could the food have been better? Sure, but it's what we had. I never left campus unless it was to travel with the basketball team. I never went to downtown Valpo. Merrillville was a treat to see a movie or go to the mall maybe once a month.
-Valpo was home and nothing else mattered. The school prepared me for a good career in broadcast journalism. It wasn't easy to get hired in sports journalism following 9/11. I had a few interviews, but jobs were few and far between. My friends who focused on news got scooped up immediately. I ended up taking a job in Milwaukee at a rock radio station that I landed through some Valpo networking.
-I went to Valpo to have a great social experience during my undergraduate days and to gain experience to enter the work force. I got both. I wouldn't trade my time at Valpo for anything as an undergrad.
-I didn't go to Valpo for the religious connection, although I'm glad it was there. I rarely went to Chapel Break. I went to Celebrate here and there. We didn't talk about God in any of my classes other than Theology, of which we had healthy debate. I had a sports talk radio show my senior year and the guy after me had a Christian rock radio show. I enjoyed there was room for both.
-I had straight classmates, gay classmates, white classmates, black classmates. Classmates who dressed in suits for class. Classmates who dressed in sweats for class. Classmates who dressed in drag for class. There were probably people who would break up with you in the Chapel and there were probably people who would do other things to you in the Chapel.
-I don't know what our "identity" was when I was in undergrad. All I can say is I loved that so many people found a home away from home.
-The draw to Valpo brought me back in 2005 to start teaching and I've been in this role for 18 years. I won't go into as much detail as I did for my undergrad days, but I'll say this. The students today are vastly different than they were in 1999. Social media has rearranged what it means for people, particularly 18-22 year olds, to exist in the world. Everything is a comparable now. Mental health has taken a nose dive for these kids who have a tangible metric for every emotion they feel. The Valpo Bubble burst long ago and it's never coming back. It used to be the biggest thing on campus to go support the basketball team. Now kids can stay back in their dorms and watch their hometown team on television. The internet has made the world a much smaller place and our students feel that every day.
-I ask my students every semester what brought them to Valpo. It's an exercise I do when discussing Public Relations in my Intro to Mass Media course. I started doing this exercise in 2006 and back then about 40 percent of the students would say religion. Then it was 25, then 15, then 5. Then zero. Now, it's not like I'm conducting a scientific survey here, but the religious aspect just isn't what it used to be. We used to tout ourselves as "The National Lutheran University." We would do that at the same time that schools like Concordia would criticize Valpo for being too inclusive, as if taking "we are all brothers and sisters in Christ" and putting it into practice was a bad thing?
-I'll end on that note of thinking. Like I said earlier, I didn't pick Valpo because of religion, but I loved that Valpo was a place where we could all be brothers and sisters in Christ. I struggle when I hear today that people criticize Valpo for being inclusive to all. I don't view being inclusive (or woke as some would say) as a political issue. I view it as a fundamental part of Christ's teaching.
-All that being said, in my role as a professor, it is not my job to tell people what to think. It's my job to get them to think. I'd greatly prefer a classroom with half Democrats and half Republicans over a classroom with all on the left or all on the right. What I'd really enjoy is a classroom full of people who are prepared to learn from one another and are open to accepting more than one point of view. Maybe someday I'll be able to learn why I got dumped in the Chapel.
-Finally to usc4Valpo, think about the role of the mascots. They're not for adults. They're for kids. People complain about the brown and gold color scheme all the time, but for a fifth-grader, I loved the pennant I got in the mail. It was so different than anything else I'd seen that I put it up in my room immediately. You often make cracks that the mascots look like something out of a book you've read to your granddaughter. Sounds like they're doing their job then. If a little kid loves them, then that's the first introduction to Valpo, just like the pennant was to me back in fifth grade.
Quote from: usc4valpo on February 22, 2023, 01:05:46 PM
Thanks David81 - I just want to find out the morons promoting and pushing the new mascots.
Yeah, I understand the mascot rage. 😊
Paul (pgmado),
Thank you for sharing your experiences. And your observations across a time span are very enlightening.
You're right about the internet and the digital world changing the experience of higher education. And I'd say it's a profoundly mixed bag. My friends with whom I spent a semester at VU's Cambridge program talk about this a lot. Our experience abroad was enriched by the very fact that we were in a different, foreign place, and couldn't just turn on our phones and talk to family and friends back in the States. It also made the experience more challenging at times, because you couldn't get un-lost by asking Siri, or FaceTime a friend at VU if you were feeling lonely, or suddenly text/call/email home to ask for a bit of money to magically refill a dwindling bank account.
Sorry you got dumped in the Concordia Chapel. I'm glad you weren't struck by lightning or anything like that. And at least it put you on a path toward a place that has become so special to you. I'd like to think that she did you a favor, but the final judgment (pun intended) must be yours.
I'm enjoying this exchange overall.
Paul,
Your eloquent summary of how you wound up at Valpo and benefitted from that journey brought back very similar thoughts and emotions.
Just like you coming from a Lutheran HS, I came to Valpo as a Concordia Prep, Bronxville, NY grad. Yeah, Valpo was Lutheran, but I didn't care about that. I wanted to be able to play college football. This was the 60s — OP Kretzman was prez.
Like you, I was struck and enriched by the unexpected diversity (defined just like yours) of the campus population, both students and faculty, that I discovered there. It's still a 4 year memory I will never forget, because it seemed every day something special happened, whether in the classroom, dorm, fraternity house, gym, athletic field, in town and even (but rarely 🙄 ) in the chapel (to illustrate: because I was from NY and had a fairly thick Long Island accent, I was picked for a solo in our fraternity's version of "Officer Krupky" from West Side Story at the annual spring greek choral competition that was always held in the chapel). Do they even do that anymore?
Like most fraternities, mine had two coke machines in the basement - one for soft drinks and one for beer. Every football and MBB game was heavily attended and exciting. No Bubble back then. Fraternity formals were held as far away as Chicago. Being a truly residential campus, it came alive on weekends. Dropping off my Saturday date at Scheele by 11pm always involved a massive traffic jam. 11 pm !!!!
And like you, my educational experiences, my ability to think critically and develop a questioning attitude were dominated by discussions of all kinds that have shaped me into the person I am today. After going through the LCMS educational system (5 through 12), I am proud of the fact that, even back then, Valpo gave me the opportunity to think outside a narrowly defined theological box and become my own person.
My conundrum now is that I don't have the foggiest notion of whether those values even fly today. Certainly, the desire to hear and discuss both sides of issues and develop thoughtful opinions from some semblance of analysis doesn't count for much anymore — I wonder if it is at least on life-support on the Valpo campus?
Paul,
What a joy it was reading through your post. Respect your vulnerability and transparency. I love that you're cultivating an environment where students are taking agency & gaining mindfulness of embracing the present. In a world that's increasingly interconnected and often driven by what we like to portray as "multitasking" - it's these sorts of cathartic moments in time that can be fostered in a classroom that money, technology, and the frills of social media cannot replicate.
David81 - nice contribution, but the mascots are a product where wokeness by a few loud folks went too far. I take crap from friends and relatives over this and it's embarrassing.
I was in electrical engineering, and overall I though the professors and education were excellent. They cared about education and the student, and the classroom complimented with through lab was very effective. It prepared me for future education and industry well. The senior engineering class selection, where you want courses that are a little more diverse, was limited because of the school size and an issue that cannot be resolved - but that's OK.
Regarding the Valpo experience, it is kind of in a dome and too much in a dome. The real world is not the Valparaiso University experience and I was in culture shock after graduating and living in LA.
Paul - what an incredible post. It is clearly apparent why you are a great journalist and professor! Also, I have lived in Mequon for the past seven years...and I now have something new to think about when I drive past Concordia.
I was in many classes with usc4valpo and fully agree with his assessment of the engineering professors and education. I am still fairly close to the College of Engineering and feel strongly that excellent teaching and professors who care about the students remain its foundation.
Quote from: ValpoDiaspora on February 23, 2023, 08:28:24 AMAt heart, Valpo students are probably not that different from those of you who attended in the mid-late 20th century. They still want to find friends, still are trying to figure out where they fit in the world, are still trying to figure out how to have fun while also setting themselves up to get a good job, and so on!
Being one those people, looking back over my time at Valpo, my fondest memories are of friends, professors and great times! Things swung drastically from "wild" (keggers on a Wednesday night--$1 for all you could drink) to a fully dry campus with kids being arrested and drapes drawn at Frat houses. Now, it would seem that the Harre dry policy is at least somewhat different in that there actually is a bar in the Union!
But is that what college should be about? I'm glad to see all the various options available to Valpo students, even tough these options may provide a negative effect on basketball attendance. The college experience is still four years between high school and the rest of your life.
When I was at Valpo there never was a volunteer option available or at least I didn't see one. Today more than 55 hours are logged per student each year — totaling more than 247,000 hours of community outreach and service-learning. So keggers are being replaced by fraternity challenges over which one can raise the most money for their chosen charity.
Though some here may find this effort to "woke", I think it will leave students much better prepared for life after college than what I experienced.
For sure, the fraternities and sororities do a lot of that... They seemed overall pretty positive and healthy (didn't hear really anything about the toxic hazing sort of stuff ppl worry about), and so they provide a lot of really great positive thick sense of community as well as an orientation towards service.
To Diaspora's point, I think it's still possible to have frank conversations in classrooms and raise topics that are seen as controversial, even with the specter of student evaluations being public, along with sillier sites like RateMyProfessor. But knowing that reviews of our performance may be routinely more accessible does add a layer of awareness, especially nowadays with our fraught social/political environment.
For over 25 years, I've taught both Employment Discrimination and Employment Law (which includes a unit on Employment Discrimination) at my current school, and both courses are loaded with potential landmines. In such courses, I think one has to raise and respect different points of view, relate content to actual legal practice, be aware of how you're being perceived, explain what's behind your opinions, and be utterly authentic rather than pedantic or preachy in doing so. As only the 2nd person of color ever tenured at my law school (which opened in 1906), I've had to walk my talk on this many times. (Ironically, the homogeneous campus culture of VU during my student days has offered lessons to draw from.) And while I don't play to the student evaluations, on the whole they've remained very strong. It also helps that (1) I really, really enjoy teaching and have always felt comfortable in a classroom (at least once over the rookie jitters); and (2) teaching in graduate-level setting means, on the whole, dealing with more mature students.
As for VU, I agree with Diaspora that it remains a place where ideas still matter and where students in the professional programs benefit from the liberal arts courses that are part of their distribution requirements. It remains an institution that can help prepare people to live good and meaningful lives, personally, spiritually, and vocationally. Too many colleges and universities are abandoning that more holistic development because of the short-term metrics being used to evaluate "quality."
Against the backdrop of the modern higher ed environment overall, I have become increasingly concerned about how virtually any discussion about difference and diversity is dismissed by some as being "woke," mostly by folks who do not wish to enter these uncomfortable discussions at all -- and by some who wish to excuse or defend horrific behaviors, currently and historically. I have also become increasingly concerned about how some self-identified woke folks are very quick to propose policies that shut down academic freedom and denigrate any point of view that isn't 100 percent on board with them. I've been on the receiving end of both of these extremes and lament the state of our public & academic discourse because of it.
Quote from: usc4valpo on February 23, 2023, 06:49:34 AMI was in culture shock after graduating and living in LA.
So would just about all of the "flyover states" population. I think a lot of the families and students VU is going after would consider that a good thing.
Valpo was and still is a tradition for me and my wife. Our parents and many, other older generation family members went to VU. Children from family members have continued to attend. Most recently 3 of my nieces and nephews attended in the past 6 years with the last of the 3 graduating in December, all were very involved in the religous life of the campus. Religion was a big part of why I went to VU, not to become church worker, but to fulfill the calling of the founders of the LUA that stated "the church can not rise higher than the pew". "Christians are supposed to be the salt of the earth. We must have Christian doctors, lawyers and others active as citizens for the sake of our society". Some extended family members were professors and many of my close high school classmates went to VU giving it a very homey feel. I was in a fraternity and also involved in a number of other extra curricular activities.
I loved my time at VU and developed many friendships with classmates and proffessors. The close knit relationships fostered in small classes had an impact even after graduation. I remained active on the Alumni Board, sponsoring VU activities here in Fort Wayne and with VU basketball up until Heckler became president and Homer retired. I am very hopeful after talking with Padilla and the new Assistant Vice President for Mission, Church, and Ministry.
Your dedication is pretty inspiring and the number of linkages are incredible. With Fort Wayne just two hours away and a long history of the church connections to Valpo you mention, is the enrollment of Fort Wayne students rising?
Quote from: crusadermoe on February 24, 2023, 10:35:53 AM
Your dedication is pretty inspiring and the number of linkages are incredible. With Fort Wayne just two hours away and a long history of the church connections to Valpo you mention, is the enrollment of Fort Wayne students rising?
This is going to sound a little crazy. Valpo has not actively recruited students from Concordia Lutheran High School here in Fort Wayne in quite a few years. My wife and I have both been very involved with CLHS and this has bothered us for some time. In the past two years not one student has gone to Valpo from CLHS. This was the main focus of my conversation with President Padilla. I am working with a representative from VU trying to arrange a meeting time with the administration at CLHS. Padilla assures me that ignoring Lutheran secondary schools is a trend he intends on breaking, recruiting students from Lutheran secondary schools is emphasized in the strategic plan.
Quote from: FWalum on February 24, 2023, 12:44:07 PM
Valpo has not actively recruited students from Concordia Lutheran High School here in Fort Wayne in quite a few years. My wife and I have both been very involved with CLHS and this has bothered us for some time. In the past two years not one student has gone to Valpo from CLHS. This was the main focus of my conversation with President Padilla. I am working with a representative from VU trying to arrange a meeting time with the administration at CLHS. Padilla assures me that ignoring Lutheran secondary schools is a trend he intends on breaking, recruiting students from Lutheran secondary schools is emphasized in the strategic plan.
FWAlum, I remember a couple of years ago, you said virtually the same thing on another thread. At the time it shocked me — totally illogical. Again, at the time, I asked why every single LHS and Lutheran church in the US,
regardless of "affiliation" wasn't bombarded with Valpo literature, and why alums across the country weren't recruited to visit congregations and HSs to promote VU. Never got a good answer. Sure, I understand that the admissions department can't send out their paid reps to every little church or 150 student HS across the country, but if the office would just make the phone calls to arrange visits, alums could be their surrogates. I mean, what LHS guidance counselor would refuse a visit?
Quote from: VULB#62 on February 24, 2023, 01:24:59 PM
Quote from: FWalum on February 24, 2023, 12:44:07 PM
Valpo has not actively recruited students from Concordia Lutheran High School here in Fort Wayne in quite a few years. My wife and I have both been very involved with CLHS and this has bothered us for some time. In the past two years not one student has gone to Valpo from CLHS. This was the main focus of my conversation with President Padilla. I am working with a representative from VU trying to arrange a meeting time with the administration at CLHS. Padilla assures me that ignoring Lutheran secondary schools is a trend he intends on breaking, recruiting students from Lutheran secondary schools is emphasized in the strategic plan.
FWAlum, I remember a couple of years ago, you said virtually the same thing on another thread. At the time it shocked me — totally illogical. Again, at the time, I asked why every single LHS and Lutheran church in the US, regardless of "affiliation" wasn't bombarded with Valpo literature, and why alums across the country weren't recruited to visit congregations and HSs to promote VU. Never got a good answer. Sure, I understand that the admissions department can't send out their paid reps to every little church or 150 student HS across the country, but if the office would just make the phone calls to arrange visits, alums could be their surrogates. I mean, what LHS guidance counselor would refuse a visit?
I'm stunned to read that VU isn't doing targeted outreach to Lutheran high schools. This is neglecting the proverbial low-hanging fruit, yes?
The "good news," if I may characterize it that way, is that it could be easier than first meets the eye to rebuild undergraduate enrollment, by returning to one of VU's historically significant constituencies.
Not sure what is more disappointing to me - that no Lutheran kids from Ft. Wayne have come here for several years, or that President Padilla, who has been on campus for over a year and a half, is JUST NOW promising to look into this. He either knew, or should have known, about this within two months of taking office.
Paul
Perhaps he did know fairly early in, and perhaps he had already started the wheels in motion, and perhaps this was just the first time it came up in outside discussion. Who knows. But not every issue requires an immediate press conference announcement.
Yes, that's right, I don't think Admissions did/does any targeted outreach to Lutheran high schools.
In the Before Times, there was a staff person in Campus Ministry -- Deb Albers, Dir of Church Relations, not sure if full-time or part-time -- who used to run the Lutheran summer institute programs to bring Lutheran high schoolers to campus. However, she was one of many staff who got laid off in 2020, so she went to work for an optometry school in Illinois.
I have brought up the concept of just one admission counselor focused exclusively on Lutheran High School. My guess is that the staff is stretched so thin that even one is out of the question.
Remember, the Padilla is not messing around with getting enrollment up. The first thing he did was to fire the VP of enrollment the his replacement just left as well. So another brand new AVP is now in place. The office of church relations is also filled--recently as follows:
Rev. Brian A.F. Beckstrom will join Valparaiso University as assistant vice president for mission, church and ministry effective Jan. 17, 2022. Most recently, Beckstrom has served at Wartburg College as dean of spiritual life and campus pastor.
In his role as assistant vice president for mission, church and ministry, Beckstrom will be responsible for promoting, supporting and advancing the University's Lutheran mission, both internally and externally, including fostering ongoing relationships with various Lutheran denominations and other entities. He will also oversee the administrative management of all programs housed in the Helge Center for Mission and Ministry, including chapel and student ministries, the Allen Scholars program, the Institute of Liturgical Studies and the Institute for Leadership and Service.
Pgmado, sorry to hear about the chapel breakup story. On the positive side, I don't feel as bad about all of the trouble we caused you, as we were probably a welcome distraction after that previous year's experience :)
The Mequon Aband-Don?