Student numbers in the NIU College of Education have reached levels not seen in a decade.
“Our graduate enrollments are up by 9.9%, or 112 students, which is the highest graduate enrollment we’ve had in the last 10 years,” said David Walker, associate dean for Academic Affairs, “and our total enrollments are up by 3.9%, or 97 students, which also is the highest enrollments we’ve seen in the last 10 years. We did wonderfully.”
All six departments recorded percentage growth in graduate programs, he added, calling that university-topping result “phenomenal.”
Contained in that is a 100% doubling of students pursuing the M.S. in Educational Research, Evaluation, and Assessment, from nine to 18, while headcounts in the M.S.Ed. in Early Childhood Education and the Board Certified Behavior Analysis® program (part of the M.S.Ed. in Special Education) soared by 87.5% and 72.7%, respectively.
Walker’s totals also show a 32.4% jump for the M.S. in Sport Management, a 25.6% rise for the M.S.Ed. in Higher Education and Student Affairs, a 13.3% climb in the Elementary Education Master of Arts in Teaching candidates and a 7.9% bump in the M.S.Ed. in School Business Management.
Tallies of individual registrants in graduate degrees, meanwhile, reveal 467 new students (the 10-year average is 255). Accounting for that are 364 new master’s students (the average is 214), 83 new doctoral students (the average is 31) and 20 new Ed.S. students (the average is eight).
Undergraduate matriculation slipped only 1% from last fall, buoyed by improved arrivals of transfer students: The college welcomed 192 new Huskies coming from other institutions of higher education, beating the 10-year average of 176.
Retention of new, full-time freshmen from fall 2023 to fall 2024 stands at 71.9%, exceeding the five-year average of 68.6%. At the same time, the college welcomed 178 new freshmen this fall, toppling the 10-year average of 166.
It all combines to 2,561 students, Walker said, ranking the College of Education as the third-most populated among NIU’s seven colleges and home to the fifth- and sixth-largest departments on campus.
“How did we get here? A lot of planning. A lot of hard work. A lot of executing the plan with Chris Lowe and Alex Owens from the Office for Student Success; all of the chairs; the area coordinators and faculty who run the specializations, emphases and major programs; and the deans. Working with the college’s office in learning partnerships,” he said. “Really, it’s a group effort.”
Such teamwork goes beyond Graham, Gabel and Anderson halls, he added, thanks to collaboration with colleagues throughout campus.
“We worked in concert with the Graduate School this year, and they had a big promotion of us working in Slate with newly admitted graduate students,” he said. “We also worked in the Navigate system to contact continuing students when we needed to work with them to see how we could get them enrolled for the fall semester to rejoin the COE family. That was very successful.”
Partnerships off campus helped as well, including contract cohorts with employers interested in upskilling their workforces through NIU College of Education degrees and certificates.
The college also now enjoys more than two dozen “2+2” agreements with Illinois community colleges for seamless transfer pathways, including this fall’s debut of the B.S. in Early Childhood Education in the catalog at the University Center at McHenry County College.
“Everyone being involved in moving us in the same direction, and executing a set of plans, has led to this great result. We couldn’t be happier,” Walker said.
“I think it really talks about the quality of the type of degrees we’re conferring but also about the experience – that we’re meeting students where they are, both undergraduate and graduate,” he added. “We’re taking a lot of these programs out to the northern Illinois region; to community colleges, to high schools, to other partners.”
Doing so, along with respecting the lives of students balancing work and family responsibilities with their education, has prompted creativity in how coursework is delivered.
Some classes are in person, some are scheduled in shorter blocks of time, some are completely housed online (with synchronous or asynchronous options) and some are provided in hybrid or “HyFlex” formats.
“We’ve been very successful in being flexible in the types of high-quality teaching and learning that we’re affording our students,” Walker said. “This is super exciting.”
