January 21, 2025

Dear William Paterson Faculty and Staff,

Welcome to the Spring 2025 semester! I hope everyone’s year is off to a good start and that you all enjoyed the holiday weekend. The William Paterson community will celebrate and honor the powerful legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with our annual MLK Day of Service this Friday, January 24. Please go to Pioneer Life or the Corq app for details and to register to take part in several volunteer opportunities on campus and in the broader community. On a related note, as many of us use the new year to refresh our wardrobes, please consider donating clean, gently worn or new professional clothing to the WP Career Closet, where it can benefit students as they pursue internship and job interviews and launch their careers. Please click here for details and a list of items most in need.

Turning to enrollment, as of Sunday, overall Spring 2025 student enrollment has increased by 6.27% compared to last year (Main Campus up 0.87%, WP Online up 13.6%). New student enrollment is up 4.08%, driven in part by a 59.18% increase in new first-time, full-time student enrollment (78), largely attributed to growth in the international student population. New transfer student enrollment remains steady compared to last year, while new graduate student enrollment has grown by 0.8%. Continuing student enrollment is up 6.68%, year-over-year, but remains 2.75% below our goal. Enrollment efforts will continue through the start of the semester and Session II in late March.

Looking ahead to Fall 2025, first-time domestic student applications are up 3.58% compared to this time last year (6,877), and acceptances have increased by 3.05%. International student metrics are also showing positive trends. Although it is still early, deposits are tracking ahead of the same period last year. Overall, new domestic student applications for Fall 2025 have increased by 5.34%, with acceptances up 4.42%.

As a reminder, I invite faculty and staff to join me in the Shea Center on Thursday, January 30, from 12:30-1:30 p.m. for my Spring State of the University address, where I will provide University updates and talk in depth about the current and future Strategic Plans.

With a lot of hard work and bold thinking, together we have made a lot of progress in recent years in building a stronger William Paterson to better serve our students and our state. I recently spoke with the American Council on Education (ACE) about my approach to doing this work while confronting the challenges facing higher education. Please click here to read the article. 

This week’s WP: We are Proud – The New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education (OSHE) recently announced that William Paterson is one of only two institutions of higher education in the State, along with NJIT, to receive awards under the state’s pilot Global Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (Global EIR) program. With a targeted focus on driving innovation and entrepreneurship in the field of generative artificial intelligence (AI), this economic development initiative leverages WP’s and NJIT’s expertise to create pathways for international entrepreneurs to stay in the state to grow their startups.

The Global EIR program provides a unique pathway for entrepreneurs to obtain H-1B visas through part-time academic roles. In these roles, entrepreneurs-in-residence work alongside university stakeholders and strategic partners to advance research, mentor and teach students, and build and scale their startups. This comes following an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy finding that nearly two thirds of the top AI companies in the U.S. were founded or co-founded by immigrants and 70 percent of full-time graduate students in fields related to AI are international students. Congratulations to Provost Josh Powers, Chief Information Officer Gamin Bartle, and everyone in Academic Affairs and IT, as well as Melissa Rosario, regional director of the New Jersey Small Business Development Center at William Paterson, and everyone across the campus who helped make this award happen and who will carry out its important work.

Have a great start to your semester!