Fall Semester Enrollment
Enrollment for the fall semester at IU South Bend stands at 5,214 students taking 62,530 credit hours. Both categories are down about three percent from last year. There were increases in minority, international, and transfer students. The official enrollment numbers no longer include high school students taking college credit courses in their high schools. IU South Bend has a significant number of those students which put our student headcount above 7,000 for many years.
Six Herbert Scholars
This fall, IU South Bend welcomed six Adam W. Herbert Presidential Scholars to its freshman class. These students were talented enough to be admitted to any college in the country and could have received a full scholarship at any Indiana University campus. We are proud they chose IU South Bend. All six IU South Bend 2018 Herbert Scholars ranked in the top ten of their high school graduating classes and they represent the highest number of Herbert Scholars ever to enroll at IU South Bend in a given year. The Herbert Presidential Scholarship, named in honor of Indiana University President Emeritus Adam W. Herbert, was funded by the Lilly Endowment to support its effort to keep Indiana’s brightest students in Indiana.
$770,500 Grant to Study Dark Matter
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a grant of $770,521 to IU South Bend Professor of Physics and Astronomy Ilan Levine to support dark matter research. Dr. Levine and his collaborators have received a series of NSF grants over the years supporting their search for dark matter. This grant funds a project called “MRI Consortium: Development of Instrumentation for the PICO-500 Bubble Chamber”. Levine uses IU South Bend students to help in the research, much of which is done on campus. Since 2004, 47 IU South Bend undergraduates, six area high school science teachers, and eight area high school students have worked on the project.
Poet Laureate Visit
The campus and community were treated to a special visit by Pulitzer Prize Winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove as part of the IU Bicentennial lecture series. She held two events during her Bender Scholar-in-Residence visit including a public interview and question-and-answer session at the Civil Rights Heritage Center. In 1987 she became the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her poem Thomas and Beulah. She was also the first African American to hold the title of Poet Laureate of the United States. She was brilliant, thoughtful, kind, and inspiring during her time with our students, faculty, staff and community members.