Preliminary figures count more than 8,400 students on campus, an increase from last fall’s 8,162. That comes as the campus also saw significant growth in the number of applicants, from 15,718 for last fall to more than 17,000 for this fall. Official enrollment numbers will be measured three weeks into the semester.
“Humboldt State’s mix of majors and hands-on learning opportunities are attracting a diverse range of students,” said Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management Vikash Lakhani. “Our recruiters are doing a great job of getting the word out, and we see the results in the rising interest in our programs.”
Significant is the increase in first-generation college students, who make up 60 percent of the freshman class of approximately 1,400. Also trending upward is diversity, with the number of African American students representing 7 percent of all freshmen, up from 4 percent a year ago.
Latino students comprise about 40 percent of the class, ranking second behind Caucasian students at about 44 percent. Other ethnicities seeing an increase include Asian (4 percent) and American Indian (2 percent).
Geographically, the largest draw is from the Los Angeles area, home to about 40 percent of the incoming class. Fifteen percent of newly enrolled freshmen hail from the San Francisco Bay area.
Humboldt State begins its first year under President Lisa Rossbacher. Jenny Zorn, Associate Provost at CSU San Bernardino, will serve as HSU’s interim provost for the 2014-15 academic year while the university conducts a nationwide search to fill the position.
Among other personnel changes, Cyril Oberlander joins the Humboldt State community as the new Dean of the Library. Oberlander previously served as Associate Director of Milne Library at the State University of New York at Geneseo and as an internal consultant to the IDS Project, a 75-library cooperative in New York since 2008. He has more than 25 years of academic library experience, including 10 years as an independent library consultant.
New tenure-track faculty include Alison Holmes (International Studies), Paul Bourdeau (Biological Sciences), Rafael Cuevas-Uribe (Fisheries Biology), David Greene (Forestry & Wildlife Resources), Amy Sprowles (Biological Sciences), Brian Kyte (Chemistry), Carrie Aigner (Psychology), Mary Dingle (School of Education), and Genevieve Marchand (Kinesiology & Recreation Administration).