PORTLAND — Prior to this fall, the State University of New York at Fredonia had a steep decline in enrollment. In fall 2015, SUNY Fredonia saw a drop of 369 students.

However, since then, the college implemented its Strategic Enrollment Management Planning Process (SEM) and the state’s Excelsior Scholarship came into effect. The college announced fall 2017 was its second-largest enrollment for first-year students.

“For fall 2017, we are having a decent year, to say the least,” SUNY Fredonia’s Vice President of Academic Affairs Cedric Howard said at a recent College Council meeting at the College Lodge. “Overall, our enrollment is up, which is great for us that we kind of stabilized enrollment overall and now we have — at least from our perspective — a solid foundation to build upon. The entering class was up 21 percent.”

“We set some new records as it relates to the entering class,” he continued. “This is the largest and most diverse class of students we have coming in. This is also the largest honors class we have coming in. Our honors class is up 51 percent compared to last year.”

The incoming students came from 17 different states and 425 different schools.

Although the school has turned its numbers around, SUNY Fredonia has to combat a decline in those attending post-secondary schools and its competition from other SUNY and CUNY schools. Retention has been a focus for SUNY Fredonia.”There are a number of retention efforts that are currently in place, like advising,” Howard said. “We have just introduced them to software … to help us communicate with teachers, instructors, students and just across the board. A quick synopsis overall is that we have some goals that we thought were aspirations this year and we are well along in accomplishing those goals.”

Dr. Terry Brown, provost, explained more on the retention goals at the college. One aspect that is being improved is the advisors. Previously, there was only one full-time advisor.

“Now, we have two and we will add two more,” she said. “One will be focused on transfers; that is important because we are seeing a decline in our transfers. We need to be more hands on for transfers from Jamestown Community College, Erie Community College and Monroe Community College.”

Along with keeping college students who attend SUNY Fredonia, the college is looking at new ways to get more students from the area.

“Fredonia, Dunkirk, Brocton and Westfield, only 50 percent of (graduating seniors) have ever set foot on a college campus, not just Fredonia’s,” he said. “Only 50 percent of graduating seniors, so we have a lot of opportunities to introduce them to the concept of college campuses.”

President Virginia Horvath added that getting students on campus is mutually beneficial. SUNY Fredonia may not be their ultimate choice, but seeing it in person may help a student realize that they could succeed with a post-secondary education.

Twitter: @Kuczkowski95