nity support. Many local students from Northeast Florida who wanted to study close to home attended JU. Furthermore, JU also received the financial support of steady donors such as J.E. Davis, the then-chief of the Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. JU's enrollment increased to a peak of 3,000 undergraduates during the 1970s and reached to almost 2,600 in the early 1980s. In comparison, the enrollment of JU for the 2003-2004 school year was 1,800 (Filaroski, 2004).
In order to understand the changes of JU and its current status, it is important to examine how the political, social, demographic and economic forces have impacted the governance of JU, in terms of the shifts in its mission and focus, as well as its strategies for survival. At the same time, the leadership's efforts to appeal to each of the three forcesùthe public, the consumer and facultyùin recent years also need to be discussed.
One of the critical factors that have affected the well-being of JU has been the transformation of the perceived role of education in society. Starting from the 1970s into the 1990s, amidst the growing globalization of the economy and competition from other countries, the government and employers called for higher education institutions to produce graduates who were trained to work in specific professions. In contrast, the liberal arts education that places the emphasis on meaningful learning and creating well-rounded graduates was not considered practical and responsive to the needs of contemporary society. As a result of the changes in the pressures and expectations of society, JU also moved beyond its liberal arts education origins to offer professional programs such as business, nursing and even aviation. Because it is a private institution that derives its funding primarily from tuition and various types of donations, the leadership of the JU needed to shape its strategy in accordance with the needs and interests of its consumers and th...