Occidental College completed its annual census Sept. 23, which is required of all colleges nationwide, and collects data on student enrollment, according to Registrar James Herr. The data is then sent to the federal government and organizations that report on college student body statistics.
“We freeze off information about how many students we have, how many are full time [and] part time,” Herr said. “We not only report out to different groups, including the federal government, but it’s a way of publishing our statistics.”
According to Herr, the census is important because the statistics help outside organizations report on the college and prospective students learn about Occidental.
“National publications are going to say, ‘Well, we want to be able to compare institutions size-wise,'” Herr said. “They might go to the federal website where they can see the statistics. These are public information where folks can go and take a look, and they should match our fact book.”
Herr also said that the census reports on demographic data, such as students’ race, gender and financial aid received.
“If you’re a prospective student, you can go to a third party source and see what the size of the student body is, the demographic breakdown, to get a sense of, ‘Is this a place where I might feel comfortable?’” Herr said.
The census date is the last day that students may withdraw from enrollment at the college for a 60 percent refund.
“We want to get everybody cleared and everybody situated beforehand,” Herr said. “We want to try to get as many of the additions and the subtractions to student schedules by the census so that we can report accurately about what our student body looks like.”
Herr said that students do not typically drop out before the census date, except for extenuating circumstances.
“We usually have anywhere from zero to three [or] four,” Herr said. “It could be a medical situation. It could be that they arrive on campus and realize this isn’t the place they thought it was going to be. Those are very rare, but can happen.”
In addition to the student population, the census also includes calculations for retention and graduation rates. According to Herr, these calculations are made by comparing the number of students who remain at Occidental and who graduate each year to the number of students in the incoming class.
“How many [students] return for their sophomore year, how many graduated in four years, how many graduated in six years?” Herr said. “It’s all based on who were first-year students as of the end of census day.”
According to Herr, there was a drop in student population at the beginning of the pandemic, as the 2020–2021 school year was remote. As time has passed, the population is expanding to how it was previously, with approximately 2,000 students per year.
“We are inching our way back to normalcy, and I would say at this point, we’re not quite there yet, but we’re pretty close,” Herr said. “Fall 2019, we had 2,081 [students]. The remote year went down to 1,839.”
Now, in Fall 2024, Occidental has a population of 1,993 students. Associate Dean for Student Academic Affairs Carolyn Brighouse said that the pandemic posed a challenge to student engagement, with classes being conducted remotely and many students taking time off until classes resumed in-person. She said she aims to make students feel connected with the faculty at the college, even while studying off-campus abroad or during remote learning .
“We had faculty and staff at the institution connect with incoming students as a mentor to help answer questions,” Brighouse said. “We had Calling All Tigers, where faculty and staff wrote each individual student a postcard.”
Herr said the faculty and staff put great effort into connecting with students during the pandemic.
“[Faculty] were reaching out to students that had taken time off because they didn’t feel like remote learning was their thing,” Herr said. “[They] kept in contact with [students] to let them know that we’re still here to answer questions or help them get back on track.”
Herr said the faculty engagement likely contributed to the high rate of students who returned to the college after not attending during the 2020–2021 school year, which was over 90 percent.
“It was a real remarkable achievement,” Herr said. “A lot of different folks that typically don’t have anything to do with student services, they wanted to help out.”
Additionally, Brighouse said she often works with transfer students, who make up about 8 percent of student enrollment and whose needs differ from those of first-year students. According to Brighouse, she started a program for transfer students, Transfer Teas. She said it is a biweekly program where students can meet with Brighouse and other staff in the Swan Lounge for assistance.
“Especially at the beginning, advising and registration can be really difficult because the course work [from other colleges] doesn’t match our coursework,” Brighouse said.
Lucy Roberts (junior), a studio art major who transferred to Occidental before the fall of her sophomore year, said she enjoyed the Transfer Teas and that another college initiative benefitting transfer students is the transfer housing.
“We all lived on a floor in Norris, and it was really nice to have that,” Roberts said. “It gets us together and helps us find a sense of community.”
Herr said that in the future, the college is aiming to maintain its rate of approximately 2,000 students per year and to continue improving the retention rate, which is already going up.
“We’re getting more and more students finishing their degree,” Herr said. “We want all of our students to graduate.”
Contact Diana Trutia at trutia@oxy.edu
Noah Kim contributed to The Occidental’s reporting.
