Of the 1,899 degrees awarded last year to Western students, 55 percent were awarded to two of the five colleges.

Potter College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences had the most graduates of all five colleges, according to the Western 2001-2002 Fact Book.

Institutional Research associate Jeri Rampy said most of the degrees are earned in Potter College, which awarded 530 in fall of 2001-2002.

“The two main ingredients of the college are the strength of the program and the faculty,” said David Lee, dean of Potter College. “We are trying to offer quality and the numbers will follow that.”

He said many students choose to graduate from the program because of the traditional disciplines such as English and history.

The most popular department within Potter is the School of Journalism and Broadcasting, which awarded 140 degrees last fall.

JoAnn Albers, department head of Journalism and Broadcasting, said she would like to see more people graduate from the program in four years.

“It’s taking too many of them five years to graduate,” Albers said. “We would like to get them out faster than that.”

While Potter College graduated 530 students last fall, the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences graduated 512 students, 18 less than Potter.

According to the Western Fact Book, the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences offers the most popular major at Western, which has been Elementary Education for the past five years.

Morganfield senior Brooke Sanders said she came to Western wanting to major in elementary education.

3I knew I wanted to do it but my adviser is the one that really helped me out,2 she said.

Charles Evans, associate dean of the College of Education and Behavioral Science, said the program is more concerned about quality than quantity.

While the college is one of the top graduating programs at Western, it is still working to increase the number of students who receive a degree in the program by improving web-based courses.

While some departments are graduating nearly 500 students, other departments, such as the College of Business, the College of Science and Engineering and the School of Health and Human Services are graduating about 200 to 300 students.

David Dunn, dean of the School of Health and Human Services, said the program plans to increase the number of degrees awarded, and the college has an active recruitment program.

3We want to attract quality students,2 he said.

Dunn said three new programs were added to the school this year including physical education recreation, communication disorders and consumer family resources. These programs were all taken from the college of education.

The redistribution of programs will cause the college of education to see a decrease in degrees while health and human services will increase, Dunn said.

Hopkinsville sophomore Davora Lamirande said she chose the nursing program because of the opportunities that will be available to her after college, such as a good job and good pay.

Although each college awards a different amount of degrees in their program, Western remains highly ranked in the state as a comprehensive university < a non-research university.

According to the Council on Postsecondary Education, Western awarded more degrees than any other Kentucky comprehensive university in fall 2001-2002.

President Gary Ransdell said the number of degrees awarded had a lot to do with the enrollment growth.

3We are the third largest university in the state and continue to grow,2 he said.