OFFICIALS HOPE MOVE WILL RAISE ENROLLMENT

A desire to increase enrollment was one factor in the decision of Southeast Missouri State University to move up to Division I athletics.

Enrollment has actually declined over the past three years, but university officials still believe the Division I move is paying off in the marketing of the institution.

In the fall of 1990, Southeast was beginning its final year as a Division II school. Enrollment stood at 8,816. But enrollment has declined since then, to 8,716 in the fall of 1991 and 8,438 last fall.

But university officials point out that the enrollment drop is partly due to demographics a smaller pool of high school graduates and increased admission standards.

In the past two years, Southeast has denied admission to about 700 students.

Shelba Branscum, a member of the human environmental studies faculty and the university's budget committee, said increasing enrollment was a key reason behind the school's decision to move to Division I.

But she questioned if students really pay attention to such classifications.

Budget committee member Terry Sutton of the economics faculty maintained that location and not the status of Southeast's athletic teams is the key to attracting students to the school.

"People come to a place like SEMO because of where it is located more than anything else," said Sutton.

Art Wallhausen, assistant to the president at Southeast, says the university made the Division I move for the long haul.

"No one ever said it would make an instant improvement in enrollment," he said.

"This is not the time to assess the impact of Division I on enrollment, that may be five or 10 years down the road," he observed. "It is a long-term thing, not a short-term thing."

Juan Crites, admissions director at Southeast, says the greater media coverage and increased visibility of Division I athletics won't singlehandedly attract students to the school.

But she says it does get a foot in the door in the minds of prospective students. "Any kind of publicity, if it is positive, is a great thing," said Crites.

"It has definitely given us more name recognition," she added.

Joe Low, Southeast's faculty representative to the NCAA, agrees.

"This is a long-range kind of goal, but I see positive signs of that move to Division I in our recruiting, in our public visibility.

"I think it dovetails with the institution's desire to be thought of as more demanding and with higher standards than we had before," he said.

Low said Southeast's visibility and acceptance as a "serious academic institution" has been enhanced by the move.

The university had good academic programs even as a Division II school. But he said even high school counselors often viewed Southeast as a lesser institution academically because of its Division II athletic status.

Low thinks that has changed since Southeast began Division I play in the fall of 1991. "The perception of high school counselors and advisers, I think, has been altered. They see us as an institution with higher standards than they perceived us to have before.

"We have visibility in markets like Chicago and Nashville, where before we were largely unknown," said Low.

Southeast's athletics director, Richard McDuffie, said that paid off, for example, when Southeast was able to recruit a cross-country runner from a Chicago area junior college. The athlete's decision to come to Southeast ultimately led four or five other non-athletes from the junior college to enroll here, McDuffie said.

"We hear all kinds of those stories," he added.

Leslie Cochran former provost at Southeast and now president of Youngstown State University in Ohio was one of the key players in the Cape Girardeau school's move to Division I.

Cochran said the decision was made in conjunction with a number of academic program improvements, including restructuring the teacher education program.

"Our judgment was, we had made the right academic decisions prior to that," said Cochran. "This was the final statement to the university to clearly commit and represent to the public that the things we did at the university were all of a common, first-class stature.

"Quite frankly what was happening (as a Division II school), we couldn't get anyone's attention outside of the immediate area that those kinds of changes had occurred at the university," Cochran said.

There's a public perception, he said, that a Division I school has not only a high quality athletic program, but also a first-rate academic one.

Cochran said part of the decision also stemmed from the fact that Southeast was the lone Division II school in the region, competing for students with Division I schools such as Murray State in Kentucky, Arkansas State and Southwest Missouri State.

Kala Stroup, Southeast's president, began her duties here in July 1990 after the Division I move had already been decided.

But Stroup, who formerly served as president of Murray State an Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) school said it made sense for Southeast to join the OVC because of its similarity to the regional institutions in that conference.

Stroup said the schools have similar academic programs and missions.

Stroup and others believe that Southeast's Division I affiliation, while not the primary factor, can help in recruiting good students.

"I think it affects the stronger students," she said. "People don't want to go to schools that no one knows about."

Clemson economist Robert McCormick believes that athletic success helps attract better students.

Clemson experienced its biggest increase in SAT scores of entering freshmen after it went undefeated in football and won the national championship in 1981.

Last fall, there were 13 National Merit Finalists enrolled at Southeast, the most in the school's history.

Some other OVC schools had varying numbers of Merit Finalists enrolled last fall. Eastern Kentucky had two; Tennessee-Martin, two; and Tennessee Tech, 15.

Southeast officials credit a strong recruiting effort to attracting the scholarly students. But the Division I affiliation doesn't hurt, Crites said.

Such students, she said, want to attend schools that have first-rate programs across the board. College athletics is simply part of that mix, she said.