By David Fenker
david@nmpaper.com
NORTH MANCHESTER, Ind. – Community involvement and personalized education are hallmarks of Manchester University.
MU President Dave McFadden presented information about the university at a community breakfast Wednesday, Sept. 28.
He emphasized the university’s dedication to teaching students to go out and make the world a better place.
“The great news about Manchester is we’re an experiential place, we’re a hands-on place. So, lots of our students, faculty and staff do that during their time here at Manchester. They don’t wait until they graduate,” he said.
According to McFadden, Manchester’s 1,600 students performed 60,000 hours of community service last year.
“That’s an enormous amount of time put into the community,” he said.
He also discussed the university’s pharmacogenomics program, the first in the nation, and the new five-year athletic training program, which will help Manchester graduates be more qualified when entering the workforce while finishing a year earlier than normal.
McFadden presented the results of an independent survey of university graduates studying the satisfaction of those graduates with their university.
The survey, which polled students from colleges and universities across the nation, received answers from 20 percent of Manchester graduates spanning multiple decades.
One question asked students if their professors cared about them as a person.
“Not just ‘I had a professor who cared about me;’ ‘my professors cared about me.’ That’s a hallmark of Manchester,” McFadden said, noting that 55 percent of those polled agreed with the statement, more than 20 percent higher than the national and state averages.
A total of 89 percent of alumni polled were satisfied or extremely satisfied with the quality of their education.