Amid ongoing fallout from the negative media attention and student (and faculty) protests that rocked campus in 2015, the University of Missouri recently welcomed its smallest student body since 2008.
As Campus Reform has repeatedly reported, the embattled university has taken hit after hit, starting with a $32 million budget shortfall and a five-percent budget cut, followed by a seven-percent drop in freshmen enrollment heading into last school year.
As some may remember Mizzou hit the headlines after Melissa Click, a journalism professor, won infamy nationwide for her behavior during race-related protests at MU in November 2015.
When a student journalist tried to cover the public protests, Click physically confronted him, saying he had no right to be there and needed to “get out.”
When the journalist resisted, Click called for “some muscle” to try forcing him back.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/1247706.html
The student’s video of Click quickly went viral, and attracted the attention of Missouri lawmakers, more than 100 of whom signed a petition demanding Click’s termination. Click herself was eventually hit with misdemeanor assault charges, which were dropped after she agreed to perform community service. Initially, the school said Click’s fate would be decided during her tenure hearing in August, but in February the school’s board gave in to outside pressure and fired her.
And, as Campus Reform's Anthony Gockowski reports, since then it has been downhill for the University...
More recently, Mizzou shuttered seven residence halls due to a drastic drop in enrollment, renting some of the vacant rooms out to sports fans to help make up for the school’s many financial woes, and cut 474 jobs.
Now, The Dothan Eagle reports that the university is facing the lowest levels of enrollment since 2008, with official numbers showing that enrollment is down 12.9 percent.
Additionally, the Eagle notes that, with the exception of the senior class, every incoming class is smaller than last year’s, and even international enrollment fell by 12.1 percent.
This year's freshman class is the smallest since 2008, with enrollment down about 33% from its peak in 2015.