It is no surprise with the great reputation Park University has that many students would choose the institution as their provider in higher education. Over the past few years however, more and more students have caught the Park bug, causing the attendance and residence life to increase.

Allyson Price, Director of Admissions Daytime Program, has seen the success of Park’s efforts first hand.

“We’ve implemented some really great programs and are building stronger relationships between departments,” said Price. “In 2016, we added new positions that are able to connect with high schools. The high school relations managers attend workshops, college fairs and work to engage the high schools and students.”

This, as well as expanding the territories that Park communicates with, has aided in the attendance increase.

“We have a really great team who are dedicated to assisting students in their educational goals,” said Price. “Our goal is to bring in more students than we did the year before and continually grow the campus. We had about a 5.2 percent increase from 2016 nationwide and enrollment is up 12.3 percent from 2016 in Parkville. At the Parkville campus in 2016, there were 1,300 students and in 2017, it rose to 1,500.”

The new implementation of the developmental teams not only promoted more sports possibilities to students, but also helped in the ascending number of students. With the addition of men’s golf and intramural sports, Park has welcomed more talented athletes.

With the increase in attendance, the increase in residence life naturally follows. However, both dorm buildings are already at capacity, and with the projections for next year, the dorms are expected to be at capacity again. 51 percent of residents living in dorms now have already signed up for rooms for the 2018-2019 school year. Due to the limited number of dorm rooms and high demand for them, there have been conversations of possibly adding rooms to residence life.

“The university may revamp some residence halls,” said Price. “The short term answer is possibly renovating a building like Derring or partnering up with nearby apartment complexes to provide more rooms. We hope to get one of these solutions ready by fall 2018.”

Director of residence life Karie Fields acknowledges the success of the rise in numbers.

“I largely credit the missions team and students’ success for the increase,” said Fields. “The creative ways Park has been marketed has increased the numbers across the board.”

This increase of people in the rooms has allowed for more activities, such as grocery bingo and new game tables for the residents.

This is not only exciting for the students, but also for those involved in making this a possibility. It is clear that both Price and Fields are proud of Park for this upward climb.

“Park is heading in the right direction and it is exciting to be a part of the upward expansion,” said Fields.