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8
Black History month alumni profiles
11
James Jankowiak’s ‘Prismatic Vernacular’ exhibit
Jeff Wettach retires after 33 years at Luther
COLLEGE
LUTHER “Let the chips fall where they may.”
VOLUME 140, NO. 12• EST. 1884
FEBRUARY 22, 2018
Residence Life announces Baker Village will do away with double rooms next year, cites student preference and low enrollment
Singles
only
GILLIAN KLEIN STAFF WRITER
Currently, Baker Village can house up to 112 students.
Baker Village, a senior housing option at Luther, will be offering only single rooms for the 2018-19 school year due to student preferences and decreasing enrollment. The village-style homes currently have six units with four bedrooms and 12 units with six bedrooms. There are also two units with two bedrooms. Both four and six room units house six students. One hundred and twelve students may live in the Baker homes if they are filled to capacity, and there are currently 106 residents housed in Baker this semester. Originally, Baker was built to only offer singles. A shortage of rooms led to the decision to offer four bedroom units to four or six residents. Room-draw packets released
Feb. 7 announced that Baker rooms would be returning to exclusively single rooms. This was the first time many students were made aware of the changes. For Christopher LangePearson (‘19) it was not publicized enough. “I searched for anything about Baker singles for 15 minutes, and I could not find anything,” Lange-Pearson said. “The lack of publicizing is probably not a benefit as it creates a disconnect between the students and administration.” Lange-Pearson was not the only student who was confused. Other students indicated a concern about what effect this would have on the 2018-19 room draw process. Morgan Streyle (‘19) shared her concerns. “The change was okay for my group because
Gillian Klein (‘20) | Chips
our six-person became a four-person recently,” Streyle said. “For other groups it’s now more of an issue because[we think] it is going to be more difficult to secure a six-person Baker.” The new policy led other students to speculate about why Residence Life implemented the changes. Ryne Hanson (‘18) commented as to why he believes there are different housing options being offered this upcoming year. “Baker’s not the only dormitory facing low residency: Brandt’s quads are filled with two or three people instead of four,” Hanson said. “It’s possible that attendance is declining because tuition prices have increased for most private schools.”
Assistant Dean for Student Life and Director of Residence Life Kris Franzen commented on the effect enrollment has in the housing options offered each year. “When we made the change to increasing the units from four person to six person units in Baker, we had students living in study lounges on campus,” Franzen stated. “So yes, enrollment has played a role in housing options over my eleven years in residence life at Luther.” According to Franzen, enrollment affects housing every year, and enrollment in the past five years has seen a steady decline. BAKER | PAGE 4
Demographic retention rates in perspective MARTIN DONOVAN STAFF WRITER Luther’s Strategic Plan for 2018 - 2023 details an effort to increase the college’s overall diversity as well as its retention of underrepresented students. Since 2008, the average four-year graduation rate for all demographics at Luther has hovered at 68.3 percent.
However, the six-year graduation rate is almost ten percentage points higher with the mean sitting at 76.7 percent. Luther’s Director of Assessment and Institutional Research (AIR) Jon Christy (‘84) and Assistant Director of AIR Nan Hibbs compounded Luther’s retention rates of 2008-2010 first-year students. Their goal was to compare Luther’s sixyear graduation rates by race, gender, and ethnicity with
other private non-profit colleges. The reason AIR compiled three years’ worth of data on graduation rates is because of the small number of students in certain race and ethnicity categories enrolled at Luther. In this three-year span, Luther’s overall six-year graduation rate was 79.3 percent, whereas the national average of private non-profit institutions was at 62.2 percent. However, the 52.6 percent retention rate of female Latina students at Luther was lower than the national average of 60.7 percent. Also, there was no reported representation of “American Indian or Alaska Native” or “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander” among first-year students from 2008 to 2010. According to Luther’s 2017 fall semester census data, there were 221 U.S. students of color enrolled at Luther which accounted for 10.8 percent of Luther’s total student body. Additionally, there were 161 international students enrolled, which made up 7.8 percent of Luther’s total student body. In addition to racial and ethnic diversity, “The New York Times” created an annual College Access Index to measure colleges’ “commitment to socioeconomic diversity.” The College Access Index analyzes the total number of low and middle-income students enrolled in a college that has a graduation rate of at least 75 percent, and the price students pay to attend the institution. In the most recent College Access Index, Luther was below average for socioeconomic diversity, ranking 116th out of 171 colleges and universities in the U.S.
Graph courtesy of Luther College IPEDS annual reporting
RETENTION | PAGE 4