New Wilmington College president wants to see school grow

Bates previously worked at Mercy College of Ohio in Toledo as the vice president of academic affairs. He said he has continued to work at small liberal arts colleges like Millikin University in Illinois, where he attended college.

The school set new strategic goals this year as the previous goals expired. The goals included increasing their student enrollment by about a quarter of the current student population, from about 1,000 students on the campus currently to about 1,250. Bates said the college could absorb the extra students without many adjustments, though the college may need to add more faculty to some programs.

“We want to make sure that our campus community reflects the world and that students are in a space where they can learn with people and from people who are different than they are,” Bates said.

Bates said having about 1,250 students would give the campus a diverse population of ethnic, religious and class backgrounds, giving the students a more well-rounded education.

The college also has plans to improve the housing options on campus and has already improved the dining halls with a new vendor contract, Bates said.

The campus, like many other higher education institutions, has many challenges ahead, including a smaller pool of potential college students. Ohio high school graduating classes have gotten smaller and smaller in the past two decades, and that trend is expected to continue. Many students are choosing careers that do not require college degrees or choose to skip college entirely.

Bates said the campus will need to clearly communicate to any student who does want to come to college why they should come to Wilmington. The school will also have to change the way it communicates with potential students, Bates noted, as 16-year-olds now do not communicate the same way teens 20 years ago communicated. For example, social media didn’t exist in 2002.

Wilmington College was founded on Quaker values and aims to combine both education and extracurriculars to make students well-rounded and productive, according to the college’s website.

“We are just about the right size and obviously have some aspirations to grow a bit, but at the right size to give each student a transformative educational experience that is hard to reproduce in other places,” Bates said.