By Adam Harrison Asst. News Editor The Board of Trustees discussed enrollment data and the FY2025 budget at their first meeting of the year on Sept. 25. Vice President of Enrollment Management Iris Godes said enrollment is “looking great.” The University’s goal for first-year and transfer students was 785, and there are currently 819 new students, which is 34 more than expected, she said. The goal of 785 was already an increase of 7% over the previous year, and the enrollment data shows the increase in new students is now at 11%, Godes said. She said, “We implemented a number of new strategies this year to try to encourage new student enrollment - try to change the trend at Framingham State from a decline to an increase, and we got great results.” Godes said the retention rate is another important enrollment indicator. The retention rate is the number of students who re-enroll from their first year to their second year, she said. “We were hoping for 72%. We got 71%, which is pretty even with last year,” she said. The goal for graduate students was 250, and there are 265 enrolled. “So you see there as well, success. … We exceeded our goals there,” Godes said. Godes said increased communications and personalized relationships with students are two of the reasons for the positive enrollment data. “There was a lot that we could do internally that the University just hadn’t been doing. A lot of it was around how we communicate, how often we communicate, and the approach to communications. I created a plan that was much more personalized to students, more relationship building, not just transactional communications,” she said. She said they targeted parents of prospective students with one of their publications. It focused on the success of current students, points of pride, and profiles of students “doing amazing things.” Godes said they made improvements to the admissions open houses, created a checklist to aid confused incoming students, and increased collaboration among departments. “There were a number of things that we did that I think all contributed. … Admissions can’t do this by themselves, Financial Aid can’t do this by themselves, so it was finding every pocket,” she said. President Nancy Niemi said, “It’s one thing to admit students. It’s another thing to keep them and help them be successful so that most of them graduate.” She said the University is building and improving the systems that contribute to student success. “We may not be exactly where we want to be yet, but we are definitely going in the right direction - it takes the whole University to make that happen,” Niemi said. Godes presented the undergraduate 2024 profile, displaying that 50% of first-year students are first generation, which is down 4% from 2023. Fifty-one percent of first-year students are BIPOC, including a 3% increase in Hispanic students. The percentage of BIPOC students is up 1% from 2023. “That was a 3% increase in our Hispanic students. Of course, that is a population that is growing here in the MetroWest. It’s a strong population to begin with, and it appears to be growing, so great opportunities with them,” Godes said. She said the out-of-state population increased from 11% to 14%. “We did add an out-of-state award to reduce the cost for the out-of-state students, and that seems to have been effective.” Governor Maura Healey signed a state budget bill covering tuition and fees for all Massachusetts residents attending community colleges, effective Fall 2024. The closest community colleges to Framingham State are up an average of 15% in enrollment. Godes said she is hopeful the increase in community college enrollment will lead to more transfers. “However, they are potentially taking students away from us as well.” She said, “So we’ll have to monitor that to see what’s going on, but that will be a big strategy this year - developing strong relationships, programming, ease of recruitment, ease of transfer, credit, all that kind of stuff.” Robert Totino, vice president of finance, technology, and administration/chief financial officer, presented the Fiscal Year 2025 “All Funds” proposed budget, and the actual budget for comparison. Totino presented the budgeted net income totals -$400,000, due to an approved deficit in “college operations,” resulting in a “slight use of our reserves. … There was a deficit that was budgeted at $1.9 million for the year. We’re looking to finish break even,” for FY25. He said state universities can apply for grants focused on success, persistence & basic needs, grants, and mental health. “We hope to receive roughly two million [dollars] from these grants over the course of fiscal 25, but those dollars are still making their ways through the legislative process for approval,” Totino said. He said a new tax was enacted in Massachusetts in 2022, taxing individuals an additional 4% if they made over $1 million in adjusted gross income. This tax raised funds for transportation and education. The University anticipated receiving roughly $2.5 million from this tax in the proposed budget, but “as of right now, we have not received any allocation, but we’re not giving up the fight,” Totino said. The University received “an earmark for the Warren Conference Center of one and a half million dollars to do some more work there,” he said. The Warren Conference Center is a site in Ashland, approximately five miles from campus, that was “acquired by the Mass State College Building Authority on behalf of FSU in 2015,” Totino said. Framingham State filed documentation with the state in 2018 and 2024 to use the Stearns reservoir, located a half mile from campus, as a public resource for the University. “It’s for faculty, staff, and students - this could be used for research or academic purposes. A couple of our majors tie in nicely here - biology, environmental sciences, and other groups,” he said. Trustee Mariel Freve said a transportation safety training and maintenance assessment for the RamTram was completed. “We had some increased collisions in 2023 that prompted the internal assessment, and again, it provides transportation for folks that are not familiar around campus and other options … and it’s a program mostly supported by student drivers,” she said. She said after the initial internal assessment, they were able to change hiring parameters, standards around monitoring controls, and formalize the process for collision reporting and corrective action. The second internal assessment is the active threat preparedness program, which covers facilities access, physical accessibility, and accident and incident reporting. She said, “And so that is getting launched here in ‘25, and then we will report when we have that completed.” New Title IX regulations were released in April 2024, and the deadline for implementation was August 2024. Assistant Vice President Kim Dexter said it was a “monumental” task. “This was going to be our opportunity to fully overhaul the documents in an attempt to make it as navigable for our communities as possible.” She said they improved the readability of the document compared to the previous plan. “Now we are able to prohibit all or list all prohibited discrimination under one policy, so there’s less jumping back and forth trying to find where information is in the document. That also allowed us to merge our complaint and resolution procedures,” she said. In the next report to the Trustees, Vice President of Student Success Lorretta Holloway said the Financial Crisis Response Team was developed several years ago because the University wanted to streamline assistance to students having financial crises. “We also saw that students were often going to multiple offices because they didn’t necessarily like the answers they were getting from an office,” she said. Holloway said students should go to Financial Aid first because “it’s very difficult to give money away, and we need to know exactly what a student was eligible for.” She said there are different pockets of money that are utilized to support students through situations ranging from being kicked out of their apartment and needing rent, to needing funds to purchase toner to print applications for proof they are looking for apartments, in order to stay at a shelter. “If you’ve bought toner lately, you recognize how expensive that is, and that’s probably not what you can afford to spend your money on if you’re in a homeless shelter,” she said. She said her team will be ordering more laptops for students who need them, but don’t have any left at the moment. Vice President of Student Affairs & Dean of Students Meg Nowak-Borrego said there is a Student Assistance Team consisting of staff and faculty members from Student Success, the Dean of Students Office, and Residence Life. “When someone is referred to that group, it could be everything from they stopped going to class to we hear their mother passed away. Whatever it might be that someone is concerned about the student, they can contact anybody on the Student Assistance Team or submit the forms that are available,” she said. In his report, new Student Trustee Jeremy McDonald introduced himself and recapped recent developments at SGA. He said SGA changed their constitution to incorporate all clubs into the student government meetings. Club representatives are now invited to attend every other SGA meeting. “We’ll be bringing in club representatives to our meetings and hearing their concerns - hearing where we can help them and support them,” he said. In 2023-24, McDonald said SGA helped to have “a ramp to be built in conjunction with Facilities, [and] install baby changing tables in both men’s and women’s bathrooms across campus.” He proposed a Board of Trustees meet-and-greet event, where students are able to meet the Trustees in an informal setting. McDonald said it is important that students are able to meet Trustees - shake their hands, and talk to them. “My very first day on campus, I was moving in and President Niemi was there and came up to me and we struck up a conversation. It’s just really important to foster that kind of connection,” he said.
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