Thursday, Nov., 7.

The Herald reached out to Gordon on early Wednesday for a comment, but Gordon declined. The Herald has also filed a request for Gordon’s personnel record. 

Here is the story in full:

WKU’s director of admissions, Scott Gordon, “no longer holds the position,” according to Robbin Taylor, vice president for Public Affairs.

This vacancy comes after recent enrollment numbers show a drop of more than 668 students since last fall.

Gordon held the position for nearly six years after being hired on Nov. 5, 2007.

As of last week, Dale Brown, director for college and school relations, and Sharon Hunter, coordinator for developmental education, are now co-directors of admissions in the interim as a replacement is being found, Taylor said.

Jim Sears, assistant director of retail operations for The WKU Store, worked closely with Gordon and the office of admissions.

Sears said the announcement of Gordon’s dismissal was “very surprising,” and he said the Academic Transitions Program that the office was responsible for was well-managed, thanks to Gordon’s leadership.

“I don’t know all of the details, but nonetheless, he was a good guy,” Sears said. “A very good guy.”

This fall, 20,456 total students are enrolled at WKU, the first time in 16 years fall enrollment has dropped from the fall semester from one academic year to fall of the next. The drop occurred between 1996 and 1997, according to the Office of Institutional Research.

In the fall of 2009, total enrollment sat at 20,712, 20,903 in 2010 and 21,048 in 2011.

Enrollment peaked in fall 2012 with 21,124 total students enrolled. But by spring of 2013, total enrollment sat at 19,206.

President Gary Ransdell said earlier this semester that he expected enrollment to be down, attributing newly implemented higher admission standards as the cause.

Ransdell said WKU has started looking at students with higher GPA and ACT averages, as well as their rank in class when admitting students into WKU in the future.

“A few years ago, we would expect it to be marching towards 22,000, 23,000, 24,000 students, but the numbers are changing,” Ransdell said. “Now I believe our enrollment targets are instead going from 21 to 22,000. We may actually be going from 21 to 20,000 but have higher quality (students) and better revenues because of the mix I have been describing.”

*The Herald reached out to Gordon on Wednesday for a comment, but Gordon declined.