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Contact: Tom Parisi, Office of Public
Affairs August 20, 2001 Where the students are DE KALB, Ill.-Enrollment this fall at Northern Illinois University is expected to rise for the fifth consecutive year, with students flocking to majors that lead to job rich and, in many cases, high-salary fields. "Students and families right now are very job focused," says Bob Burk, NIU director of admissions. "We've been growing steadily in just about all of our colleges. The increase is due to larger freshman and transfer classes over the last few years." Burk expects the growth trend to continue. "The population of college-age students will be increasing,"
he says. "In the fall of 2002, for instance, there will be about
4,000 more high school seniors in Illinois. This plateau will continue
through 2006 or longer." Computers: Enrollment in computer-related areas of study-such as computer science, computer engineering and operations management and information systems (OMIS)-is expected to continue to grow. In five years, the number of computer science undergraduate majors at NIU increased 68 percent to 990 students enrolled last fall. The number of OMIS majors over the same time period nearly tripled, from 200 to 574 undergraduates. "Those majors are hot right now and they're going to stay hot," says Burk, noting that there are plenty of job opportunities. In the past two years, computer-related jobs represented the fastest growing occupations nationally. Engineering: Enrollment in NIU's College of Engineering and Engineering Technology jumped by 39 percent in five years, to 1,303 undergraduates. Enrollment is expected to increase again this fall. Within the college, the areas of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and technology has seen the most rapid growth. Business: Over the past five years, undergraduate enrollment in the College of Business has ballooned by 20 percent to nearly 4,000 students. The growth is expected to continue this fall. In particular, more students are enrolling in such areas as finance, marketing, management and operations management and information systems. Growth has leveled off in accountancy, but it still remains the largest of all departments in the NIU College of Business with nearly 800 undergrads. Education: Enrollment in NIU's College of Education increased to nearly 2,400 undergraduates last fall, a rise of 20 percent over 1996. But the increase can't begin to keep up with the demand for teachers. "Education is one of the hottest areas there is right now," says Dawn Scheffner Jones of NIU's Career, Planning and Placement Center. "We just cannot fill the vacancies for teachers." Jones says demand is particularly high for speech therapists, school psychologists, counselors, library media specialists and teachers in the areas of math, science, art, music, physical education, special education, and family, consumer and nutrition sciences (once called "home economics"). Jones adds that salaries are on the rise as well. "A beginning teacher can make $40,000 in the first year in certain North Shore schools," she says. The Arts: Undergraduate enrollment in NIU's College of Visual and Performing Arts jumped 32 percent in the past five years, to 1,461 students last fall. Adrian Tio, chair of the School of Art, attributes the steady growth in his school's enrollment to NIU's admission agreements with several community colleges, the 14 areas of art study from which a student can choose and the school's embrace of technology. Offering classes in several disciplines means something is always hot - currently, it's computer-related design application, art education and illustration. Art faculty also are teaching web design, computer art and how to use software in a creative way. "Art's never been a bad major," Tio said. ### |