Enrollment up at UAPB

The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff has seen a 7% increase in new student enrollment for the Fall 2024 semester.

UAPB Interim Chancellor Andrea Stewart announced the trend Thursday during the last day of the University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees’ meetings at the campus’ STEM Conference Campus. The increase includes a 39% surge in transfer students, according to a news release from the university.

UAPB reported, citing preliminary data, Black males make up 43% of its student population for this semester, much higher than the 26% rate of such enrollment at historically Black colleges and universities in 2022, according to a recent report by the American Institute for Boys and Men. At UAPB, the average over the past three years is 45%.

Through 11 days of instruction, UAPB’s overall enrollment stood at 2,049, a 2% decline from 2023. But the retention of students on campus has seen a decrease of 9%, the university reported.

“With the new financial aid form and FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), some of the first-generation students and their parents were having challenges in getting those done,” Stewart said. “That gives Dr. (Moses) Goldmon and his team a chance to reach out to students that didn’t come in the fall and try to get them in the spring.”

Goldmon is vice chancellor for Enrollment Management and Student Services at UAPB. He attributed the increase in first-time enrollees and transfers to the increase in applications from 4,732 in 2023 to more than 7,500 this year.

“UAPB also saw a 45% increase in new student orientation participation in 2024,” he said in the release. “This is important because it ensures that students new to UAPB are ready to start class on day one. These increases, coupled with the uptick in first-time student enrollment, show that our strategic enrollment management strategies are working. They’ve been designed to increase the number of new students and ensure their success once they join the UAPB family. The rise in transfer students underscore our appeal as a welcoming and supportive institution where students can continue their academic pursuits with confidence and a sense of belonging.”

Stewart added UAPB is implementing additional measures to help all students face their ongoing challenges, among them financial-related, cited as the primary reason students leave college before completing degrees.

UAPB announced initiatives such as the Student Success Center’s launch of the Pride Success Academy to help students who are “marginally prepared.” The SSC also makes tutors available for more academic subjects and increasing hours of available services to better match student schedules.

Stewart also shared ongoing capital projects such as the work to restore the Hathaway-Howard Fine Arts Center, which was damaged by fire on Nov. 5, 2021. The UA System board approved WER Architects to design the center’s reconstruction in April 2023.

We have to redo our auditorium and TV station, so once that gets done, students can get back in and start having theater plays.

Work has begun on UAPB’s Student Engagement Center, which Stewart estimates will be completed in a year. The university broke ground on the 62,000-square-foot, $33-million project in December 2022.

“It gives students hope and it gives students potentially wanting to join our campus (reason to say), ‘Oh, wow, they’re doing things,'” Stewart said.

Also Thursday, 95th Miss UAPB Freddiemae Thompson of Pine Bluff introduced Caleb Williams, the university’s 103rd Student Government Association president from Little Rock. Williams, a senior, is a former intern in the U.S. House and Senate and was recently appointed as the youngest member of the Black History Commission of Arkansas.

While interning, Williams said he talked with Congress members about historically Black colleges and universities such as UAPB and how legislation would affect so many of their students.

“I am here because of the history of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff,” Williams said, naming alumni such as Samuel Kountz, the first person to perform a kidney transplant between non-identical twins in the U.S.; Silas Hunt, the first Black student in the UA School of Law; and Caleb Snowden, the recent NCAA bronze-medal and USA Track and Field silver-medal high jumper.

“So much history on this campus and so many student success stories that were told that I didn’t know about,” Williams said. “I didn’t know that I would go on to become one of those student success stories.”

Williams cited I Timothy 4:12 (New Living Translation): “Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.”

“If we can give these students the self-actualization to realize their full potential, then they, too, can become a student success story,” he said.

The UA System Board also approved UA-Monticello’s memorandum of understanding on a 3+1 agreement with National Park College for an associate of science in nursing to a bachelor of science in nursing. The board also approved UAM’s memoranda for 2+2 agreements with UA Cossatot Community College for associate of science in health sciences to bachelor of science in exercise science, associate of science in natural resources to bachelor of science in natural resources management (forestry option), and associate of science in natural resources to bachelor of science in natural resources management wildlife management and conservation option.

Several consent agenda items were approved for UAM, including:

Adding an e-sports track for the bachelor of science in health and physical education

New courses for graduate certificates in waterfowl habitat and recreation management and forest business

reconfiguration of the bachelor of science in computer information systems to offer a bachelor’s in computer science

phlebotomy training for work in the UA Medical Sciences network of facilities at UAMS (through the UAM College of Technology at Crossett) and certificate of proficiency in nursing assistant through the Crossett campus at Hamburg High School for high school seniors to begin work immediately after turning 18 or to satisfy a prerequisite for practical nursing at the Crossett campus.

and deletion of bachelor of arts programs in art, history and political science.