Old Main

Old Main on the University of Arizona campus is an iconic spot for photos.

 Ron Medvescek / Arizona Daily Star

The University of Arizona is upping its recruitment effort of in-state students during the coronavirus pandemic, an administrator told the Arizona Board of Regents in a meeting Thursday.

“We know that there are a large number of students who are residents of our state, who maybe were thinking of going out of state and are now in that uncertain place and they’re very much looking at staying in state and staying closer to home, which we welcome,” Kasey Urquidez, the UA’s vice president of enrollment management, told Regents. “So we are still doing a number of different outreach activities to reach out to our Arizona residents through text, through email, through webinars.”

Leaders said it’s important to recruit and retain students from Arizona after the school saw an increase in full-time out-of-state undergraduates in 2019,but a decrease in in-state graduate and online enrollment.

The UA has used its recruiting strategies including the “First Cats” initiative to provide support to first-generation college students as well as its Pell Pledge Grant, a financial aid award for lower-income first-year students in the state.

“We’re not giving up whatsoever, we want every single student to feel wanted by our Arizona universities and at each place we are doing outreach and even after they commit, go through orientation, they’re registered, we’ve got to do a lot of work to make sure they stay with us and know they made the right decision and they have the information they need,” Urquidez said.

UA’s fall 2020 class has already seen an increase in Pell-eligible students, according to Urquidez.

Enrollment of students from certain out-of-state destinations, such as Texas, have also increased, said President Robert Robbins.

“We’re seeing a real movement in Texas students wanting to come to the UA. We’re holding the line in California, maybe not growing as much as we wanted, but that’s going to be clear for us. This next year is really going to depend on how many of those out-of-state students choose to bring their talents to Tucson.”

The UA is reaching out to families through its Parent and Family Programs, meeting one-on-one through Zoom to help them make the decision to send students here when school resumes Aug. 24.

“We know that students want that traditional campus experience, they want to live on campus and do those things and then we have a group that’s feeling like ‘I don’t want to do that, can I get my money back?’” Urquidez said. “They’re afraid of the communal living but they still want the experience, so we’re doing a lot of work one-on-one with families.”

"We're tough as saguaros," editorial cartoonist David Fitzsimmons says. He says he saw a video made for the people of Detroit and became inspired to do his own take for Tucson.

In other actions expected to be approved in June:

  • The UA approved a final vote for five regents professors for 2020, the “highest of faculty ranks ... reserved for full professor with exceptional achievements that have brought them national or international recognition.” They are: Peter Chesson, ecology and evolutionary biology; Jeff Greenberg, psychology; Connie Woodhouse, geography and development; Roberta Diaz Brinton, pharmacology; and Judith Brown, plant sciences.
  • The UA is looking to provide two bachelor’s degree offerings dealing with video games starting in the fall. The School of Information would be allowed to offer a bachelor of arts in games and behaviors and a bachelor of science in game design and development.

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Contact Star reporter Shaq Davis at 573-4218 or sdavis@tucson.com

On Twitter: @ShaqDavis1