Enrollment reaches 4,000 milestone, adding almost 1,000 students in three years

Janel Shoun  | 

Official registration numbers show that Lipscomb University topped an enrollment of 4,000 students this fall, marking a fifth year of record enrollment and setting a history-making milestone. 
With an enrollment of 4,018 students, Lipscomb University added almost 1,000 students since 2008. Due to several graduate programs that start classes later in the semester, the enrollment number will continue to increase later in the term.
 
With an enrollment of more than 1,300, the David Lipscomb Campus School is enjoying its fourth enrollment increase in five years, bringing the total Lipscomb enrollment to more than 5,300.
 
2005 was a milestone for Lipscomb when the university’s board of trustees approved a five-year investment initiative that pumped an average of $1 million a month into the campus and academic programs for almost five years. The plan resulted in a renovated campus landscape, 38 new programs of study, 79 new full-time faculty hired and an increase in graduate enrollment from 221 in 2005 to 1,316 so far this fall.
 
Overall, the university has enjoyed a 59 percent enrollment growth rate since 2005.
 
“In 2005, the leadership of this university agreed that success is a journey, and we believed that journey began with investment in facilities and academic programs,” said Lipscomb President L. Randolph Lowry. “So we began a very intentional effort to design the programs and facilities most needed in our community. The results are seen in the rapid increase in enrollment over the past six years and in our high placement rates for our graduates in jobs and in graduate schools around the nation.”
 
Adding to the fall enrollment jump this semester are:
  • Four new master’s programs;
  • Two new cohorts in the one-year-old education doctorate program;
  • 132 new Master of Education students and 103 local Teach for America teachers are earning graduate credit or a master's degree on campus, and more than 100 Master of Education students are enrolled off-campus;
  • 78 new first-year students to complete the Lipscomb College of Pharmacy student body’s four-year complement; and
  • 110 veterans in the university’s “Yellow Ribbon” program, including two students from the nationwide “Sentinels of Freedom” program for severely wounded veterans.
Among other university milestones in the past year that have boosted awareness of Lipscomb’s academic programs are the accreditation of the Hazelip School of Theology graduate school, joining Vanderbilt University as one of only two in Middle Tennessee; the 2010 Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; and a Race to the Top grant for teacher professional development.
 
In 2011, Lipscomb begins its 121st academic year and initiates a new five-year investment program called Lipscomb:Next, which will include investments in new facilities, academic and spiritual programs as well as enhancements to the David Lipscomb Campus School.
 
Lipscomb:Next was kicked off this summer with the renovation of 51-year-old Fanning residential hall. The next capital investment is an $8.5 million nursing building to begin construction in September.
 
Lipscomb University was recently ranked as the top 19th top university in the South, by the U.S. News and World Report’s “2012 America’s Best Colleges” guidebook. The university has jumped 10 spots in the U.S. News’ rankings in the past five years.