Getting to know AU

By Heather Lowhorn

It’s early — at least in the student world — not quite 8:15 a.m., and a group of 35 high school students accompanied by their parents sit in Kane Dining Room drinking coffee and eating bagels. They have all come to Anderson University, some of them from a couple of states away, for a campus visit program known as Opportunity Day. The idea is to introduce prospective students to AU and see if they fit in with the university’s philosophy, programs and campus.

The students look a little groggy but are awake enough to discretely check each other out: flared jeans, baggy khakis, thick-soled shoes — average 17- and 18-year-olds. After introductions around the room, today it is Dr. Carl Caldwell BA ’66, vice president for Academic Affairs and dean, who offers insight into the role of AU for its students.

“We’re not going to say, ‘We’re going to teach you Christian biology or Christian economics or Christian chemistry.’ We’ll teach you chemistry or accounting or biology or history through the lens of Christianity. There’s a vast difference,” says Caldwell. “When students leave here and go out to, say, a medical school, the folks at the medical school don’t necessarily care that they come from a Christian institution of higher education. What they want to know is, are you good enough to be here? Our job is to create a situation in which there is competence in the academic disciplines, but always those disciplines are to be taught through the lens of Christianity.”

With nearly 2,200 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, choosing the right one can be a harrowing task. Deciding you want to attend a private school narrows the field, but the choices are still vast. Small school or big school? Independent or church-related? If you want a school with church ties, do you want one that actively focuses on faith or is only a religious institution in tradition? Of those schools still on the list, which ones offer classes in your area of study? And which of those schools are financially feasible?

Jim King and his staff in the Office of Admissions work to catch the eye of prospective students and help them wade through those questions. And they’re doing the job well. In the past four years, applications have increased by more than 30 percent, admitted students have increased by almost 20 percent and enrollment has increased by more than 15 percent.

King, director of admissions, knows it takes a special kind of person to be an admissions counselor. “You have to be a little bit crazy to be an admissions counselor,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t have any passive introverts. They’re all mega-extrovert personalities.”

Typically fall is the busiest time of year in the Admissions Office, with the highest volume of high school college fairs and several on-campus Opportunity Days.

“Counselors, I think, pretty much like it, but when it’s done, they’re glad. They are worn out,” says King. “It’s not glamorous. You’re driving; you’re getting lost in the middle of nowhere. If you’re staying in a hotel, that gets old really fast. In the meantime things are happening here and you have to keep up.”

The schedule quiets down over the winter holidays, picking up again in January as the competitive scholarships are decided. Counselors interview from 25 to 50 students competing for AU’s highest scholarships. “A counselor might interview 40 students but have only five receive awards,” says King. “They’re going to say no to 35 families. That’s not fun.”

The admissions staff thrives on the variety of the job and the satisfaction of bringing students to a place they believe in. Katie (Marsh) Blackburn BA ’00 worked as a counselor before becoming the events and information coordinator for the Admissions Office. “I view it as a ministry, and I do feel like I’m giving back a little bit of what was invested in me and in my character [as a student],” she says.

“Emily, what about you? Did you know what you wanted to study coming here?"

It is shortly after 9 a.m. at the Opportunity Day, and the high schoolers have separated from their parents and moved to a classroom in Hartung Hall. King is asking a panel of current AU students questions about their academic experience at AU.

“I had no clue,” Emily replies. “I took a class when I came called Career and Life Development. That was very helpful in narrowing down what I wanted to do.”

King poses questions to his team of Anderson students, but he doesn’t provide any information himself. He lets the students talk about professors, classes and studying. A professor also joins the discussion, and on this day, Lisa (Dawson) Pay BA ’86, assistant professor of social work, gives a view of Anderson academics from the other side of the desk.

“I’m the prompter,” explains King. “I just prompt them with questions. In my mind I know [who] has changed majors four times. When we’re talking about how to chose a major, I ask him. I think [high school] students need to hear not everybody comes in focused. They’re sitting there thinking, ‘Gosh, I have to know.’ Well, no, you don’t.”

By letting the AU students speak in their own words about what to expect, King feels the high school students get an accurate picture of what it takes to succeed academically at AU. “I tell the students working for me that there’s no right answer; there’s no wrong answer. Just be honest.” And they are. They talk about the challenge of managing academics and athletics, the increased reading and writing in college versus high school and the sense of community found on a college campus.

Across the valley in Kane Dining Room, their parents wrestle with the question of how to pay for college. Not nearly as shy as their kids, the parents don’t hold back questions for financial aid counselor Nelda Ely.

“If I have two students, I do two different FAFSA’s?”

“Exactly,” replies Ely. “One FAFSA for each student. If you’re doing it on the Web and you have a PIN number, you don’t need a second PIN. You can access both students.”

Some of the information pertains only to Anderson, but most of it is useful no matter where the student decides to attend. And for parents who have been wading through financial aid forms, the chance to have their questions answered is welcomed. “This has been very informational,” says Nancy Dawson of Mason, Ohio, whose daughter Lindsey is being recruited to play softball. “The info wasn’t just for scholarships here. This has been a lot more helpful than any of the other [visit days] we’ve been on. A lot more informational than the bigger schools.”

Separating the parents from the students is a relatively new format for AU’s campus visit program. Up until a year and a half ago, the parents and students stayed together for the day. “Splitting parents and students was the best thing in the world,” says King. “[Before] they were all sitting in there together, and it was a ‘we’re talking at you’ kind of thing. Now the parents’ group right away focuses in on parent issues. There’s not a mixed agenda.”

The format change was prompted by a study by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities in 2001. The study addressed issues that prospective families were concerned with when choosing a college. “I spent the whole summer going through that page by page and item by item, then making lists — these are parent issues, these are student issues — then dividing those up,” says King. “Then what we attempt to do is to address head-on all of those issues: affordability, safety, how is faith integrated into the curriculum, who does the teaching, are Christian colleges too small, are they too narrow, what are the class sizes.”

By splitting up parents and students, they feel more comfortable on campus. “The very first time we did this program the students got back before the parents had finished their tour and all the students sat at the same table rather than going back to where they had sat at individual tables earlier in the morning,” King says. “We just sat back and said, ‘Whoa, this is powerful.’ Right away they’re feeling comfortable, like, ‘I can make it here. If these are the kinds of students who are coming here next year, I’m comfortable with them.’”

The admissions staff understands the challenge of competing for a student’s attention amid a deluge of college choices. “Our office really tries to look ahead. We continually have an attitude of ‘What can we be doing better?’” says Blackburn. Among her many responsibilities is planning the Opportunity Days. “The students really come alive. They get such a feel for what it would be like if they were a student at a college campus. The students get to hang out with our students, and it is non-threatening.”

Even with the success of the new format, Blackburn still looks for ways to improve. “For now it’s working great ... we’ve found a really good combination,” she says. “Generations change and families change and students change. As they change we will seek to change with them to figure out what it is they need from us.”

After the parents have had their financial aid questions answered, they spend the next hour getting to know the character of the university through the people who know it best: the students and faculty. First a student panel discusses what student life is really like at AU, then a faculty panel talks about the academic aspects.

Blackburn starts the discussion by asking the students about where they hang out and what they do in their free time. She welcomes the parents to ask questions, too. “They are brutally honest,” she jokes. The parents have plenty of questions and soon Blackburn is in the background and the conversation is between the parents and students. The topics range from safety concerns and computer equipment to what is there to do around here and if students really go to chapel.

The faculty panel is just as lively. They answer questions about their interaction with students both in and out of the classroom and discuss how they integrate their faith into their position. “The professors are truthful but fair,” says Blackburn. Through the discussion parents get a sense of the high academic standards of the faculty. They also understand the faculty care about the students, not just in the classroom but also in the development of their character.

One parent agreed the chance to talk with professors was helpful. “I spoke with a professor in my daughter’s desired major and got job placement information. [Bigger schools] don’t have professors you can ask questions on a visit day. This has been just great.”

While the parents grill students and faculty, the high school students have settled in Reardon Auditorium for a short chapel service and a taste of Anderson’s spiritual atmosphere. The small group sits in the empty performance hall listening to two recent graduates play an original worship song on acoustic guitars. Jámin Dunn BA ’02 and Steven Potaczek BA ’02 sit on the edge of the bare stage and sing. The short worship service has the intimate feel of a private jam session. Stuart Erny, director of Campus Ministries, steps forward and discusses AU’s commitment to service and the spiritual growth of its students. “This fills a need,” he says. “AU is about the whole person.”

The chapel service is another way of presenting an accurate portrayal of the university. “Rather than saying we’re a Christian college, we do it,” says King. “We do a little bit of what we do here and the message comes through in their participation rather than us just saying, ‘It’s required that you go to chapel.’”

“I like the whole chapel service thing,” says Matthew Short, a senior from Mount Vernon, Ohio. “I appreciate when a college takes time to show us the spiritual side, rather than only the academic side. Not a lot of colleges — even the Christian colleges — do that. They don’t go in depth like they’ve been doing here.”

Anderson is the ninth school he has visited in his search for the right school. “My fourth college this weekend,” he says wearily. “We’re on the home stretch. We can see the finish line down the road,” says Steve Short, Matthew’s father. His hopes for his son’s college choice are typical of the other parents at the Opportunity Day: “I hope he goes somewhere where he feels he’s part of the community ... and that he grows as a Christian and as a student and a person.”

While the Admissions Office strives to make a personal connection with students interested in attending AU, they can’t ignore the technology involved in drawing students to the university. “We are in the middle of launching a new online application that is a $30,000 project,” says King. “We will be way ahead of our peer institutions when this thing is working for us.” While students have been able to apply online in the past, the new technology is improving the process. Before, the application needed to be completed and sent in one sitting. If the applicant lost his Internet connection or ran out of time, he lost the work he had done.

“The main benefit to students is that during this application process they will be issued a PIN number, and they can take their time filling the application out,” explains Blackburn. “They can do a section, save their info, then they can come back a couple of days later and finish. It’s a nice feature. It really allows them to think about what they want to say and how they want to say it.”

There is also a benefit for the Admissions Office. “The difference for us is that it dumps all the information in our data base,” says Blackburn. Beside being a time-saver for the admissions staff, it can also be a money-saver for students — there is no application fee for online applications.

Research shows that the majority of high school students have Internet access regardless of race or socioeconomic factors. Taking advantage of that fact, the AU Chat initiative began in October (see sidebar above). Chats are scheduled online conversations that take place in “chat rooms.” People from all over the world meet at the same time via their computers. One person types in a question and that question is immediately read and responded to by others in the chat room.

“The basic benefit of it is that it’s providing students with a whole other outlet to communicate,” explains Blackburn. Students can find the chat by logging on to www.anderson.edu/admissions and clicking on the AU Chat icon. “Usually I sit in and [there is] another counselor, and we always have at least two or three AU students. I think it’s a lot less invasive than a phone call.

The students get down to the nitty-gritty back at the visit day, too. By now the high school students are realizing whether or not their preconceived notions of college life were on track. They’ve talked about student sleeping patterns and the “freshman 15” and gotten the scoop on college cafeteria food. Now King leaves the group, and the prospective students split up to see the residence halls.

“When they go to the dorms, I don’t go with them,” says King. “We have a student leader who’s in charge, a male and a female. Now that the director of admissions is out of the way, they talk about what the college social scene is really like, what they do on weekends, what’s the dating scene. All the things they wouldn’t ask in front of me.”

And as all the females sit in the lounge of Rice Hall, the first topic that comes up is, naturally, guys. They discuss when guys can be in the residence hall rooms and when they have to be out, what happens in the case of disciplinary problems and the university’s outlook on drugs and alcohol.

The student leaders give straight answers. “People make bad choices here as they do at other schools. College is what you make of it.” The high schoolers seem to appreciate the honesty and the conversation moves to lighter topics such as “roommate dates” and where to do laundry.

In the hall just outside the lounge, small groups of parents walk by on campus tours. The scheduled group events are coming to a close. After the tour they will meet back together in Kane Dining Room. Parents and students will chat with new friends and enjoy lunch. Some have afternoon meetings scheduled with professors and coaches. Some will return to AU in the fall having decided Anderson offers everything they are looking for in a college, others will not. “Even if they feel AU’s not for them,” says Blackburn, “they’ve had a good experience and they feel their time was well spent.”

After her visit, Joan Terry, a high school senior from Madisonville, Ky., believes she has found her college. “It’s not too big and not too small,” she said. “The atmosphere seems just right.” Her mother, Fay Terry, is bittersweet in her agreement: “I don’t want her to go anywhere. I want her to stay home the next four years, but in place of that I love this school. I think it’s great.”