Dr. Lewis Askegaard, registrar and director of institutional research at Mary Baldwin University, anticipates a slight increase over last year’s enrollment for the college’s 1999-2000 academic year. The school year officially began on Monday, August 30 with the first day of classes.
“This year marks Mary Baldwin’s sixteenth year in a row of increasing enrollments. We are at full capacity on our Staunton campus, and we look for a steady state enrollment this year,” said Dr. Cynthia H. Tyson, president of Mary Baldwin.
Although enrollment figures will not stabilize until mid-September, the college currently anticipates a total of 2,181 students. This figure represents the combined total enrolled in the traditional liberal arts program for women, the Program for the Exceptionally Gifted (PEG), the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership (VWIL), the Baldwin Online and Adult Programs (Baldwin Online and Adult Programs), and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) Program. The total enrollment figure for fall 1998 was 2,174.
Within the total headcount figure, the on-campus undergraduate enrollment figure (not counting Baldwin Online and Adult Programs students taking courses on campus) is anticipated to be 871 students. Included in this figure are 680 young women in the traditional baccalaureate program, 123 in VWIL and 68 in PEG.
The ethnic diversity of this year’s entering undergraduates will be greater than ever, according to college officials. In the traditional, PEG, and VWIL programs, Americans of color – American Indian/Alaskan, Asian/Pacific Islander, Black, or Hispanic – make up 89 of the 323 incoming Mary Baldwin students, or 27.5%. An additional 11 new students came to Mary Baldwin from Japan.
Final enrollment figures will not be available until mid-September due to several factors including late acceptances and students who withdraw during the first week or two of the semester.
Freshmen and new sophomore VWIL students arrived on the Staunton campus on August 16 and were inducted into the VWIL corps, the only all-female corps in the country, on August 29. New PEG students moved into their residence hall on August 21. Traditional freshmen and transfer students arrived on Wednesday, August 25, and upperclass students returned on Saturday, August 28.