Radford University

Radford University (visited 4/3/18)

I was excited to have the chance to visit Radford since a student of mine was all fired up about it several years ago; it was the only one he wanted to go to. My welcome to the university by the admissions staff was enthusiastic, and they were helpful with parking and getting me registered for the tour. That being said, I was highly disappointed in the visit, and I left not knowing why I would recommend the school to a student, mostly because I had no idea what made it different from a multitude of other medium sized universities.

This is a public university with 9,400 students, 90% of whom are undergraduate. The school didn’t go co-ed until 1972; today, it’s still almost 60% female. I do get the feeling that their reputation is getting better corresponding to its growing academics and cracking down on some of the partying that the school had been known for. “I get the party question a lot,” said the tour guide. “It was definitely a party school at one point. It’s not like that anymore. Admissions is getting more selective, and this is a dry campus. They even consider your body to be a container. If you come back to campus visibly intoxicated, you can get in trouble. You might not even get into your major if you’ve been written up for an alcohol charge.” They do seem to be doing some things right; retention is at about 77% which above the national average.

Radford is a good choice for a solid B/B+ student. Admitted students have a middle GPA range of 2.9-3.5. Generally, scholarships are granted to students with at least a 3.2 GPA and 1080 SAT or 22 ACT. Students must apply by December 1 to be considered for scholarships. Scores received by then will be considered: if new scores come in, they’ll reconsider the scholarship offer. Out-of-state scholarships are higher corresponding to the higher tuition (about $32,000 for OOS compared to just under $20,000 for in-state).

The average class size is 30-35 students. This is a bit larger than many schools of this size, although fewer than 3% of classes are taught by Grad Assistants. Students seem pretty happy with their classes. There are 6 colleges to choose from for majors:

• The College of Business and Econ is AAACSB Accredited (given to the top 10% of programs) and offers 4 fairly standard undergraduate majors.
• The College of Education and Human Development offers several majors including Appalachian Studies and Recreation, Parks, and Tourism.
• The Health and Human Services school is the most competitive for admissions. All the majors in this school require internships so students will need a car. Their Nursing program is NOT direct admit: about 200 students enter in Pre-nursing for 60 spots in fall and 40 in spring. Job placement coming out of this program is high with virtually all graduates employed within 30 days.
• The Humanities and Behavioral Sciences school is the largest; about 40% of students major here. They have a full courthouse in the building for the Criminal Justice/pre-law (and they have a forensic studies minor). The Military Science/Army ROTC is also housed in this school.
• The Science and Tech school just got a $5million grant for scholarships. Anthropological Sciences are housed here (which is unusual) as well as Information Tech, Geospatial Sciences, and a new Cybersecurity major which will start in 2018. They also run a planetarium with live-feed from NASA and a Natural History Museum.
• The Visual and Performing Arts school is described as the “smallest but loudest.”

There are 15 residence halls clustered around several small quads. All dorms are suite-style or have en suite bathrooms; none have bathrooms down the hall. I’m sure this has gone a long way to Radford being ranked #3 best dorms in the state and in the top 100 nationwide. Their meal plan is like a debit card. With their card, food is half-price at the on-campus fast food vendors (Wendy’s, Starbucks, Chik-fil-a, etc) and 70% off listed prices at the dining hall. They have a sit-down style restaurant on the first floor of the largest dorm on campus, a 10-floor dorm that houses about half the freshmen. Parking is available for all students in a lot across a footbridge from the main campus, but cars aren’t needed. The Radford Transit shuttles run every 10 minutes from about 8am to about 1am. This gets them around campus as well as in town to places like Walmart and as far as Blacksburg (Virginia Tech area).

Students seem happy with the things to do on and off campus. “We’re in Southern Virginia among the mountains and rivers,” said a rep. There is a town, and Virginia Tech is not too far up the road, but this is not a booming college town. Thy have a popular Outdoors Club which gets students into the immediate area to hike, bike, ski, etc as well as outside of the area to scuba dive, sky dive, and more. The DI sports are strong, and students go for free, including trips to see away games during the NCAA tournament. “We’re the only Virginia team to win a game in the that,” said a rep. There are plenty of chartered club sports and 200 intramurals for students who don’t want to play varsity.

© 2018

 

 

College of St. Rose

College of St. Rose (visited 7/29/15)

Have you ever dreamed of producing your own CD? Come St. Rose, win the yearly Battle of the Bands, and you’ll be able to do just that! St. Rose runs its own label: Saints and Sinners.

Or perhaps you want to work in a biology lab with animals like Skittles the tarantula and Bradford the mystery lizard. You can do that, too, at St. Rose!

The Meditation garden room in the chapel is used by people of all faiths

One of the biggest surprises for me about St. Rose is that it’s no longer under the Diocese of the Catholic Church. It was started by four Carmelite nuns in the early 1920s; men (veterans primarily, at least at first) were admitted to evening and graduate programs after WWII; in the 1970s, the decision was made to go coed; the Diocese said no, but the Board of Trustees felt strongly that this was the way to go so they broke ties with the Church. “There’s still a relatively strong sense of our history, but there is no affiliation,” said the rep.

The St. Rose TV Studio

The school is still approximately 2/3 women, and almost 90% come from New York with New York City (about 2.5 hours south) strongly represented. More than 20% self-identify as ALANA, so the student body is relatively diverse.

The St. Rose Recording Studio

Much of the work done at St. Rose is cross-disciplinary and based in real-world experiences. For example, it’s not unusual to see musicians working with Communications majors to produce work. The Hearst Center for Communications and Interactive Media is the only communication building in the US with the Hearst name attached to it. Students can study journalism as well as TV, video, and film with lots of hands-on experience. The school runs its own broadcasting studios and students then move on to intern at local stations. Jimmy Fallon is one of the most famous alums coming out of here; although he had dropped out of St. Rose 1 semester short of graduating (surprise – he took the SNL job instead of sticking around!), they gave him his honorary degree in 2009 (they figured he had enough life experience to qualify at that point).

Concert Hall

Music is a fairly big major here. Music Education, Music Industry (they rank in the top 10 nationally for this degree), and Music Performance majors all must audition to get in. These degrees are either BA or BS degrees; they do not offer BFA in music (but do offer one in Studio Art and Graphic Design). They have a full music library in addition to an Educational Curriculum and the main libraries. Currently, they’re “80% Steinway,” said the rep.

Classrooms are left unlocked; students can go in to study or use the technology for presentation

Education is another large, strong department here. Options range from Early Education (birth – 2 year) all the way up to high school. Speech Pathology has become increasingly popular in the last several years.

Unusual majors include Forensic Psychology, Bioinformatics (part of the Computer Science department), and Biology-Cytotechnology. They also have a new Public Health major.

The Business department

There’s a great deal of school pride here both from students and staff. Alumni donate a great deal to the college. The school does a wonderful job of creating community through their Freshman Experience classes as well as through Residential Life. Housing is guaranteed; 90% of freshmen live on campus, but that drops to about 50% after that. Campus is located in a residential area of Albany, so housing is easy to find. The college is actively trying to get those numbers up and have just built new campus apartments with a burger station in the building.

The main quad

However, even those who move off campus remain active in campus life. Sports (DII) bring out a lot of fans (and Women’s soccer recently won a championship title). There are several traditions that the students rave about including Rose Rock (aka Spring Fling) which brings live music to campus. The favorite tradition, however, seems to be TPing the big tree on the Quad every Halloween. The President, after learning the hard way that this wasn’t going to be something that could be stopped, now throws the first one: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!”

© 2015