And the number of Lutheran students who want to go to a Missouri Synod college, even one only slightly related to the Synod, is also declining, perhaps as people hear of your internal struggles.
Because my daughter was on some I-want-a-Lutheran-college list years ago, she received some promotional material from a couple of concordias.
I would not have objected if she chose one, but she specifically chose a college from the progressive side of Lutheranism.
That's the point. She wanted a more progressive Lutheran school, which wasn't Valpo because of the association with the LCMS. She found a school that was more right for her. Few Lutheran schools have engineering, so Valpo is a draw for that. D1 basketball gives it more of a national name than some Lutheran schools, so Valpo gets a look from some students who never considered other Lutheran colleges simply because they've never heard of them. The Chapel of the Resurrection makes an impact on campus visits for some, distinguishing Valpo from other Lutheran schools. But that still leaves a small pool, and regionally Valpo competes with Concordia-Chicago for LCMS students, and in terms of other Christian schools there is anything from Wheaton to Goshen College to Notre Dame to the big Catholic schools in Chicago. Commuter students have good extensions of IU and Purdue in the region.
I say all this as one who has a daughter currently and happily enrolled at Valpo in the PA program. There is no question the general atmosphere of the place is gone from what it was. They used to have a 125 member marching band and held a big homecoming parade from downtown to campus with a big float contest. The stands at the game would be full. Recently they spent a lot of money building a new entrance set up for tailgating at games. The problem? Nobody uses it because nobody goes to the games. There is no band. There are no big rivalry games because they aren't in their own conference of other small schools in Indiana. You don't see students out and about doing stuff. Chapel isn't even held in the chapel, it is in the undercroft where everyone who comes fits comfortably.
They have done stupid thing after stupid thing to alienate their base clientele in order to attract others, and now find themselves with a vanishingly small clientele of people who say, "Of all the schools I can go to, Valpo is the very best one for me." Symbolic things go a long way for those not on campus regularly, too. Changing the name from Crusaders to Beacons was breathtakingly stupid, an unforced error that cost them dearly. I don't know anyone (and I know a huge number of VU grads) who wouldn't wear a Crusaders shirt but who now wears a Beacons shirt proudly. I know many who wore Crusaders shirts proudly but who will never wear a Beacons shirt and probably won't even wear their Crusaders shirt anymore. It was almost like saying, "Maybe if we spit on the enthusiasm, history, and memories of school spirit of the people who support us, the people who don't support us will start supporting us." My current congregation has several older members who in the past were regular givers to Valpo. I'll bet at least five have told me they'll never give to VU again (and this is with me being a grad and sending my kids there-- who knows how many don't want to tell me) because of some of these things. The way they went about getting a woman pastor on campus cost them. The way they introduced GALA on campus back in the 80's cost them huge. My uncle, who was a superintendent of schools in the region and sent his first child to Valpo but refused to send his other five, said it was just proof that what he'd been saying was true all along. His other five went to Purdue, were active in Lutheran ministry there, and all became very successful, the sort of people who might not endow buildings but who might give generously to universities. Not Valpo, though.
If you don't think symbolic things matter, I'll assert (though I can't bet because there is no way to prove the outcome) that Prof. Brauer removing his name from the museum would do more damage to Valpo than losing some paintings. He is part of the legacy of VU. He is holdover from the Kretzmann years. Alienating him alienates a whole ton of other people who hold VU close to their heart. There is a still a large cadre of retired VU professors and graduates in town and the region, and they have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren all over the place, as well as beloved former students. That is the sort of thing that produces freshmen-- not stupid new logos and free bumper stickers.
My dad spent several years working with every Lutheran high school in the country. He worked to have a program whereby every Lutheran high principal could nominate a top graduate for what amounted to a full ride to VU. The goal was to establish VU as THE place where Lutheran high grads went. People would go there because their friends went there. They'd meet their future Lutheran spouses there. One year they celebrated the milestone of having 100 freshman (not all necessarily scholarship winners) from Lutheran high schools (mostly, but not all, from LCMS schools) enrolled. Then out of nowhere President Harre changed the program to give any graduate of a Lutheran high school something like a $1000 scholarship. In short order, enrollment from Lutheran high schools dropped precipitously. Whatever financial sense it made, it killed the spirit of the thing. It changed the character of the place. My dad gave his all to VU and by the end found little about it to love-- the whole spirit of it had been drained out of it for him.
If you just want to gain knowledge, you can do so online for almost free. If you just want to get a well paying job, you can go to trade school. If you're going to be a university, you need to offer way more than that, and everything Valpo had that amounted to way more than that they've bartered away. I really thought their last chance was to host a NALC seminary on campus. It seemed a natural fit. But that ship sailed, and now they're stuck selling off artworks to install air conditioning to attract freshmen, when they used to have freshmen who would endure no air conditioning because Valpo is where they wanted to be.
