A new initiative to focus on international student enrollment was introduced at Monday’s faculty meeting.
President Rock Jones and Susan Dileno, vice president for enrollment, informed faculty about a partnership with EC English Language Centres, which would house international students on Ohio Wesleyan University’s campus while they completed an English as a second language program.
“Partnerships are powerful ways to increase enrollment,” Dileno said.
The program is meant to attract international students who were initially denied admission to the university based on their English skills. Through this program, students would be conditionally accepted to OWU and then fully enrolled once a predetermined ability level is met.
Students in the program would pay tuition to EC, but would pay room and board to OWU. In addition, EC would pay the university for the use of teaching space on campus.
Essentially, the students would be integrated into campus life at OWU, but not enrolled in university classes until their individual goals are reached in the program.
There is no guarantee that these students will attend OWU after completing the program, but the partnership will provide revenue for the university.
EC offers their own centers, independent of colleges and universities, across the world. There are only two other universities that have centers on their campuses: The State University of New York at Oswego and at State University of New York at Fredonia.
Class Changes
Faculty also approved a motion presented by the Academic Policy Committee to change class schedule times, allowing a second class time to be offered Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
Currently, the only time slot available these afternoons is from 1:10-3:00 p.m. With the new policy, classes will be offered from 1:10-2:30 p.m. and 2:40-4:00 p.m.
Further discussion will take into account labs, studio courses and seminars that might have originally used the original time block.
The motion also added a time slot Monday and Wednesday afternoons from 2:10-4:00 p.m. Furthermore, evening classes will begin at 6:30 p.m. everyday instead of 7 p.m.