Inside BSC’s Expansion: Opportunities and Challenges Across Campus

Students celebrate the end of semester outside the Jack Science Center.

Bismarck State College is experiencing a historic surge in enrollment this spring semester, with the highest student numbers in its 86-year history. The milestone follows consecutive semesters of steady growth signaling a sustained rise in interest and attendance. While the increase reflects a positive trend for the college, it has also brought new challenges. Departments across campus have found it necessary to adjust operations and increase resources to keep pace, while adapting and continuing to support students despite the growing population. 

This spring semester BSC has 4,773 students enrolled. Since spring 2022, student enrollment has increased by 1,500, and the numbers are projected to continue to rise. 

BSC has not only grown in number but also programs, athletics, scholarships, and buildings; all of which play a role in the student numbers. 

“A large combination of our other programs offerings, along with our associates programs, our continued rise for our bachelor degree programs, our athletic programs, [have] contributed to our enrollment growth,” Director of Admissions and Recruitment Anne Seidler said.

As of the 2026 Spring Semester, BSC offers 14 bachelor’s degrees, associate in applied science program degrees, and continues to offer associate in arts and associate in science transfer degrees. 

“If we have more and more baccalaureate degrees, they will stay for that third year and that fourth year. So on the higher grade level, you're keeping more students here longer, and you're still bringing in more students on the front end,” Vice President of Academic Affairs Daniel Leingang said. “So that's going to create the enrollment changes that we're also seeing on our campus.”

Athletics have expanded with BSC transitioning to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics in 2025. This allowed athletes to compete at a four-year level in several sports offered at BSC. This transition offers more opportunities for athletes and for future programs. BSC currently offers volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball, cross-country, track and field, wrestling, esports, clay dusters, rodeo, and drone racing. After a four decade hiatus, BSC plans to bring back football in fall 2027. Competitive dance will be added in spring 2027. 

In the past few years, several new buildings have been opened with plans for future construction. In fall 2024, the Advanced Technology Center opened adding the Live Event Venue, creating more space for the theatre department and opportunities for community events. The space is also used for mechatronics and technical training. The Bavendick Center, the new athletics facility, opens this spring. It will also be used for commencement.

With the increased interest of living on campus, more students are looking to stay in dorms. BSC has invested in providing more options for housing with the Health Science dorms finished in summer 2025 and plans for a 335-room dorm currently in the works. 

While additional housing options add new spaces for students living on campus, maintenance of current resident halls is important.

“I think we need to refurbish the old ones, 'cause some of them are not up to what they should be,” BSC Sophomore Jenica Twete said. Twete is currently in the cybersecurity program and will be next year’s Student Government Association president.

The changes to BSC are exciting, but they come with growing pains. Financial Aid is finding its own challenges with the large number of students. Financial Aid aims to connect with the students.

“I feel like in our office … obviously we're the billing office, so it's not always everyone's cup of tea, and we really do strive to try and build rapport with our students…” Student Accounts Associate Amber Thompson said “because we want to make sure that students understand we're not scary.”

Despite this goal, the growth is limiting the department's ability to reach students. 

“With the growth. It is much harder for us to build those relationships from the beginning,” Thompson said. “It's hard for us. We just don't have the manpower anymore to maybe reach out to students sooner.”

The Financial Aid department is unable to contact students who are overdue paying their tuition until about the 150 day mark. They would like to reach out around 90 days instead but are limited with the amount of staff currently available. 

“It is doing our students a disservice because we're unable then to communicate,” Thompson said.

Thompson shared that Financial Aid is hoping to implement an A.I. call system to help with student questions so that the office can be reached after hours. She recommends that students learn Campus Connection. Students can find all their personal information, records, and forms on Campus Connection, which would save time for students and staff.

Academic Records is figuring out their own efficiency to continue to serve students. The department has switched to year round registration with BSC being the only school in the North Dakota University system to do so. This change has made things more hands-on for Academic Records rather than automatic, as the department must keep track of students pursuing four-year degrees.

“We work to find efficiencies so that we can still maintain that. And ... make sure that the records are correct, and all of the reports that we do are valid … so we don't make any mistakes,” Associate Registrar Kene Miller said. “That's the biggest thing is us trying to make sure that there's no mistakes in the records.”

While Academic Records is dealing with registration, Academic Affairs works on scheduling. 

“We have been impacted academically quite a bit. Just this past year,” Dan Leingang said. “You know, we have more students on campus taking classes than we've ever had in the past.”

Academic Affairs has had to adjust scheduling for classes to use the limited number of classrooms to accommodate the increase in students and to schedule classes in spaces able to hold a higher number of students. 

“There are many different impacts, and these are all positive things,” Dan Leingang said. “I mean, these are great ‘problems’ to have. I put quotations around problems because some of our peer institutions are actually losing students.”

In order to deal with the rise in student enrollment, BSC is looking to hire more instructors in each department.

“We've had to add more faculty. So last fall, we added a number of new faculty positions that were vacant, that were not filled. So we brought those back for this current year,” Dan Leingang said. “Planning into next year—we're in a budget planning process right now, but we have a number of new programs, and we have to bring on more faculty for those programs as well.”

Dan Leingang acknowledges the effects this growth is having on campus.

Advising has taken the increase in students as an opportunity to become more structured.

“As growth continues, it also creates opportunities to improve efficiency in advising practices,” Director for Student Success Advising Cathleen Ruch responded via email. “This includes developing more effective ways to connect with and support students, such as refining meeting structures, streamlining communication, and making better use of current technologies.”

The Advising department has increased their workforce as well with the hiring of new part-time staff and student Success Coaches. 

Success Coaches assist students and the advising center. 

“They help answer basic advising questions, support New Student Registration days, and contribute to various advising projects,” Ruch replied in an email.

Dean of Enrollment Management Karen Erickson shared how this growth has affected funding.

“We are funded on a delayed system from our legislative process, which is great,” Erickson said. “We love that when we have that resource that comes in, and we want to be the best stewards of the resources that we can possibly be.”

This funding comes with a difficulty as the student numbers rise and the funding has a delayed recoup. 

“It's a great challenge. I'd rather have that challenge anytime than not,” Erickson said. “But that is definitely a challenge of that delayed resource kickback for managing that growth and more so managing it to make sure that we're still serving our students.”

Military Affairs has seen more interaction with their department because of the student increase.

“We've seen a lot more engagement in the office with our increase, which has been really nice to see,” Military Affairs Manager Ashley Kramer said.

The office recently added a Veterans lounge, a place for students to relax, study, and enjoy what Military Affairs has to offer. 

The department has done some minor reworking in how the system functions and have hired student workers to help with the work load. 

“What we've done as a department, we've had to kind of restructure a little bit,” Kramer said. “Where I do a lot of the administrative stuff that we need to get done and then Chris [Heydt] kind of takes on … most of that day-to-day certifying with the students.”

Campus Police Chief Michael McMerty has seen an increase in calls to campus police because of the college’s growth and the community events that happen at BSC.

“What we've done as far as a campus police department … to make sure that we give the best service possible, we've increased our numbers of officers,” said McMerty. “So from the time I started our allocation, we've increased [to] two part time officers and one full time officer.”

McMerty is in the process of getting full time coverage on campus.  

“We're getting really, really close to that. And so, the hours of coverage were much shorter, prior to that, just because we didn't have the manpower to do it,” said McMerty. “But having that extra full time officer basically is gonna put us close to 24/7 coverage.”

BSC Freshman Chance Leingang is studying biology and is involved as a senator for SGA and is the Phi Theta Kappa president.

“I've also noticed the increased police presence on campus, because, of course, as BSC is growing as an institution, we need more people here protecting our students,” Chance said. “And it's really nice to see them patrolling around, both on the streets and in the hallways of the buildings as they do their rounds.”

Students across campus have noticed the rise in engagement. Many enjoy the larger community and how BSC is fostering the connection between students. 

Criminal Justice major Sienna Berube stated that she believes BSC is doing really well with promoting student availability on campus and helping drive student engagement. 

“I think that there is also more of a focus on student activities, whether that's the union or movie nights and stuff like that, which I really appreciate,” Grace Grimm, a sophomore majoring in Elementary Education said.

The additional students may have brought challenges and changes across campus, but it has given BSC an opportunity to look for new ways to stay functional and provide the best service they can. The new systems, the creation of programs, and the constructed buildings are all done to better student success.

“The challenges have been worth it … and it's going to mean something for our community,” Erickson said. 

Going forward, students need to continue to use their voices to help guide the school. 

“Student engagement is so critical to the experience and the success of students. We want to give more of those opportunities and provide those opportunities for students,” Dan Leingang said.