The University of Western Ontario wants to recruit 100 more international students to bump up first-year enrolment to 4,450 students.
The Board of Governors approved the amendments to the first-year enrolment at the Jan. 28 meeting. The target in the past has been 4,350; however the university wants up to 100 more international students to increase diversification in the classroom.
In 2008-09, at the constituent university international students made up under three per cent of the undergraduate population and about 16 per cent at the graduate level.
“First year enrolment target for the constituent university is the same as it has been for the last number of years – it’s 4,350 students. That’s what we’re aiming for,” said Fred Longstaffe, Provost and Vice-President (Academic) in an interview following the meeting.
“That number of students traditionally in the past has been almost all domestic students and a small handful of international students.”
This year, there are 4,333 domestic and 120 international first-year students, slightly higher than the target amount of 4,350. The plan for 2010-11 is to attract 4,230 domestic students (same as in past years) and 220 international students – this includes the extra 100 students approved by the board.
The university plans to step up international recruitment and provide scholarship funding to attract the best international students to Western.
“We recognize that one of the things we haven’t been doing institutionally at the constituent university is providing scholarships for international students in any significant way,” said Longstaffe.
With a relatively short time to achieve this goal by the start of the next academic year, Longstaffe added if the number is not reached it will continue to be a priority in the years ahead.
“It’s a signal; we know we need to do more in this area. We know that our percentage of international students in the undergraduate level is very, very low compared to our competitor institutes – McMaster, Toronto and Queen’s. We need to do better there, so we are going to turn some attention to that.”
The university will maintain its first-year residence guarantee for the increased number of students.
