Elon University - Phi Psi Cli Yearbook (Elon, NC)

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Nan Perkins, assistant to the president, also is tlie mother of an Elon sophomore. As a parent, it ' s very important to me that the word gets out about how good this school is, Perkins said. We don ' t need to promote it to attract more students or to show off. We ' re trying to give it more respectability. Those students in the middle deserve an education that has a respectability, just as the top students do. Elon . . . promotes itself as a caring place, a college where every student receives personal attention and where every professor is a po- tential friend and mentor. Now that we ' re turning more students away, we ' re getting nega- tive feedback from parents whose children weren ' t admitted, said Joanne Soliday, the school ' s direc- tor of admissions. They say, ' We thought this was a place that cared, ' which really translates, We thought you took anybody. When you put yourself up front as a caring institution and you start turning so many down, it ' s difficult to communicate. Former president Danieley is one of those for whom Elon was the golden door. I could not have gone to col- lege if this place was not here, Danieley said. If I hadn ' t gone to college, I would have ended up in a mill or on a farm. I have so much appreciation for what this place does in the lives of people. Even now, although none of us knows all of the students, the relationship is very much like that of a family, Danieley said. The week before classes started this fall, I had a student from La Paz, Bolivia, call me at 10 p.m. from the airport. He said he ' d get a hotel room for the night and asked if I could pick him up in the morning. I told him absolutely not, got out of bed and went to get him. He stayed the night with us and had breakfast with the family the next morning. I don ' t tell that sto- ry to brag. I tell it because it is typical of this place. Caring is a word used so often at Elon that it almost becomes a

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Courtyards, a fountain and acres of carefully-tended grounds have replaced parking lots and maintenance depots making Elon ' s one of the most beautiful cam- puses in the state. Adding to that beauty is the fact that the school ' s graceful Georgian buildings give no hint of the deferred mainte- nance slowly eating away at so many small colleges. Meanwhile, student enrollment has grown from about 2,000 a dec- ade ago to nearly 3,000 this fall. Applications are up 40 percent in the past three years; rejections have doubled. Ironically, at a time when the number of traditional 18 to 25 year-old students is declining, Elon has succeeded in increasing its en- rollment even as it has tightened its admission requirements. In the past three years, average College Board scores among Elon ' s freshmen have climbed 50 points with 30 points of the increase com- ing just this year. The college cele- brates its centennial, it intends to reject anyone with less than a 2.0.

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cliche. Administrators use it. Pro- fessors use it. Students use it. Without exception, it seems, every- one agrees that caring is Elon ' s es- sence and its greatest asset. I if now you ' ve heard it 1,000 times, but absolute caring really is the nature of this entire institu- tion, said Linda Weavil, a busi- ness administration professor. Al- most anything I can say is so up- beat it sounds corny, but it really is the truth. Thanks to caring, Elon ' s stu- dents are, by and large, thrilled with their college experience. Sur- veys of recent graduates show 95 percent would return to Elon if they could relive their college years. Asked what made their time at Elon so fulfilling, 97 percent mention their relationships with their professors. In an unscientific survey of stu- dents encountered on campus, the result was the same. Everyone of them, asked what they liked best about Elon, mentioned personal at- tention from their professors as the primary benefit. But a surplus of care and pro- tection, particularly in relation to their social lives, is also a com- plaint students voice about Elon.