During Fall 2024, Randolph Macon College welcomed our largest freshman class in history of 500 new students. Official fall enrollment numbers released on July 17th, 2024, by Dr. Lindgren who suggested that over 1,620 students are attending our establishment this semester. While we are still considered a small school, the large influx of students was accommodated with new housing in the Blincoe Field. The “treehouses” (as donned by Dr. Lindgren in his announcement email) include the Birch, Maple, and Oak halls. The development of new housing on campus was surprising though, students who moved in were granted $500 off their tuition per semester for changing their housing plans at the end of the semester. Having new housing opportunities is a huge success for students at RMC and some may even say a well overdue addition!
Furthermore, the parking situation had not been addressed in years prior to the influx of students, despite there being unclear restrictions on certain parking areas on campus. Recent reallocation of parking lots and distribution of authorized parking was an unexpected effort to accommodate the increase in vehicles on campus. Even though there is effort to clearly define restrictions for parking lots, there seems to be a lack of enforcement in restricted lots despite the areas requiring tags which should have been obtained during the first week of the semester from campus safety. During the first couple weeks some students inquired on Yik Yak about why all freshmen are authorized to have cars when many schools restrict vehicle permissions to students with necessary permits. The congestion on campus is so severe that even what was once considered overflow parking in the old tennis lots is regularly filled up. Despite the unexpected rocky start enforcing the new parking restrictions, the initiative to create clearly defined parking guidelines and additional lots is also a huge success which can be attributed to the large influx of students that enrolled in RMC for Fall 2024.
An additional aspect of a larger student body is more strain on the Wi-Fi which many students and faculty have noticed and complained, but ITS is doing everything they can to improve access to Wi-Fi as the college grows. Some best practices for students and faculty include:
- “Turn off Wi-Fi on your phone if you do not need in classToggle off Wi-Fi once you are in class on your laptop and then toggle back on. This will allow your laptop to release from the wireless access point that it had where you were last and pick up one in your classroom.
- Encourage your peers to have Wi-Fi turned off on devices they bring to class that are not needed.Connecting to R-MC Connect on your phone/laptop/tablet is not advised. Please forget that network on these devices. They should only go on R-MC.”
-ITS Official Helpline
Classes are filling up and opportunities for housing are increasing. The opportunities for students at RMC are growing exponentially!