Baldwin ? Some new faces will begin appearing on the Baker University campus, and they’ll likely be looking to increase the College of Arts and Sciences’ enrollment.

The university’s new dean of students arrived last week. Its new vice president for financial services starts July 1. And officials are searching for a new dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to begin sometime next school year.

“I think it’s unusual to have this many administrators leave at the same time,” Baker spokesman John Fuller said. “It was a coincidence they all decided to retire or leave at the same time.”

Jo Adams, controller at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo., for 4 1/2 years, will become vice president for financial services. She replaces Bob Layton, who is retiring after five years in the post.

Ed Robinson, assistant director of student services and enrollment management at Kent State University’s campus in Ashtabula, Ohio, started Monday as Baker’s new dean of students. He replaced Jim Troha, who left in December to become vice president at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio.

Baker has four candidates for its dean of the College of Arts and Sciences position. Stuart Dorsey, who served in the position six years, left June 14 to become vice president of academic affairs at the University of Evansville in Indiana.

Financial goals

Layton said he was confident Adams would have an easy transition to Baker because of its similarities to Rockhurst. Adams agreed.

“They’re very similar in that they have a core group of students on campus and a number of adult-education programs,” she said. “We have the nursing program like Baker does. We have close to the same enrollment.”

Rockhurst has about 2,300 students. Baker has about 2,800, with 900 on the Baldwin campus.

Layton said Baker was strong financially, though its $32 million endowment took a 2 percent hit in the past year because of the slumping economy. But that’s less than other universities, he said.

“We’ve done very well,” he said. “We were well-diversified and had good management.”

Adams said she expected making the Baldwin campus financially independent of the School of Professional and Graduate Studies and School of Nursing to be a priority in upcoming years. In recent years, the Baldwin campus has relied on funds from the other two.

“From what I understand, the goal of the university is to have the campus to be self-sustaining,” she said. “They’re very, very close. That’s improved over the last five years.”

Growing enrollment

That goal likely will require an increase in enrollment at the College of Arts and Sciences, a challenge for the new dean.

The college enrolled 903 students last fall the first time to break 900. The university’s goal is to have 1,000 students.

Dorsey, the former dean, said adding students beyond that would require decisions about adding buildings to campus.

“We’re talking about how large do we want to grow,” Dorsey said. “We’ve never pushed our capacity, but we’re beginning to now. Once we get to 1,000, it starts to create a few bottlenecks.”

Preliminary plans are under way to construct an approximately $15 million science center on the campus’ south end. That would be the largest capital project ever at Baker.

The college also is adding two bachelor’s degree programs this fall, in computer science and biochemistry.

‘Good fit’

Robinson, who just completed his first week on the job, said trips to Kansas for conferences had helped convince him to move here from Ohio.

Baker President Dan Lambert said Robinson’s experience at Kent State had prepared him for the Baker position, where he oversees greek life, career services, student housing and student retention efforts.

“Ed was a good fit for us because he came out of a student-oriented program that was relatively small and required he do lots of different things very well,” Lambert said.

Robinson, 36, said his job was simply to improve the quality of student life.

“My main focus is to give the students what it is they need to enjoy themselves and experience as much success here as possible,” he said.