Music program, more degrees come to school

Florida Gulf Coast University will begin the fall semester with a new music program and more than twice the number of degrees it had to offer when it first opened in 1997.

The university’s Board of Trustees on Thursday approved a bachelor’s degree in music, and the main campus will boast more than 60 undergraduate and graduate programs this fall.

The university offered only 25 degrees during its first year and its ability to retain freshman students once hovered around 40 percent, said FGCU President Bill Merwin.

“Students just weren’t able to get the courses that they needed,” said Merwin, who pointed out more than 7,000 students are now on the main campus.

While the dramatic increase in programs has kept more students on the Lee County campus, the growth is not without casualties — in this case, the small classroom size and intimate learning environment that has traditionally lured students to the campus.

Jason Elliott, 23, a senior majoring in marketing, said students on the main campus already seem to have less one-on-one time with instructors compared to when he first enrolled at FGCU.

More than 40 students are enrolled in his upper-division marketing course, which is supposed to be capped at 30 students, Elliott said.

“That class is way too big. They just kept letting people in,” Elliott said. “They had to switch rooms on us because there wasn’t enough space.”

A cap that limits the number of students in classrooms was lifted in January to accommodate more students, said Provost Bonnie Yegidis as she addressed the Board of Trustees on Thursday.

“It’s a fact that we’ve raised caps; we’re out of space,” said Yegidis, who pointed out that within five years the campus will also face a severe shortage when it comes to office space for faculty.

The main campus now holds 58 buildings and administrators will send a $46 million request to state legislators this year to pay for additional classroom spaces, more roads and parking, and a performance hall to house the new music program.

Nancy Cobb Lippens, founding director the music program, expects to enroll about 15 students in the fall. The program initially will be housed in various classrooms and lab spaces, Cobb Lippens said.

“It’s going to be difficult to be housed in one place,” she said. “We’ve identified spaces around campus.”

Cobb Lippens is in the process of hiring three faculty members for the fall semester and the music program is expected to hold more than 80 students by 2011.

Yegidis reminded the Board of Trustees on Thursday that enrollment on the main campus is expected to be built out in by 2020 and hold more than 20,000 students.

“We actually need to be thinking strategically about locating more students in our off-campus centers,” Yegidis said.

The university operates satellite centers in Naples, Cape Coral and Charlotte County, and Merwin has told the board he is considering another site in Hendry County, where developers have made property available.

The university has plans to build multiple-story classrooms and parking garages that would one day accommodate growth on the main campus, which will be able to hold up to 22,000 students, but the satellite campus will be the only way administrators will reach their goal of one day enrolling 40,000 students.

Yegidis is part of a small group of university administrators who have developed a strategy to develop these satellite centers. During the next two months trustees will finalize the plan as an addition to the university’s strategic plan that will specifically address strategies for off-campus satellite centers.

The board is scheduled to vote on a final draft in April.

Andrea St. Cyr, 21, said she will graduate with a degree in communications this year. St. Cyr said she was glad to be leaving the campus before it gets too crowded, but she regrets she won’t get to see the campus when it is fully built.

“I’m kind of sad,” she said. “There will be a lot of stuff here that I won’t see.”