N.C. Central pauses to take stock of its rapid growth

After a 50 percent rise in enrollment in seven years, the university will keep its size at 8,500 this year to review needs for housing, services and staff

DURHAM -- After six years of unrivaled enrollment growth, N.C. Central University's infrastructure is feeling the effects.

On a campus where enrollment has increased 50 percent in the last seven years, there aren't enough beds for all those heads, or enough staff members in several departments that serve student needs, officials say.

So NCCU, the fastest-growing UNC system campus since 2000, is now tapping the brakes. University leaders aim to enroll no more than 8,533 students this fall, the same number as a year ago, said Provost Beverly Washington Jones.

"We need to make sure our infrastructure is in place," Jones said. "It's going to be important that we look at this growth phenomenon."

For that reason, NCCU officials plan to use the 2007-08 school year to reassess staffing, technology and housing issues. The university expects at least 1,250 new freshmen to enroll this fall; there are only 1,057 dorm spots on campus for them, which means about 200 new NCCU students will spend their first semester or two in an apartment or renting a room from someone in the community, said Frances Graham, NCCU's vice chancellor for student affairs.

Classes began last week, but final enrollment numbers are not yet available.

NCCU's housing stock is pinched; there are 2,900 total dorm spaces on campus, and two old residence halls that, taken together, hold about 800 students, are not being used. Those halls, Chidley and Latham, are both in disrepair, their futures uncertain, Graham said.

For those new NCCU students forced to find their own housing off campus, the university is attempting to beef up a commuter services program to ease their transition, but Graham acknowledges that having freshmen off campus isn't ideal.

"When students don't live on campus they're less likely to participate in campus activities," she said. "It can be sometimes difficult to get acclimated to the environment when there's distance."

On campus, several departments that routinely serve student needs -- like housing, financial aid and residential life -- have been taxed in recent years and may need to increase their staffs, Jones said. But no new positions will be added until those needs are closely analyzed, Jones said. A year ago, NCCU added 41 new positions in reaction to its growing enrollment.

NCCU's pause for reassessment comes as the public university system does the same thing. NCCU was one of seven UNC-system campus designated in 2000 as "focused growth" institutions. They were told to put greater emphasis on recruitment in order to increase enrollment. Seven years later, the university system is pausing as well to reflect on the enrollment boom and to re-think its growth process through an initiative dubbed "UNC Tomorrow."

"As we admit more students, we have to help more students be successful," said Alan Mabe, the UNC system's vice president for academic planning and university-school programs.