PEPPER PIKE, Ohio (WOIO) – The sixty acres of Ursuline’s campus is now part of Gannon University after a merger that begins this school year with a record class.
“Right now, Ursuline College total is about one thousand students.” said Gannon president Dr. Walter Iwanenko. “In his upcoming class, it’s one-forty-eights. We’d like to build the campus up to between twelve to fifteen hundred students over the next five years.”
Founded in 1871 by the Ursuline Sisters as a women’s college, the school merged with Gannon because of fewer college-age students and increased competition for those students, Ursuline’s campus eventually using Gannon’s strengths while continuing to focus on nursing and its health care partners in the area.
“The majority of our incoming class, nursing is the most popular major,” added Dr. Iwanenko. “On the Gannon campus, in Erie, we have programs in science and engineering and additional health care, and we plan to bring those offerings to the Ursuline campus over the next couple years.”
With plans for even greater enrollment here on the Pepper Pike campus, one of the next challenges for the school: providing more housing for students.
“We need to develop our plan,” admitted Iwanenko. “Right now, even if we wanted to admit more students, we don’t have the room.”
Class started last Wednesday on the Ursuline campus, this school year truly a new day.
“I think the future is bright,” concluded Iwanenko. “We’re going to be expanding our residence halls, we’re going to be expanding athletics, we’re going to continue to bring more men on campus.”
Ursuline became co-educational in 1969, and the Gannon/Ursuline merger makes the combined campuses the largest Catholic university on the Great Lakes.
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