ANGOLA - For Trine University this fall, the word more will be everywhere you look: More on-campus students, more student housing going up, more athletic facilities breaking ground, more sports with more coaches, and more than enough money to fulfill the institution's $90 million capital campaign two years early.

"We are pleased to announce that we will have over 1,900 students, total, at Trine University beginning this fall, with 1,400 enrolled at the main campus and 1,030 living on campus," said Earl Brooks II, TU president. "This incoming freshman class also will be the first class committed to living four years on campus - with the exception of juniors and seniors who are eligible to live in fraternities or in the Christian Campus House."

The record fall enrollment - the institution's largest in 40 years - more than doubles the number of students living on campus since 2002, when just 496 Trine students called a campus dorm home. The number comes with growing pains: Even with all the new housing the university has built, they are now out of beds, Brooks said.

"In 2002 we had 62 empty beds," Brooks said. "Now we're out of housing space, even though we've added 600 beds. So at our board of directors meeting Saturday, we decided to address this growth and talk about building more apartment-style housing, possibly starting as early as this fall, maybe even before Homecoming, but no later than after our October board meeting."

The new four-year residency requirement is only for incoming freshmen and those that follow, Brooks said.

"We know there is strong retention tied to a residential campus," he said. "And in the last four years as we built new housing, we have seen our retention increase by 10 percent. This fall our freshman class is up 10 percent, with an increase in retention of 16 percent."

Coupled with branch campuses and online studies, the numbers add up to another problem - one that the university is glad to have.

"Saturday we began talking about how to stabilize our growth and start living off our enrollment, and capping it at 2,400," Brooks said. "If we continue to grow at our present rate, that will give us about 2,400 students by 2012, with 1,600 enrolled at the main campus and 1,200 living on campus.

"We have the capacity to accommodate that growth with minimal upgrades and remodeling after the old library and business buildings are finished. But the key right now is expanding the new residential buildings so we can house everyone."

New athletic stadium

Brooks made another announcement Monday, with the news that the university has already achieved its $90 million capital campaign goal. The university's Vision for the Future campaign has channeled $65 million into many new facilities, enhanced technology and expanded academic programs.

A second phase of the campaign will be announced at Homecoming, Brooks said, to raise another $75 million for operating funds and endowments. Of those funds, 23 percent, or approximately $17.2 million, will support scholarships. Another 43 percent, or about $32 million, will go to university endowment. Thirty-four percent will go to additional capital programs.

Between the increased student population and the successful capital campaign, the university has been able to announce another project that has come to fruition: A new athletic stadium for football, men's and women's lacrosse, men's and women's soccer and a new sport, field hockey, also will break ground this fall.

"We have already hired the field hockey coach, who is working on putting the new program together, to start in 2010," Brooks said.

"Saturday's whole board of directors' session was dealing with our growth in the next four years, and how we will transition into leveling off, because we don't want to lose the small individualized attention or jeopardize our small student-faculty ratio and our historic quality of education," Brooks said.