Farmingdale State College has much to celebrate, as it continues to build on its strengths and readies itself for the future with new programs and facilities, President Dr. John S. Nader told faculty and staff at the 2022 Fall Convocation Aug. 24.
The accomplishments are many and the upcoming years are full with promise. “There are very few colleges in the Northeast who can say they have enrollment stability without compromising selectivity,” Nader said. “But we can say that and that is quite a remarkable thing.” FSC may exceed its enrollment targets for Fall 2022, he added.
Nader outlined his “Ten Points of Pride,” which illustrated how FSC is serving its students, improving the campus, and gaining support and admiration from graduates and the greater community. The College has established the Office of Civic and Community Engagement, to promote interaction with local companies and organizations.
Alumni support is on the rise; the College saw a jump in fundraising dollars to more than $3 million in fiscal year 2022, an increase of nearly 200 percent since 2020. The number of donors also grew from 767 in 2020 to 1,486 in 2022. Donations from outside the college are up as well; including a $400,000 donation to the Sillcox Scholars program from the Sillcox family who are now supporting 70 students this year, evidence that the family sees value in investing in Farmingdale for a total of more than 101 since the inception of their scholarship and more than $1 million in support to the Foundation for their students.
Students and the college also will benefit from the Honors Program, which debuts this fall, for which 20 students have been enrolled. FSC also joined the Dream U.S. program, which provides college scholarships for undocumented students who entered the country as young children. The scholarships will be handled by the Farmingdale Foundation; Dream U.S. was so impressed with FSC that its staff asked the College to serve as a conduit to the SUNY colleges, to see if any others are a good fit, Nader said.
Another cause for celebration was an agreement inked with Estee Lauder to do research on campus, destined to bring internships and jobs to FSC students.
FSC continues to take pride in its diversity, with minority students now in the majority, and the retention numbers for first-year Black and Hispanic students above the SUNY averages.
On the physical plant side, the College’s $250 million capital renovation plan also will position the campus well for the future, with more up-to-date facilities and the opportunity to expand programs. “This won’t increase the campus footprint, but will appreciably improve the space and ability to use the space,” said Nader. “We also have the chance for a new building and are in the process of hiring a new dean.”
The state has enough faith in FSC to allocate $1.6 million for new faculty and $2.2 million for student services, enrollment, academic programs, and operational efficiencies, the largest amount for any SUNY campus other than the university centers.
At the same time, the College recognizes some things could be better.
“There are areas in which we do very, very well,” Nader said. “And areas in which we need to improve.” With more colleges competing for students, changing demographics, and students’ willingness to embrace distance learning—no matter the distance-- FSC may have to update some of its strategies.
“The changes we have to make going forward will not necessarily be anything at all like those in the past,” he added.
The future of higher education will involve working with different populations, at different locations, for different durations, he noted. FSC’s six-year graduation rate for full-time bachelor’s students was 51 percent in 2020, compared with the overall SUNY rate of 68 percent and the technology college rate of 56 percent. With the exception of possibly one other campus, Nader said, FSC is more selective than the other colleges of technology.
“We do a ton of things very, very well, but sometimes we need to dig deeper into the data,” according to Nader, “and I appreciate that academics has begun doing that and is working with enrollment. We have to begin to look at doing some things differently.” That includes working with adult and re-entry students, he said.
Another challenge is the large number of FSC students who are taking fewer than 15 credits in their fourth year. “That is something we have to look at,” Nader said. Because they are not full-time, they are not eligible for financial aid. “This is the what we need to know, the why.”
“Whatever got us here, is not necessarily going to get us to a better place,” Nader said. “We are working on this.”
With competition for Long Island students increasing and the high school student population decreasing, FSC is working on converting more of its University in the High School students to Farmingdale students. Currently, about 16 percent of UHS participants enroll at FSC, according to Nader.
Trends that FSC needs to monitor include a 33 percent drop in enrollment at Nassau Community College since 2016, one of Farmingdale’s key feeder schools. “We need to be mindful of what we can do,” he added. Also, about one-quarter of a million New York State students are participating in online college programs from other states.
Another bit of news that is concerning, Nader said, is a recent Public Agenda poll in which 49 percent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 with college degrees described a college education as a “questionable investment because of high student loans and limited job opportunities,” and hopes to hear more about that.
FSC can help turn around those numbers, by continuing to broadcast its Metrics that Matter message, Nader said, and highlighting its track record of helping students get degrees, at an affordable price, without debt, and secure well-paying jobs in their fields. “I say it every place I go to an external audience.”
If you missed this year’s Convocation or wish to view it again, it is available on the Convocation site.
