Nate Smith, whose mother taught at Adrian College for 30 years, said he was honored to introduce our speaker today and added that he’s never had the amount of pride he does today for this institution. Dr. Docking, Nate said, arrived on campus in 2005 when the college was struggling with declining enrollment, buildings were in bad need of repair, and at a time when AC was looking for a bold leader who could turn things around. It’s not news to anyone, of course, that Dr. Docking did just that and, as a result, this city has become one of the major benefactors of their significant and continuous growth in this community!
Jeff said he titled his presentation today “
Adrian College - Where Were We, Where are We, Where are We Going?”. There are basically 600 other Adrian Colleges across the country – small, private, Liberal Arts schools, many of which have struggled. Thirty five of them did close their doors the average age of which was 87 years! In 2005, AC started the school year with 940 students and ended that year with 840. This equated to a loss of $1.3M. Money had to be taken out of AC’s Endowment Fund to make ends meet. They resorted to “deferred maintenance” which Jeff said included things like playing football at the Adrian High School Stadium, AC’s track team ran at a local el
ementary school, their baseball team played at a local park and so on. That year they received 1,000 applications and rejected 70 of them.
Jeff spoke with a number of professors in the Math Department that year, he said, for the purpose of identifying the specific situations they were facing. One of them said that even though she’d gotten her Bachelors as well as her Masters degrees she was simply teaching long division and multiplication! In other words, AC was admitting students who should really start out in junior or community colleges. From learning that, Jeff asked “So, what should we do?” The next step was to find out how incoming Freshmen pick the college they want to go to. He and his staff found that they wanted an education basically but even more than that.
So AC set out to leverage co-curricular programs meaning that they would build a facility like an ice arena right on campus and go to prospective students and tell them they could get a great education at a small school that gives personal attention plus they could play hockey, too! It became a reality. Soon more teams of 30 people each were formed (men and women’s hockey team, women’s synchronized ice and figure skating teams, etc.) and more students were recruited which resulted in additional revenue of approximately $4.2M based on revenue of $20,000 each for 210 students! AC used the same model for Lacrosse, the fastest growing sport in America, Jeff said. There are 21,000 varsity Lacrosse players at Michigan and Ohio schools today. Back in 2005 there were “0”! All of AC’s coaches are required to recruit 30 players which results in revenue of $600,000.
The next question that was asked was “How much money do we need at AC to really make it work?” That number was 1,400 students. AC boasted of 1,756 as their all-time high which was the result of AC’s Renaissance I program. Jeff said that AC could accommodate up to 2,000 students. There are a lot of students who want to go to colleges like AC but they look at the price tag of $41,500! That’s why AC came up with a policy for incoming Freshmen this year guaranteeing them a good paying job (at least $37,000/year) when they graduate 4 years from now or AC will begin to pay off some if not all of their student loans! The average student, Jeff said, graduates with $17,000 in loans. This new policy should draw significant numbers of prospective students to Adrian he said.
Curriculum and programs slated to be added in the future include: Bowling, Bass Fishing, Women’s Synchronized Skating, Health Care Management, Graphic Design, Finance, Event & Facility Management and Fashion Design. The drive off of US223 into the college grounds was still a “go”, Jeff said. The college’s biggest need, he said, was housing. Also needed was a weight room and an art gallery as well as additional graduate programs. The Endowment Fund was at $20M when he took over and is now at $51.4M!! The renovation of Peelle Hall was on track, he said, thanks to a generous donor of $650,000 and other $50,000 gifts. A new pool which would cost $7M to build, however, is not a priority at this time.
April 5 