By Ryan McBride, Providence Business News
November 14, 2005
PBN: The university’s enrollment has grown 48 percent since you became president. How has the school managed this growth?
NIRSCHEL: This was part of a strategic plan. When I was hired five years ago, the university needed a strategic plan. And the goal was not only to make the university a little bigger, but better. As we’ve grown, we’ve increased housing on campus, as well as looked at housing off campus for our growing law school program, which now has over 600 students—we had 350 when I got here. So we’ve strategically built new facilities. One of the first things we did is build a campus recreation center to encourage students’ healthy lifestyles. We’ve got an Olympic-sized pool, which certainly adds to quality of life. We’ve also improved the quality of food served to our students. Maybe most importantly, today we have over 200 full-time faculty members. I have hired more than one-third of them in my time. So we’ve really grown the faculty, improved technology and grown the endowment (from $37 million to $80 million).
PBN: What do you believe has attracted more students, both at the graduate and undergraduate level?
NIRSCHEL: I think, in no particular order, we’ve got a beautiful location in Bristol. You’re close to Providence, only an hour from Boston and, by train, three hours from New York. More importantly, it’s the range and quality of our academic offerings. We have an outstanding school of architecture and a terrific and growing school of business. We have the only law school in Rhode Island and that attracts not only law students but undergraduates who might want to pursue law. We’re also on the water, so we have a great marine science program. We’ve received more good press for our international initiatives, our law school and marine science program than just about any university I can think of. So we’re now known not only in Rhode Island, Boston and New York, but we’re also known in Washington, D.C., Afghanistan and Vietnam. This year, we had over 7,100 applications for a class of only 1,150—that’s about an 85-percent increase in the last four years. Our law school had 1,700 applications for a class of only 200.
PBN: You were the first U.S. college president to offer a full scholarship to Afghan women after the fall of the Taliban and recently hosted a delegation of 35 Iraqi students. What role should U.S. universities play in improving American and Arabic relations?
NIRSCHEL: It’s important that students and faculty understand the world. My feeling is that you cannot be an educated person in the 21st century without having a global perspective. We have brought women from Afghanistan, an initiative that other universities have followed, and brought students from Iraq, Christians and Muslims, Shiites and Sunnis. This gave our students a chance to sit face to face with these students from different cultures, and in the process we have promoted good will for America throughout the world. I think our foreign students have gone home with a better appreciation of the positive aspects of American society. They may have issues with our foreign policy, and they are entitled to do that, but they will have a better understanding of our commitment to service and volunteerism in this country, as well as the entrepreneurial nature of Americans. I think it reduces tension when it reduces stereotypes. We just got a grant from the State Department, so we have students from Syria, Lebanon and Morocco all on our campus talking to students from Bristol, Barrington and Providence.
PBN: Under your leadership, the university has increased the annual amount of giving to the university by 200 percent. How important is your endowment to improving the quality of education?
NIRSCHEL: We are like most colleges and universities: tuition-driven. We charge tuition. We give a lot of it back in scholarships. In fact, last year we awarded about $26 million in financial aid of our own money to students. We’ve seen growth in our endowment and annual giving. When I got here, (annual giving) was about $1.2 million and this past year total giving and grants was $5.6 million. It’s not enough, but we use that money to hire outstanding faculty members, provide scholarships, to build facilities and add technology. We want to keep the increase in tuition to a minimum, and the way you do that is grow the endowment. We’ve had a great return on the investments in our endowment. We’re a young university, so we don’t have a lot of rich alumni, but we have been able to get the alumni involved. We think that’s the future: to involve the alumni and others who care about the university and the programs we offer.
PBN: The university offers a major in construction management. What does that cover, and how well does it prepare students for jobs?
NIRSCHEL: First, it’s accredited at the highest level in the construction management field. We’ve got great faculty. We have a great advisory group from the corporate community. And the beauty of the construction management degree is all these students get jobs. They’re highly coveted. Also, they have the best of all worlds: They’re taking a curriculum in engineering, architecture and business. I think the key is to have an interdisciplinary approach, which we are very big on. A construction management student understands not only the building, but the design of it and the economics of it.