University Park, IL-(ENEWSPF)- Yesterday the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) voted to approve the proposal by Governors State University’s Board of Trustees to add lower division programming to the university’s upper division and graduate offerings. GSU will enroll its first freshman class in August 2014.
“GSU’s decision to admit freshmen beginning in 2014 is historic and transformative. By designing a state-of-the-art freshman program, GSU will increase its already significant commitment to the Illinois Public Agenda. For the first time in our 42-year history, we are now poised to serve Illinois as a full, comprehensive, regional university,” said Dr. Elaine P. Maimon, President of Governors State University.
GSU is currently the only exclusively upper-division and graduate public university in the Midwest, with coursework beginning at the junior level. While the establishment of upper-division universities was a national trend in the 1960s, most of these institutions are now full-service institutions. GSU’s decision to become a full four-year university is an active response to the region’s need for new options for quality, affordable public higher education. “Illinois will increase the percentage of its citizens with bachelor’s degrees only if we create new, high quality pathways to degree completion,” said Maimon.
