A Message from President Lenzmeier
As enrollment trends upward, President Lenzmeier looks back on how far we've come.
Greetings BVU Alumni!
Summer of 2022 has felt much different on the BVU campus than the past two summers.
In 2020, it was all hands-on-deck for our employees as we prepared to welcome back students to in-person learning for the first time since the pandemic started that March. Orientation was fully online for incoming students. Classrooms were set up in strange places across campus, like the Lamberti Rec Center and Schaller Chapel. Technology was installed in every classroom to prepare for live instruction of students who would have to attend class virtually via zoom while in quarantine.
I’m so proud of the work we did that summer to bring students back. We enrolled a solid class of new students, and overall enrollment held steady with the previous two years at around 730 students.
The summer of 2021 was another time spent adapting in the ever-evolving pandemic. Orientation was the first event we held where we welcomed non-students to campus. However, it was still a mask-wearing affair. Thankfully, vaccines were available at that point for those seeking additional protection. We prepared to return to maskless learning and our regular classrooms and campus events. The NCAA threw us a wrinkle late in the summer by demanding we regularly test unvaccinated student-athletes. So, we set up a testing plan and moved forward with a fully open campus.
We welcomed to campus our largest incoming freshmen class in eight years, a class that boasted the highest high school GPA in 10 years. Overall campus enrollment in Storm Lake grew to 777 students.
At this point, in the summer of 2022, it seems like we have finally moved on to living with COVID-19 much like we live with influenza every year. On June 6, I had the privilege of welcoming new students and their parents and guardians to a fully “normal” orientation experience. After mingling with parents and students from as near as three blocks from my home, to as far away as Michigan and Texas, I had the pleasure of standing in front of a packed ballroom and welcoming part of what is shaping up to be our largest class of new students in nine years, and one of our best academically!
We are poised to potentially exceed 800 students on campus. Fortunately, after a lot of hard work and maintaining our focus on quality experiences for our students, we’ve come through the pandemic in a stronger position than when we entered the pandemic. I learned at a meeting of new college presidents from across the country in Boston, Mass., last month, that very few of my peers can say the same.
As I’ve met with and learned more about the incoming class, one statistic stands out that I need to share with you: Twelve percent of our new students are BVU legacy students, with parents, guardians, or grandparents who are BVU alumni. It is one thing to trust your alma mater with your gifts of time, talent, and treasure. It is quite another to trust the education of your children to us. We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to bring them into the BVU family! Thank you!
I hope to see you back on campus this year, during Family Weekend (Sept. 16-18), BVU Homecoming (Sept. 30 and Oct. 1), or at any time convenient for you. Stop in for a visit. You and your family members are always welcome at your BVU home! Go Beavers!