2007 State of the Colleage

Dean Loy Singleton

In a word, the state of the College is GROWTH.

Last year when I spoke to you the University’s enrollment was about 24,000 students.  And our College’s enrollment stood at 2,400.  During the summer more than 500 students went through our College’s orientation—the most ever.  This fall, the University is 25,000 strong and our College has right at 2,500 students.  Welcome back to the biggest-ever College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama.  As the University’s enrollment grows to President Witt’s goal of 28,000 students, I expect the College’s enrollment to continue growing at the same pace, reaching 2800 students just three years from know.

Growth brings challenges and opportunities and it’s our challenge—and the job of our faculty, staff and students—to find ways to keep this growth positive, to harness it as a source of strength for our College, rather than a limitation. An important way to do that is to strengthen the resources that make our College great, especially students, faculty and facilities.

  A key way to strengthen our student body is through scholarship support and we are working hard to bring in scholarship funds from our alumni and friends in the communication industries.  Our College’s capitol campaign goal for scholarships was 3 million dollars.  To date we have received more than 3 million 800 thousand dollars in gifts and pledges for scholarships.

Outstanding faculty are indispensable for a growing College and last year we received three new faculty positions to help address growth.  This year we’ve received two more new faculty positions—a total of five new faculty positions in two years—three in APR, one in Journalism and one in Communication Studies. 

As our faculty and student body continue to grow we are doing everything we can to get the most out of our rapidly shrinking classroom space, lab space and office space.   For some students and faculty this means earlier or later class times—and I appreciate your help with this.  The ultimate solution is to find room for expansion beyond Phifer Hall’s current boundaries and we are working hard to find the resources to do that.

So, while growth brings challenges, it also offers opportunities.  Rest assured that we will meet those challenges and opportunities in a manner that will keep your College of Communication and Information Sciences one of the top programs in the nation.