MBU's first week points to record breaking enrollment

University sees significant increases in returners, resident students

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bryce Chapman
Director of University Communications
(314) 744-7631, chapmanb@mobap.edu

Missouri Baptist University welcomed more students onto its main campus than ever before this past Monday, launching a new academic year sure to be marked with firsts. As of Monday, total undergraduate enrollment was approaching 1,200, said Terry Dale Cruse, vice president for enrollment services. The record-breaking undergraduate population on the University's main West Saint Louis County campus is, in part, the result of an integrated enrollment campaign aimed at increasing enrollment and retention rates university wide.

"What we are seeing is a noticeably positive momentum when it comes to the University's enrollment," Cruse said. "Ultimately, more students are recognizing MBU as an affordable institution for higher learning devoted to Christ-centered inquiry."

The main campus enrollment represents a 24 percent increase since 2007 when the University's enrollment campaign began. In the last two years, MBU's main campus has seen a 16 percent increase in its returning student population, which is defined by the number of students who continue from one year to the next. The University launched its Academic Success Center, aimed at student success and retention efforts, during the fall 2009 semester.

About 300 students are living on campus, an increase of 70 over last year's number. The number represents a 37 percent increase.  All of the University's residential facilities are at capacity, including the University's new Spartan Village. The Village's apartments include private bedrooms, kitchens, patios, and even flatscreen TVs.

In addition, more than 20 students are living in off-campus apartments that are leased by the University.

The spike in resident students comes just months before the University's new Carl and Deloris Petty Sports and Recreation Complex is set to open.  Slated for an October, 2011 opening, the 47,000-square-foot complex, which is located adjacent to Spartan Village on the eastern edge of the University's 68-acre campus, will include a 1,000-seat gymnasium, a suspended indoor track, an expanded training and fitness center and new classrooms and offices for the Department of Health and Sport Sciences.

Total enrollment, including students at MBU's nine regional learning centers and its dual-enrollment program, will be released Oct. 15. Last year, the University's total enrollment was 5,062.

Missouri Baptist University is St. Louis' Christ-centered university. MBU offers more than 40 undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees in education, business and religion and its new terminal degree, the Doctor of Education. In addition to its 66-acre West St. Louis County campus, MBU offers degree programs at nine regional learning centers throughout St. Louis and in Southern Illinois and online. For more information, go to http://www.mobap.edu or call 1- 877-434-1115.

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