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By Paul Carter
Ricks College Change to Impact Utah State University
LOGAN, UTAH -- Turning two-year junior college Ricks into the new
4-year BYU-Idaho will have consequences for Utah State University in
Logan. USU administrators are evaluating just what impact to expect
regarding the numbers of transfer students each year, competition for
4 year students in similar fields of study, competition for faculty,
and general student enrollment. The sports program at USU will
likely also be affected.
The change to BYU-Idaho was announced by President Gordon B. Hinckley
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints June 21, 2000. The
new curriculum at BYU-Idaho begins September 5th of this year.
According to Craig Petersen, Chief Assistant to the President at USU,
"Ricks is moving more rapidly than we expected to add new degree
programs, so it will probably have more impact on us than we
anticipated when they announced this."
Ricks is located in Rexburg, Idaho, north of Logan and USU. The
current enrollment at Ricks is 8,600 and that number is expected to
increase to 11,600 students by the 2005-6 academic year.
Over the next five years, BYU-Idaho will establish a curriculum
offering 40 bachelor degrees and 16 associate degrees. This compares
to Ricks' current 94 associate degree programs, 33 specialized
degrees, and four 1-year degrees--most of these are slated for
elimination. BYU-Provo is transferring it's Agriculture bachelor's
degree programs to the Idaho campus. But, there will be no graduate
degrees offered in any department at BYU-Idaho. The question in Logan
is how this new mix of degree programs will affect enrollment at Utah
State.
In discussing the impact on USU's transfer student program, Peterson
says, "For many years, Ricks has been our largest source of transfer
students." For the Fall 2000 semester, there were 1,202 students
enrolled at USU who had transferred from Ricks with 472 new at USU
that semester.
Don Snyder, a professor in the USU Economics department and Assistant
Director of the USU Agricultural Experiment Station suggests that the
results will be mixed. "The potential impact is that we may have
more difficulty getting transfer students in agriculture, although
that's still debatable because we offer more specialized degrees than
BYU-Idaho will. My suspicion is that we will still have more students
transfer here to the agriculture program. The other impact is we may
want to make a bigger effort with BYU and Ricks to recruit graduate
students into our programs because BYU is getting out of the
agriculture business and Ricks won't offer graduate degrees."
BYU-Idaho will be adding 100 additional faculty during it's
transition from a 2-year college to a 4-year university. With regard
to the possibility of BYU-Idaho taking faculty from USU or perhaps
enticing faculty candidates to settle to the North, USU's Petersen
says that the two universities will not be in competition. "The
nature of the institutions is quite different. USU is a research
institution, whereas Ricks will be strictly a teaching institution.
That will attract different types of faculty members. I think it
would be very rare that they would hire somebody that we would look
seriously at."
Where the changes in Rexburg will provide a definite benefit for USU
is in sports recruiting. Ricks has consistently fielded
nationally-ranked teams and provided an extensive sports scholarship
program. But the new BYU-Idaho will not offer inter-collegiate
sports competition. So the high caliber freshman and sophomore
athletes who might have been recruited by a continuing Ricks athletic
department will be strong candidates for recruitment by Utah State
University.
Source:
Mormon trek north?
MSNBC (Logan UT Herald Journal) 5Mar01 D3
By Arrin Brunson
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