Inside Iowa State

Sept. 28, 2005

Geoffroy urges progress on plan, student recruitment

by Diana Pounds

Make progress on the new strategic plan and enhance student recruitment and retention. Those are among Iowa State's most important agenda items for the coming year, President Gregory Geoffroy said during remarks at fall convocation Sept. 26.

More than 500 members of the campus community and visitors attended the convocation, where approximately 50 faculty and staff were honored, and Geoffroy laid out his plans for the coming year.

"As we work to implement the Strategic Plan," Geoffroy said, "it is also vitally important to assess where we truly can be among the best in class and have the greatest impact, and then make sure we strategically invest our resources in those areas -- our human resources and our financial resources."

Best in class

Geoffroy said deans and other university leaders believe there are many areas of the university that already are, or can be, "best in class." Among those areas, Geoffroy said, are traditional areas of strength, such as chemistry; statistics; virtual reality; the food, animal and plant sciences; and programs that take advantage of Ames Laboratory's special strengths.

"I also believe we can be best in class in fostering interdisciplinary work," Geoffroy said. "We do that extremely well, and it is important to keep that culture strong and take advantage of it."

There are several reasons the Iowa State community needs to focus on enhancing student recruitment and retention efforts, Geoffroy said.

Record-sized classes that entered Iowa State between 2000 and 2002 are now graduating. The number of Iowa high school students is shrinking. And community colleges have increased their share of Iowa high school students, partly due to state funding cuts at state universities and subsequent tuition hikes, he said.

"Enhancement of our student recruitment and retention efforts and stabilizing our enrollments is one of the most important priorities for Iowa State this year," Geoffroy said, "and we are pursuing it in a number of ways."

New recruiting efforts

Those efforts include investing more resources in recruiting, both in and out of state, taking advantage of alumni networks to "spread the word" about Iowa State and improving partnerships with community colleges to facilitate the transfer of their students to ISU.

"Iowa State will continue to be a great institution, because of our terrific students and because of the outstanding work of our faculty and staff like those we are honoring today," Geoffroy said.

"My thanks to all of you for your hard work in making Iowa State the great land-grant university that it is"

"As we work to implement the Strategic Plan," Geoffroy said, "it is also vitally important to assess where we truly can be among the best in class and have the greatest impact, and then make sure we strategically invest our resources in those areas -- our human resources and our financial resources."

President Gregory Geoffroy