Strategic Enrollment Management uarterly

A publication of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

© 2021 AACRAO. All rights reserved. Reproduction and distribution is prohibited without express written permission of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

e-ISSN 2325-4750

About the EditorTom Green, Ph.D., is AACRAO’s Associate Executive Director, Con-sulting and SEM. During his more than 30-year

career as an enrollment manager, he has led enrollment management efforts for six

universities and collaborated with both public and private institutions to reach their goals.

Green’s first-hand education experi-ence includes his tenure as Vice President for Enrollment Management at Eastern Michigan University, and as Associate

Vice President for Enrollment Services at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

Green is a former chair for AACRAO’s financial aid, enrollment management and retention committees. He holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership, Management, and Policy from Seton Hall University.

As we prepare for our first meeting together again since the start of the Pandemic, we face daunting enrollment challenges. Research on the impacts of COVID-19 on higher education worldwide has just begun to produce some initial insights into the level of disruption and the level of opportunity those impacts created. It has been in some ways an accelerant on forces pressing on higher education for some years. Online teaching took a leap forward from interesting and supportive to essen-tial and mainstream. Community college enrollments, which had been gradually sliding since 2011, took a sharp downward turn in a year.

This special edition of SEM Quarterly pulls from the past year’s articles to present conference participants a wide array of topics and issues. Many, if not all, of these will be covered in plenaries, workshops, and sessions. As you turn your attention from matters on campus to

this opportunity to learn and reflect on the trends, op-portunities, and challenges in enrollment, we hope that these articles will be an accelerant for you, as well, and that you will find yourself starting SEM 2021 with some background and frames of reference for this experience.

It would be impossible to present this special issue of SEMQ without the talents and hard work of Manag-ing Editor Heather Zimar. Many thanks, Heather, for your insights and dedication. Thanks, too, to our many authors whose research and writing skills you will wit-ness in reading their works.

See you in Miami!

Tom Green, Ph.D.Editor-in-Chief

Strategic Enrollment Management QuarterlyAdvancing Research in Enrollment and Student Success

Special EditionSEM Prep, November 2021

Spring 2021Volume 9(1) 3

Strategic Enrollment Management Quarterly

Delineating A Practitioner-Defined Research Agenda for Enrollment ManagementBy John M. Braxton, Don Hossler, and Alexandra Wendt

Delineating A Practitioner-Defined Research Agenda for Enrollment ManagementEnrollment management constitutes an administrative function of colleges and universities as organizations. Like other administrative functions, enrollment man-agement should embrace the use of research findings to guide their practice of enrollment management (Braxton and Hossler 2019). At an earlier stage in the evolution of enrollment management, Bontrager (2004) described the need for a data rich environment that would enable senior enrollment officers to study the effects of institutional policies and practices on student enrollment behaviors. In 2008, Hossler and Kalsbeek (2008) identified a range of areas for which enrollment managers should look to research to help guide enroll-ment efforts: market position; why students do or do not

matriculate; factors that influence graduation, drop out, or transfer; the impact of financial aid on matriculation and persistence; policies and practices that enhance student diversity; and the effects of specific academic programs, as well as student life programs, on student enrollment decisions. To date, however, a systematic study of the research needs of enrollment managers and their relative importance has not been undertaken.

Such a use of research findings precludes enroll-ment managers from making “trial by error” or “shoot from the hip” types of action (Braxton and Ream 2017). In a broader sense, the use of research findings to guide administrative practice stands as a goal of a scholarship of practice given its emphasis on the improvement of administrative practice (Braxton 2017).

A scholarship of practice for enrollment manage-ment requires the development of a two-way loop with

THE RESE ARCH AGENDA

This article presents a practitioner-defined research agenda for enrollment management. This agenda consists of 45 topics for research identified by enrollment management practitioners as the most pressing topics/issues that they regard as ones that would benefit from a study conducted by researchers. Implications of this agenda for practitioners and researchers are offered.



one loop being the practice community of enrollment management to the research community of enrollment management and the other being from the research community of enrollment management to the practice community of enrollment management (Braxton and Hossler 2019). This article focuses on the development of the practitioner-to-researcher loop.

The delineation of a practitioner-defined research agenda for enrollment management constitutes the primary activity of the development of this loop of a scholarship of practice (Braxton and Hossler 2019). A practitioner-defined research agenda consists of those topics for research that enrollment managers need to address—the day-to-day issues and concerns they en-counter in their practice of enrollment management (Braxton and Hossler 2019). Because practitioners fre-quently view research as irrelevant to their day-to-day practice (Kielhofner 2005), the delineation of a prac-titioner-defined research agenda can work to shape a different perception among practitioners about the rel-evance of research findings to their work.

Braxton and Hossler (2019) offer approaches to the development of a practitioner-defined research agenda for enrollment management. One of the approaches they suggest entails the administration of a survey to enrollment mangers by a professional organization such as the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO). AACRAO enacted this approach through their administration of a 60 Second Survey in January 2020. The authors of this article con-tributed to the development of the questions included in this 60 Second Survey. Accordingly, the presentation of the findings of this survey constitute the primary purpose of this article. These findings delineate a prac-titioner-defined research agenda for enrollment man-agement. This practitioner-defined research agenda, in turn, contributes to the development of the path from the practice community of enrollment management to the research community of enrollment management.

Before presenting the results of the 60 Second Sur-vey, we describe this survey and its administration by AACRAO. The next section of this article describes the administration of the 60 Second Survey.

The Administration of the 60 Second SurveyThe 60-Second Survey was successfully emailed in Janu-ary 2020 to 11,119 members of AACRAO using the Qual-trics survey platform, and a total of 1,184 individuals responded. This survey consisted of sixteen items; one of these pertained to the delineation of a practitioner-de-fined research agenda for enrollment management. This particular survey item took the following form: “As you consider the types of decisions and actions you encoun-ter in your practice of enrollment management, what are the most pressing topics/issues that you think would benefit from a study conducted by researchers?” A total of 550 responses were received to this open-ended re-sponse question. These responses ranged from one-word answers to several sentences in length.

Methodology for the Delineation of the Practitioner-Defined Research AgendaThe 550 responses were analyzed through an iterative qualitative coding process (Miles and Huberman 1994). The entire analysis was conducted in three separate stages. The responses were first analyzed through an ini-tial line-by-line reading and coding of responses in align-ment with the topics/issues represented by the checkbox options of the survey completed by respondents. Only a small number of the responses aligned with these checkbox categories. In the second stage of analysis, an iterative, line-by-line coding process was employed to identify the themes that emerged in the responses (Miles and Huberman 1994; Strauss 1987). While this analytical approach is typically used in grounded theory method-ology, it was key in identifying the research topics that enrollment manager practitioners deemed as needing further research (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Strauss and Corbin 1990). The third stage of analysis encompassed a final line-by-line reading of the responses and initial codes to develop focused codes (Charmaz 2014). The fo-cused codes reflect the most salient initial codes. The saliency of each code was tracked so researchers could examine which research topics and issues practitioners were most interested in (Charmaz 2014).



The stages of this iterative qualitative coding process were used to develop a practitioner-defined research agenda for enrollment management. This resulted in forming 45 categories of the most pressing issues that enrollment managers think necessitate further research. Of the 45 categories, 26 categories had fewer than ten re-spondents who called for research on that topic or issue.

The Practitioner-Defined Research Agenda for Enrollment ManagementBefore our presentation of this practitioner-defined research agenda, we acknowledge that circumstances external and internal to colleges and universities may lead to the emergence of new pressing topics or issues that enrollment practitioners may deem as needing the findings of research to guide their practice. As con-

sequence, efforts to delineate a practitioner-defined research agenda for enrollment management should take place on a recurring basis. Nevertheless, the prac-titioner-defined research agenda we present herein constitutes an initial effort to put forth such an agenda.

As previously stated, the number of individuals list-ing a topic germane to a category offers an indication of the saliency of the topic/issues to enrollment manage-ment practitioners. We present each of these 45 catego-ries in descending order of their saliency to enrollment management practitioners. Beside the name of each category, we specify the number of individuals listing a topic pertinent to that particular category. These 46 categories define a practitioner-defined research agenda for enrollment management. Table 1 lists these catego-ries. We define each category below.

TABLE 1 ➤ The Categories of Needed Research by Enrollment Management Professionals

Category Salience Category Salience

Efficacy of Various Retention Strategies 90 Standardized Test Scores in EM 8

EM Trends 57 Completion 7

SEM Planning 46 Decision Points 7

Changing Enrollment Landscape 41 Yield 7

EM Best Practices 35 Generation Z 7

Shifting Demographics 32 Goals 6

Cost of Higher Education 32 Dual Enrollment 5

Curriculum 32 Institutional Culture 5

Recruitment Markets 19 Low-Income 5

Diversity 17 Perceptions 5

Financial Aid 17 Staffing 5

Projection Modeling 17 Online Education 4

Attrition 15 Return on Investment (ROI) 4

Transfer 15 Transfer Articulation Agreements 4

Data in EM 14 Advising Models 3

Technology in EM 14 Future Jobs 3

Access 11 Mental Health 3

Graduation 11 Non-Cognitive Factors in Admissions & Retention 3

Trends in Changing and Evolving Roles in Admissions 10 Rural Education 2

EM Organizational Structure & Resources 9 Special Needs 2

Funding 9 Student Engagement 2

Academic Preparedness 8 Summer Melt 2

Persistence 8



˺ Efficacy of Various Retention Strategies (90): This category reflects the need for more research on a wide array of retention strategies and their effective-ness in the context of varying institution types and for students of varying backgrounds. The responses ranged from an interest in strategies to retain “stu-dents of color,” “African American males,” “adult learners,” “part-time students,” “first generation stu-dents,” “low-income students,” “graduate students” and “non-traditional students.” The respondents also requested more research on retention interven-tions, specifically for undergraduate students, and the efficacy of those interventions.

Further, the respondents indicated a desire to know more about the effects of financial aid on re-tention, research on graduation strategies, and more research on college completion. Survey respondents also expressed an interest in whether there are re-lationships between majors and student persistence and retention and whether or not retention and per-sistence rates vary by major.

˺ EM Trends (57): This represents the concerns of re-spondents who would like research on current and emerging enrollment management trends at col-leges and universities in the United States. Some of the responses reflect an interest in general trends while others reflect interests that are more specific. The respondents were interested in trends relating to international students, community colleges, the types of institutions different groups of students tend to apply to and enroll in, as well as trends relating to graduate students and adult learners. No-tably, several respondents requested that trends be analyzed in spaces beyond admissions to include of-fices of student success, career centers, and student life centers, among others.

In addition, several respondents expressed an in-terest in topics that fall under the general rubric of enrollment management trends, including research on decision points in the admissions process and/or decisions related to enrollment management in institutions. The responses revealed an interest in knowing what the critical decision points are for

students, what factors influence decisions for par-ents and students, why students choose to attend or not to attend an institution, and who “matters most” in the decision-making process.

˺ SEM Planning (46): The SEM planning category rep-resents the concerns of respondents who would like to see more research on strategic enrollment management planning. Many communicated a de-sire to know more about SEM planning that is com-prehensively integrated into the college/university campuses and SEM planning processes that engage multiple stakeholders on college and university cam-puses. Other respondents expressed a need for SEM planning research that addresses how colleges and universities are integrating strategies to reduce eq-uity gaps and support minority students. Addition-ally, others communicated a need for research on SEM planning that is specific to community colleges. Many respondents also expressed an interest in how different stakeholders are engaged in and/or influ-ence the SEM planning processes at their institutions.

Finally, the responses reflected an interest in re-search on enrollment goals at institutions. Respon-dents specifically want to know more about how institutions determine and meet enrollment goals as well as how they set and meet revenue goals.

˺ Changing Enrollment Landscape (41): This depicts an interest from respondents in the numerous factors that influence the enrollment landscape. Most sa-lient in the responses was an interest in research that might address how to navigate a changing en-rollment landscape as competition among institu-tions continues to increase. Specifically, respondents indicated interest in how to increase enrollment in the midst of a changing and increasingly compet-itive enrollment landscape. Some respondents are curious to know if there are different impacts of a changing enrollment landscape based on insti-tutional types. Further, this category encompasses an interest in how political factors such as the U.S. v. the National Association for College Admission Counseling (Department of Justice 2019) lawsuit may influence the changing enrollment landscape.



Finally, another dimension of this code includes an interest in research addressing the pressures insti-tutions are facing in this changing enrollment land-scape and how institutions are planning to respond to such pressures during change and declining en-rollments.

˺ EM Best Practices (35): This category encompasses an interest in research on best practices in enroll-ment management. The list below highlights the variety of specific topics respondents are interested in regarding best practices:

ɬ Educational experiences

ɬ Housing

ɬ Class sizes

ɬ Ease of navigation for students

ɬ Communication with stakeholders

ɬ Best practices for community colleges

ɬ Increasing enrollment

ɬ Launching and supporting stu-dent success initiatives

ɬ Marketing and recruitment

˺ Shifting Demographics (32): This reflects the inter-est to understand how student demographics have shifted in the United States. Some respondents are interested in how student demographics have shifted on a global scale. Nearly all respondents who expressed an interest in shifting demographics also expressed the need to examine how these shifts might impact institutions of higher education. Some respondents also expressed an interest in under-standing which strategies are most effective for sup-porting students from different demographic groups.

˺ Cost of Higher Education (32): Many respondents communicated an interest to understand more about the cost of higher education as it relates to students, families, and institutions of higher edu-cation. This code further captures an interest to un-derstand how free tuition might impact institutions of higher education. Some of the respondents were also interested in research on student debt as well as debt reduction efforts.

˺ Curriculum (32): This covers respondent interest in matters related to curriculum, from aspects of

scheduling to research on aligning majors and de-gree programs with labor-market demand. The list below outlines topics covered under this code:

ɬ Majors in demand by students

ɬ Majors in demand by employers

ɬ Scheduling

ɬ Offering majors/degree programs in alignment with labor-market trends.

This category especially reflects an interest to examine whether or not colleges and universities ought to scale down programs where there is less employer demand and whether or not this might allow institutions to reduce cost and reallocate re-sources to degree programs that are aligned with greater industry demand.

˺ Recruitment Markets (19): These respondents are interested in research examining how recruitment markets have changed in more recent years. These responses varied from general interest in how re-cruitment markets have changed to how specific recruitment markets have changed. Specific recruit-ment markets listed by respondents include:

ɬ International recruitment markets

ɬ Graduate recruitment markets

ɬ Undergraduate recruitment markets

ɬ Online education

˺ Diversity (17): This category demonstrates the need for research on enrollment management practices for increasing and supporting diversity in student bodies at varying institution types. This category also reflects a desire to know more about what fac-tors might impact diversity at colleges and univer-sities.

˺ Financial Aid (17): This captures respondent interest in further research on financial and financial aid trends. Aspects of this category include:

ɬ Financial aid and retention

ɬ Financial aid and student success

ɬ Managing financial aid discounts in varying types of institutions

ɬ FASFA



ɬ Financial aid for first generation and Pell eligible students

˺ Projection Modeling (17): Projection modeling cov-ers an interest in research on enrollment projection modeling. This category specifically relates to SEM planning and goals of institutions as well as enroll-ment projection modeling for undergraduates, grad-uates, international students, and transfer students.

˺ Attrition (15): In general, this category denotes an in-terest in more research on attrition issues and how attrition varies by institution type. The respondents are also interested in learning more about how insti-tutions are addressing such issues. Some responses reflected an interest in further understanding rea-sons students leave institutions and whether those reasons could be categorized as academic, financial, or some combination of the two.

˺ Transfer (15): This category reflects topics and is-sues specifically as they relate to transfer students. Respondents cited the need for additional research on the increased competition for transfer students, trends relating to transfer students, student success measures for transfer students, and general enroll-ment management practices related to transfer stu-dents. Four respondents specifically wanted to know more about transfer articulation agreements and their relationship with transfer student enrollments.

˺ Data in EM (14): This category conveys respondent interest in additional research on data use and management in enrollment management. The re-spondents cited an interest to learn more about how institutions are engaging in data-driven decision making. A few of the responses also communicate an interest to learn more about how varying institu-tions are managing their data since data collection is decentralized within many institutions.

˺ Technology in EM (14): This category captures an in-terest for more research on the varying technologies and their effectiveness as they relate to enrollment management. The respondents are also curious to know more about how technology impacts enroll-ment management. Specificities include:

ɬ The use of social media to engage pro-spective and current students

ɬ Appropriate practices in using technology to text prospective and current students

ɬ Tech-enabling the work of enrollment management (i.e., electronic information exchange, electronic transcripts, etc.)

ɬ Impacts of artificial intelligence on enrollment management.

˺ Access (11): This reflects an interest in research re-lated to increasing access to higher education for stu-dents of all backgrounds. These respondents request further research to understand what barriers cur-rently exist for graduating high school students, how to close equity gaps in higher education, and the ef-fectiveness of strategies being used to increase access.

˺ Graduation (11): This topical area indexes a general interest in graduation trends among various institu-tion types. It also reflects an interest in: whether or not there are correlations between major selections and graduation rates; strategies to increase gradua-tion rates; and how to increase graduation rates for underrepresented students.

˺ Trends in Changing and Evolving Roles in Admissions (10): Most responses under this category reflect an interest in research on the role of faculty in admis-sions. These respondents are also interested in more research on the role that current students play in the admissions processes, such as involving students in recruitment. A couple of respondents communi-cated an interest to know more about the role of the registrar in admissions processes.

˺ EM Organizational Structure & Resources (9): This category encapsulates responses that are interested in research on the structure and resources for en-rollment management at colleges and universities. Responses included interest in leadership practices, organizational structure, and budget, as well as how those factors influence the effectiveness of enroll-ment management at institutions.

˺ Funding (9): This reflects an interest in research on the various funding sources and practices for insti-tutions on higher education. Responses specifically



included: comparing funding between two-year community colleges and four-year colleges; alterna-tive funding models; declining state funding; how na-tional funding might change; whether or not funding influences course offerings; and net tuition revenue.

˺ Academic Preparedness (8): This captures responses requesting research on the academic preparedness of incoming college students with particular em-phasis on how to determine college readiness and what services colleges and universities are offering to support students who are academically underpre-pared for university-level work.

˺ Persistence (8): This category includes responses that reflected an interest in research on persistence. Practitioners are interested in learning more about: how privileged registration programs are impact-ing persistence; correlations between SAT scores and persistence into second year; motivations to persist; resiliency of students; comparing persistence among institution types; persistence in graduate school for adult learners; and research on students who per-sisted in the face of difficulties in higher education and/or returned to higher education after experi-encing difficulties.

˺ Standardized Test Scores in EM (8): This category’s responses reflected an interest to see research on standardized test scores in enrollment management, including: correlations between scores and student success; comparing success of students who enter under standardized test scores and students who enter under multiple measures; potential effects on admissions if/when standardized test scores are eliminated and/or made optional; and impacts of standardized test waivers at the graduate level.

˺ Completion (7): This covers requests for more re-search on completion with dimensions including admissions attitudes toward completion in com-munity colleges, issues that affect completion rates, completion of degrees by adult learners, and com-paring completion rates to the number of times stu-dents change their majors.

˺ Decision Points (7): Responses interested in research on decision points in the admissions process and/

or decisions related to enrollment management in institutions stand as the crux of this category. Most responses reflect an interest in knowing what the critical decision points are for students, what fac-tors influence decisions for parents and students, why students choose to attend or not to attend an institution, and who “matters most” in the deci-sion-making process.

˺ Yield (7): This category indexes an interest from respondents to know more about strategies to in-crease yield, how institutions analyze yield, yield across varying institution types, yield management, and yield related to specific recruitment practices/techniques.

˺ Generation Z (6): This category reflects an interest in research to help better understand Generation Z, learning patterns of Generation Z, effective re-cruitment techniques for Generation Z, and how to engage Generation Z students.

˺ Goals (6): This indicates an interest to see research on enrollment goals at institutions, including how institutions determine enrollment goals, how in-stitutions meet their goals, and setting and meeting revenue goals.

˺ Dual Enrollment (5): This category suggests an in-terest in dual enrollment trends, how dual enroll-ment impacts two-year and four-year institutions, whether or not dual enrollment has any correlation with time to degree, effects of dual enrollment on later college success, and trends in dual enrollment opportunities being created at the graduate level.

˺ Institutional Culture (5): This category reflects an interest to see research on institutional cultures, including: aligning institution mission and brand; managing difficult campus climates; trends in cam-pus cultures; how institutional culture impacts SEM strategies and practices as well as affects institu-tional culture change.

˺ Low-Income (5): This includes respondents who want to see research on low-income students at varying institutions as well as strategies to sup-port low-income students. Additionally, responses include interest in low-income students at private



institutions and changing the incentives for enroll-ment of low-income students.

˺ Perceptions (5): This reflects an interest in research on the perceptions of higher education. Specifically, respondents are interested in how media influences public opinion of higher education, perceptions of higher education by parents and students as well as by different segments of the population, and percep-tions on the relevance and value of higher education.

˺ Staffing (5): Respondents interested in research on staffing in enrollment management reported want-ing to know more about ideal staffing levels/ratios of staff to students, research to include staff who work one-on-one with students, staffing costs and comparisons to ROI, and increasing staff while si-multaneously increasing recruitment efforts.

˺ Online Education (4): This category captures respon-dents communicating the need for more research on: how to adapt online education to varying stu-dent populations; best practices and enrollment suc-cess in adapting curriculum to online education that is traditionally taught face to face; supports that are needed/used for students in online education; and how student success compares/differs for students who have the ease of transferring to an online edu-cation format.

˺ Return on Investment (ROI) (4): ROI reflects an inter-est in: research on how institutions calculate ROI; comparing ROI for students with CTE degrees ver-sus transferrable degrees; and how the ROI of vary-ing degrees compare/differ.

˺ Transfer Articulation Agreements (4): Overall, these respondents want to know more about: how long transfer articulation agreements take; how institu-tions track transfer articulation agreements; transfer articulation agreement turnaround times and their influence on enrollment decisions; how many stu-dents use transfer articulation agreements; and their value compared to how long they take to establish.

˺ Advising Models (3): This category indexes an inter-est in research on effective advising models at vary-ing institutions as well as trends related to faculty serving in the role as advisors.

˺ Future Jobs (3): Respondents would like more re-search on emerging and potential future employ-ment opportunities/trends as well as what factors influence a person’s decision to return to higher education for a career change.

˺ Mental Health (3): This category takes the form of a re-quest for more research on the rise of mental health issues on college and university campuses, trends related to mental health, factors contributing to the rise of mental health challenges, and strategies to best support students facing mental health challenges.

˺ Non-Cognitive Factors in Admissions & Retention (3): This category reflects an interest in research to un-derstand the role that non-cognitive factors play in admissions processes at varying institutions as well as the impact of non-cognitive factors on retention.

˺ Rural Education (2): Respondents requested research on the need for more rural education opportunities and how rural education opportunities differ before and after the 2016 presidential election.

˺ Special Needs (2): Respondents requested research on students with special needs and how to best sup-port them.

˺ Student Engagement (2): Respondents requested general research on student engagement as well as research on creative student life programming with limited budgets.

˺ Summer Melt (2): Respondents requested research on reasons for summer melt (between confirmation and registration of new admits).

Collectively, these topics reflect the impressive range of responsibilities of enrollment management organizations, the wide-angle lens of the functions that comprise enrollment management. In the 1980s, descriptions of enrollment functions focused on admis-sions and financial aid. Over time functions such as ori-entation, registration and records, enrollment research, and enhancing student success became part of enroll-ment organizations (Ward and Hossler 2016). As Hossler (in press) notes, the addition of these functions resulted in enrollment management organizations becoming in-fluential in the allocation of resources and the promi-



nence of EM on the decisions of senior administrators at colleges and universities. As a result, professional staff outside of admissions and financial aid view their roles through the lens of enrollment management. The organizational expansion of enrollment management units is central to understanding the research needs of senior enrollment leaders as well as the needs of the managers of offices such as admissions, financial aid, registration and records, and student success.

Implications for Practitioners and ResearchersOur description of the practitioner-defined research agenda presents a full array of topics and issues that en-rollment management practitioners regard as ones need-ing research. This practitioner-defined research agenda provides practitioners of enrollment management with a knowledge of the topics other practitioners deem as needing research studies, as well as well-crafted synthe-ses, to guide their professional practice. In addition, this study can help set the research agenda for institutional researchers who focus on enrollment management. It is becoming commonplace for many large institutions to have full-time, dedicated research staff focusing en-tirely upon enrollment management related research. A knowledge of these topics of the practitioner-defined research agenda may stimulate enrollment management practitioners and institutional researchers to either add needed studies to any of the above categories or to sug-gest new studies that do not fit into any of these catego-ries. We invite enrollment management practitioners to offer such suggested studies to us.

Members of the research community of enrollment management will also find uses for this practitioner-de-fined research agenda as it provides rich opportunities for research. Braxton and Hossler (2019) indicate that this research community includes doctoral students at the dissertation stage of their studies, faculty members associated with graduate programs in higher education as a field of study, and researchers of the American College Testing Program, the College Board, the Educa-tional Testing Service, and the National Student Clear-inghouse Research Center. Institutional researchers and

enrollment management officers who conduct research constitute additional members of this research commu-nity (Braxton and Hossler 2019).

Members of this research community may select top-ics from this practitioner-defined research agenda for pursuit. They may also elect to do integrated reviews or syntheses of the extant research on topics of the practi-tioner-defined research agenda because studies on some of the topics or sub-topics of the 45 categories of this agenda may already have been conducted and escaped the attention of enrollment management practitioners. Both members of the practice and research communi-ties of enrollment might find such syntheses useful.

Doctoral students may find the topics of the practi-tioner-defined research agenda to be of value to them as they endeavor to identify a topic for their disserta-tion research. Faculty members affiliated with higher education graduate programs may also elect to include the practitioner-defined research agenda as a course reading as well as topic for class discussion.

As previously stated, a scholarship of practice for enrollment management requires the development of a two-way loop with one loop being the practice com-munity of enrollment management to the research com-munity of enrollment management and the other being from the research community of enrollment manage-ment to the practice community of enrollment man-agement (Braxton and Hossler 2019). Researchers who conduct studies derived from the practitioner-defined research agenda play a necessary and essential role in the formation of the loop from the research community to the practice community of enrollment management. The necessary and essential role played by researchers entails the timely dissemination of the findings of their research to practitioners. A discussion of the various issues associated with the timely dissemination of find-ings is beyond the scope of this article. We refer readers interested in a discussion of these issues to Braxton and Hossler (2019). Nevertheless, we suggest that researchers present their findings at the Strategic Enrollment Man-agement Conference sponsored by AACRAO, the College Board Forum, the Enrollment Managers Conference of ACT, and the annual conference of the Association of



Institutional Research. Presentation of findings at such conferences offers a medium for the rapid and timely dissemination of research findings to practitioners.

Closing ThoughtsThis article identifies the most pressing institutional pol-icy arenas for the practice of enrollment management. These include student success, student persistence, and student attrition. The effects of changing demograph-ics and public policy upon the practices of enrollment management are also identified as rich areas for further research. Topics including the financing and costs of higher education and enhancing student diversity are also identified as important areas of research. Enrollment professionals also expressed the need for more research on marketing, the use of technology, and SEM analytics. Finally, studies that focus on the internal operations of enrollment management organizations including re-search on best practices and studies of the organizational structure of enrollment management organizations.

Following previous discussions of the two-way prac-titioner-research loop work on enrollment management (see Braxton and Hossler 2019), this article identifies the most important areas for research on enrollment management. Too often, administrators can be heard critiquing the dearth of research that can be used to help inform their decisions. At the same time, research-ers in the field of higher education are wont to won-der aloud why college and university administrators do not make use of their research. As Braxton and Hossler (2019) noted, there is too little communication between practitioner and researchers. By identifying topics that enrollment management professionals would like re-searched, the practitioner-defined research agenda pro-vides insights for researchers to conduct research that would garner the interests of the enrollment manage-ment professionals. In addition, the practitioner-defined research agenda helps enrollment management profes-sionals better understand their field of practice, as the topics of this agenda can reveal new trends in strategic enrollment management. Simply identifying new topics can help busy professionals stay abreast of current con-cerns in SEM. These trends can shed light on the topics

where there is consensus regarding the most important areas for further research and understanding.

The imagery of a loop between researchers and enrollment professionals affords a helpful visual and way to think about the research needs of enrollment management professionals. The direction of the links between professional needs and research products, however, should not be understood as always starting from practitioners to inform the studies of academic researchers. There are already robust bodies of work for several of the topics identified by practitioners, such as student success; impact of financial aid; and the college choice process of traditional age students, underrepre-sented groups, and adult students. Some topics of the practitioner-defined research agenda suggest that en-rollment professionals may not be making sufficient effort to stay abreast of research in many of the areas related to enrollment management. These same topics, as well as others, may also be a call to researchers to share their findings in journals that are more widely read by practitioners, even if these journals are not ranked among the most prestigious journals in the field of higher education. Indirectly, some of the topics of the practitioner-defined research agenda also suggest that high-quality literature reviews, which synthesize find-ings across studies with a set of realistic implications for enrollment managers, would be well received. Just as the reward structures of research universities do not reward faculty members for publishing in journals with a stronger practice focus, those same reward structures do not reward faculty for creating high-quality liter-ature reviews with practical implications in areas of practice for strategic enrollment management.

Finally, this article calls for enrollment profession-als to stay abreast of research in their field. In addition, we urge researchers in the field of higher education to put more effort toward making their work useful and available to enrollment professionals, as opposed to ex-pecting them to read journals that focus a good deal of attention on methods but with little attention devoted to implications for practice. This is no small task for higher education scholars. Many researchers have little experience in more senior-level administrative rolls,



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Braxton, J. M. 2017. Editor’s notes. In Toward a Scholarship of Practice, New Directions for Higher Education (No. 178), edited by J. M. Braxton. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Braxton, J. M., and D. Hossler. 2019. Developing the two-way practitioner-researcher loop for enrollment management. Strategic Enrollment Management Quarterly. 7(2): 7–12.

Braxton, J. M., and T. C. Ream. 2017. The scholarship of practice and stewardship of higher education. In Toward a Scholarship of Practice, New Directions for Higher Education (No. 178), edited by J. M. Braxton. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Charmaz, K. 2014. Constructing Grounded Theory. London: Sage.

Glaser, B. G., and A. L. Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine.

Hossler, D. (in press). Lifting the veil on the enrollment management industry. In The Enrollment Management Industry, edited by S. Burd. Boston: Harvard University Press.

Hossler, D., and D. Kalsbeek. 2008. Enrollment management & managing enrollment: Setting the context for dialogue. College and University. 83(4): 2.

Kielhofner, G. A. 2005. A scholarship of practice: Creating discourse between theory, research, and practice. In The Scholarship of Practice: Academic-Practice Collaborations

for Promoting Occupational Therapy, edited by P. Crist and G. A. Kielhofner. New York: Haworth Press.

Miles, M. B., and A. M. Huberman. 1994. Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook (2nd ed.). Sage Publications, Inc.

Strauss, A. L. 1987. Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. Cambridge University Press. Available at: <doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511557842>.

Strauss, A., and J. M. Corbin. 1990. Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Sage Publications, Inc.

Ward, M., and D. Hossler. 2016. From admissions to enrollment management. In Rentz’s Student Affairs Practice in Higher Education (3rd ed.), edited by N. Zhang. Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors are grateful to Dr. Wendy Kilgore, Director of Research, American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, who designed and administered the 60 Second Survey. She also generously provided us with the data collected that we used to create the practitioner-defined research agenda. Her efforts made this article possible.

and as a result, insufficient insight into the practical implications of their scholarship. It might be necessary to involve enrollment management professionals in the study so that they can help to develop a set of strong implications for practice. The totality of these efforts

works toward enabling enrollment management profes-sionals to use research findings to guide their practice of enrollment management (Braxton and Hossler 2019) and, in doing so, avoid making “trial by error” or “shoot from the hip” types of action (Braxton and Ream 2017).

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511557842

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511557842



About the AuthorsJohn M. Braxton

John M. Braxton is Professor Emeritus of Leadership, Policy and Organizations, Higher

Education Leadership and Policy Program, Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, Resident Scholar, Tennessee Indepen-dent College and University Association, and Affiliate Scholar, The USC Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice.

Braxton has two major programs of research. One centers on the college student experience with particular atten-tion focused on college student per-

sistence. His work on college student persistence entails the assessment of theory on college student persistence, the revision and construction of new theory on college and constructs and empirical testing of revised and newly formulated theory on this phenomenon.

Braxton has published more than 110 publications in the form of articles in referred journals, books, and book chap-ters. He is a recipient of the Research Achievement Award bestowed by the Association for the Study of Higher Edu-cation and the Contribution to Knowledge

Award given by the American College Personnel Association (ACPA)-College Student Educators International. Both awards are for outstanding contribu-tions to knowledge that advance the understanding of higher education.

Professor Braxton served as edi-tor of the Journal of College Student Development from 2008 to 2015. He currently serves as an associate edi-tor for the Journal of College Student Retention: Theory, Research and Prac-tice. He is also a past president of the Association for the Study of Higher.

Donald Hossler

Donald Hossler is an Emeritus Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at

Indiana University Bloomington (IUB). He currently serves as a Senior Scholar at the Center for Enrollment Research, Pol-icy and Practice in the Rossier School of Education, at the University of Southern California. Hossler has also served as

vice chancellor for student enrollment services, executive associate dean of the School of Education, and the exec-utive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Hossler’s areas of specialization include college choice, student per-sistence, student financial aid policy, and enrollment management. Hossler has received career achievement awards for

his research, scholarship, and service from the American College Personnel Association, the Association for Insti-tutional Research, the College Board, and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. He recently received the Sonneborn Award for Out-standing Research and Teaching from IUB and was named a Provost Professor.

Alexandra Cannell Wendt

Alexandra Cannell Wendt is an M.Ed. Candidate in the Higher Education Administration Program

at Vanderbilt University. Since attending Vanderbilt in 2019, Wendt has worked as a graduate assistant in the Office of the Provost and currently works in the

Office of the Chancellor. Prior to attend-ing Vanderbilt, Wendt worked in higher education in Arizona leading the Amer-iCorps Program in the Mary Lou Ful-ton Teachers College at Arizona State University and prior to that, leading the nationally recognized Service-Learning Program at Chandler-Gilbert Community

College. Overall, Wendt has twelve years of experience working in higher educa-tion. Wendt holds an associate’s degree from Chandler-Gilbert Community Col-lege and a bachelor’s in human commu-nication with a minor in global studies.



Exploring the Relationship between International and Racial Minority Enrollment in M.B.A. Programs at Public Universities in the United StatesBy Olga Komissarova

The United States has been one of the most popular des-tinations for international students for several decades. In 2019, 21 percent of internationally mobile students were hosted by U.S. colleges and universities. Between 2000 and 2019, international enrollment grew by 113 percent, from 514,723 to 1,095,299 international stu-dents (Institute of International Education 2019). The dramatic growth in the number of international stu-dents has provoked public concerns from both scholars and the popular media. Critics argue that international students crowd out domestic students (Anderson 2016;

Bound, et al. 2016; Pratt 2014). On the other hand, pro-ponents of internationalization point at the economic value of students from abroad and emphasize inter-national students’ potential to subsidize the cost of educating domestic students (NAFSA 2019; National Foundation for American Policy 2018; Peri, Basso, and McElmurry 2016).

Recent criticism has arisen as a reaction to the in-flux of international students at the undergraduate level. However, international students have long maintained a high presence in graduate education. Between 2000

GR AD AND PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS

This study examines whether international enrollment can affect access for racial minority students in M.B.A. programs at public universities in the United States. Using data from U.S. News & World Report, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the U.S. Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period from the 2001–02 through 2016–17 academic years, the analysis implemented a fixed-effects panel regression technique and concluded that international enrollments do not reduce access for domestic racial minority students. The study also reviewed other factors associated with increasing racial minority enrollment in M.B.A. programs.



and 2019, graduate international enrollment grew from 238,497 to 377,943 students (Institute of International Education 2019). The share of international enrollment in total enrollment in graduate programs in 2019 was 13 percent, which is higher than the total share of interna-tional students in the whole U.S. higher education sec-tor (five percent), according to the author’s calculations using IPEDS. Although many graduate schools in the United States have been reporting declines in first-time enrollments among international graduate students since 2018 (Okahana and Zhou 2019), it is still important to understand the impact of international enrollments on domestic enrollments in the graduate sector.

This study investigates whether internationalization efforts have impacted domestic racial minority enroll-ment in graduate business schools. While other studies have examined the relationship between international student enrollment and domestic minority enrollment for undergraduates (Shen 2017) and for various Ph.D. programs (Borjas 2004; Regets 2007; Shih 2017; Zhang 2010), this is the first paper to explore the relationship in full-time M.B.A. programs. This study focused on busi-ness majors because business administration is the field in which the largest number of master’s degrees have been conferred (McFarland, et al. 2019, 190). Addition-ally, business is one of the most popular fields of study for international students. According to an Open Doors report, in 2019, 20 percent of all international students in the United States were enrolled in business degree programs (Institute for International Education 2019).

The decision to look specifically at graduate busi-ness schools affiliated with public universities comes from the idea that public institutions are expected to embrace the mission of accessible and affordable quality education for the domestic student population (Amer-ican Academy of Arts and Sciences 2016; Bastedo and Gumport 2003; Jaquette, Curs, and Posselt 2016). Public universities incorporate this notion in their mission statements. The mission of the State University of New York (SUNY) is “to provide to the people of New York ed-ucational services of the highest quality, with the broad-est possible access, fully representative of all segments of the population in a complete range of academic,

professional and vocational postsecondary programs including such additional activities in pursuit of these objectives as are necessary or customary” (SUNY 2021).

Similar to all other programs at public institutions, business schools affiliated with public universities charge international students tuition rates that are two to three times higher than what domestic students pay. Such pricing can subsidize the cost of enrolling more students from historically underrepresented groups of domestic students. This “cross-subsidization” may occur when business schools are committed to the access and equity mission. Alternatively, if a business school is oriented toward revenue generation, and/or if international applicants to M.B.A. programs have better academic profiles, there is a chance that prospective domestic racial minority students may be crowded out by their peers from abroad. Changes in student body composition are an important indicator of changing in-stitutional priorities. Therefore, findings of this study provide insights about the changing character of public universities and have implications for the campus cli-mate experienced by racial minority students.

Literature ReviewEnrollment management is a complex process with var-ious factors influencing institutional enrollment behav-ior. This section discusses major factors that can affect enrollments of domestic minority and international M.B.A. students and presents findings from existing studies on the relationship between international stu-dents and domestic enrollment in graduate education.

Factors Affecting M.B.A. EnrollmentsGraduate business schools need to improve and en-hance the competitive market position to increase the capacity to achieve strategic goals. One way to achieve this is by strengthening the academic profile. In the case of graduate business education, several factors are considered by admissions committees. The first six fac-tors—GPA, GMAT, coursework, letters of recommenda-tion, personal statement, and resume—are the standard and most important factors, whereas professional ex-perience or internships, leadership in student organi-



zations, and honors/awards are additional factors that may help prospective M.B.A. students stand out among other candidates (Hammond, et al. 2015).

Graduate business school enrollments are also greatly affected by institutional financial needs. Com-pared to other graduate programs, business programs are more actively engaged in profit-seeking behavior as they tend to be seen as “cash cows” for their host universities. It is more cost effective for institutions to expand graduate business enrollment compared to other academic programs as M.B.A. students have lower demands on facilities (they do not need dormitories, dining halls, and other facilities and may attend classes in evenings or on weekends). Graduate business schools offer an important revenue stream and sometimes share their positive cash flow with less-funded academic pro-grams (Friga, Bettis, and Sullivan 2003).

The entrepreneurial nature of business schools im-pacts its admissions and enrollment practices ( Jaquette, Kramer, and Curs 2018). It imposes a great deal of pres-sure on business school admissions officers to meet financial goals and rarely leads to practices that im-prove socioeconomic and racial diversity. Graduate business programs are motivated toward enrolling more high-income, out-of-state (if affiliated with a public university) and international students who pay significantly higher tuition prices. Additionally, unlike other graduate programs, M.B.A. programs rarely offer financial aid and expect students to pay full tuition and associated expenses out of pocket or through the students’ employer tuition assistance program (Baum and Steele 2018; Kowarski 2019).

Another factor that might affect enrollment trends is whether business school admissions emphasize ac-cess and equity. Business schools have been asserting that a diverse student body is an important element in educating business leaders to meet the needs of a diverse society (Howard 2019). However, it is still un-clear whether expressing a desire to increase diversity of their student body will translate into practices.

The three aforementioned priorities that affect M.B.A. enrollments of international and domestic mi-nority students are subject to organizational constraints.

Business schools are under pressure from accreditation agencies that require maintenance of certain standards that can limit the size of the program (AACSB 2017). It is important to note that when enrollment demand grows more rapidly than institutional capacity, institutions use admissions standards to ensure that capacity and enrollments grow at similar rates (Hoenack and Weiler 1979). Multiple external factors can determine interna-tional and domestic minority enrollment patterns at a business school. Business school enrollment trends are affected by economic conditions. When the economy slows down, domestic demand for M.B.A. programs will go up (Bogan and Wu 2018; Goh and Hoxby 2009; Shmidt 2018). The increased enrollment is attributed to the declining opportunity cost during times of eco-nomic weakness. People choose to invest in graduate education when it becomes harder to keep or find a job or get a promotion.

Competition from M.B.A. programs in other coun-tries can also play a role in shaping international enroll-ments in M.B.A. programs. Business schools in Canada, the UK, and other Western European countries also at-tract many foreigners. A majority of M.B.A. schools in Western Europe and Canada have seen significant growth in international enrollment for the 2017–18 academic year (Graduate Management Admission Council 2018).

Federal and state policies might also shape domestic minority enrollment trends in M.B.A. programs. Re-search has shown that minority students take on more student debt (Goldrick-Rab, Kelchen, and Houle 2014). Graduate Management Admissions Council reports (2019a, 2019b) demonstrated that African American and Latino graduate business school candidates are more likely than other U.S. candidates to use loans and grants to pay for business school. Therefore, domestic minority enrollment in graduate business programs might be affected by changes to federal lending policies for graduate and professional education.

National immigration policies affect international enrollments at business schools. Recent changes to the political climate and anti-immigration rhetoric in America have made it more difficult for business schools to recruit international students. Changes to



H-1B visa policies, as well as travel bans, are keeping international students away (Tausche and Dhue 2017; Grow 2020). A GMAC Application Trends survey taken in 2018 showed that only 32 percent of American busi-ness schools reported growth in international appli-cations for traditional M.B.A. programs, compared to 49 percent in 2016 (Graduate Management Admission Council 2018).

How International Enrollment Affects Domestic EnrollmentSeveral quantitative studies looked at how international students impact domestic enrollment in graduate edu-cation. Despite some methodological similarities, the studies produced quite conflicting findings. Borjas (2004) used data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and looked at enroll-ments in all graduate programs at a given institution except law, medicine, and dentistry programs. The analysis of cross-sectional data spanning 1978 through 1998 revealed that enrolling ten additional international students reduced enrollment of domestic White male students by four. The crowd-out effect was found to be the strongest for the subsample of elite private univer-sities. However, Borjas also found that ten additional in-ternational students would raise enrollment of domestic female students, Asians, and Hispanics by roughly two. Shih (2017) also used graduate enrollment data from IPEDS on both public and private not-for-profit univer-sities and covered a more current period (1995 through 2005). He found that an in-flux of ten international stu-dents leads to eight additional domestic students. Shih showed that cross-subsidization is more pronounced in the public higher education sector. Regets (2007) used department-level data from the National Science Foun-dation’s Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering (GSS) for the period from 1982 to 1995. Regets found that an increase in enroll-ment of one international student is associated with an enrollment increase of 0.33 for white domestic students and an increase of 0.02 for underrepresented minority students. Regret’s analysis also showed a decrease of 0.07 for Asian students. Zhang (2010) used more current

data from the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Graduate Students and Post-doctorates in Science and Engineering (GSS) and found that one additional in-ternational Ph.D. recipient leads to one extra domes-tic Ph.D. recipient. However, the analysis of non-STEM fields revealed a crowd-out effect.

The conflicting results in the existing studies on the impact of international enrollment on domestic enrollment suggest the need for more research on in-ternational graduate enrollment. For example, none of the previous studies on the impact of international graduate-level enrollment has focused specifically on business education. It also becomes important to ana-lyze more up-to-date data to account for recent changes in international enrollment trends.

Conceptual FrameworkFollowing prior research on enrollments, the con-ceptual framework begins with resource dependence theory (RDT). The theory posits that organizations are constantly trying to acquire additional resources and minimize their dependency on any single exter-nal source (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). One application of RDT is the effort of business schools affiliated with public universities to acquire additional tuition dol-lars through admitting international students who pay higher tuition.

International students bring another important re-source to M.B.A. programs — prestige. Many business schools, particularly those affiliated with large public university systems, aspire to build a national or even international brand (O’Meara 2007). Recruiting interna-tional students can help increase awareness of a busi-ness school internationally and reach the goal of being viewed as cosmopolitan, diverse, and financially sound (Ford and Cate 2020).

Resource dependence and prestige seeking add accents to the concept of Iron Triangle of Enrollment Management (ITEM). This concept demonstrates that in-stitutions and academic programs want to pursue access, academic profile, and revenue simultaneously (Ches-lock and Kroc 2012). One important feature of ITEM is that gains in any one dimension will lead to decreases



in at least one dimension (Kelly and Rodriguez 2014). For example, an increase in access for underrepresented groups of students who tend to be less well prepared for college both financially and academically can result in a decrease in academic profile. It can also lead to a decrease in tuition revenue.

The Iron Triangle helps identify business schools’ preferences for domestic racial minority and interna-tional students. Some of the same institutional priori-ties that international students embody—cultural and geographic diversity—are also enhanced through the admission of domestic minority students. In addition to diversity, racial minority enrollment contributes to the business school’s access and equity mission. Focus on access and equity is more common for business schools affiliated with public institutions that are grounded on institutional mission to provide state’s residents access to higher education. The majority of full-time M.B.A. programs in the United States that have the most racial minority students in their classes are affiliated with public universities, according to author’s calculations using U.S. News & World Report data.

International enrollment targets two interrelated enrollment goals outlined in ITEM. Graduate business schools’ reasons for pursuing international enrollment are: tuition revenue gains and boosting academic pro-file through increasing prestige and creating a multi-cultural learning environment. International students, who often pay higher tuition as well as additional fees, are crucial for generating significant revenues. Enroll-ing more international students also helps to enhance business schools’ prestige. International students ex-pand alumni networks globally, increasing a university’s visibility and strengthening its brand (Lee 2010). Addi-tionally, many business schools’ rankings (e.g., Finan-cial Times, CNN ranking, The Economist) are rewarding business schools for higher numbers of international students in the programs (de Vega 2016).

Enrollment management priorities vary based on the selectivity of an academic unit. More selective pro-grams primarily focus on attracting more high-caliber students, while less selective ones are more concerned with filling classes with any students who meet mini-

mum admissions criteria. Reports on graduate admis-sions test scores broken down by race demonstrate that racial minority students tend to be less academically qualified (Educational Testing Service 2020; Graduate Management Admission Council 2019a; Graduate Man-agement Admission Council 2019b). Thus, minorities will more likely apply and get accepted to a less selec-tive business program. According to data from U.S. News & World Report, in 2017, racial minority students repre-sented 30 percent of all students in the least selective full-time M.B.A. programs (selectivity based on GMAT score). The share of minority students in the most se-lective M.B.A. programs is about 20 percent, according to the author’s calculations using data from the direc-tory portion of the U.S. News & World Report’s guidebooks for graduate and professional education. This calls for examination of how the relationship between interna-tional and minority enrollment varies across business schools of different selectivity.

Research QuestionsThe goal of this study is to identify whether there is an effect of international enrollment on domestic minority enrollment in traditional full-time M.B.A. programs at business schools affiliated with public universities and accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). It will be guided by the following research questions:

˺ Is the growth in the numbers of international students associated with declines or increases in the numbers of minority students in M.B.A. programs at public universities?

˺ Does the relationship between international enrollment and minority enrollment differ by program selectivity?

MethodologyThis study examines the relationship between inter-national and domestic minority enrollment counts in full-time M.B.A. programs at public universities in the United States. It uses data from the 2003–04 through 2016–17 academic years. This time period is of signifi-cance for this study, as it captures time before, during,



and after the Great Recession. The following section provides details on the data, sample, method, and con-trol variables.

SampleThe sample consists of 200 business schools affiliated with public universities accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and provided information for the U.S. News guidebook. To answer the second question, the sample was divided into more selective and less selective programs based on the average GMAT score of the admitted students (score for the 2003–04 academic year or the year when a business program first reported to U.S. News and World Report). The subsample of more selective programs con-sisted of business schools with a GMAT score higher or equal to 540, and the subsample of less selective schools consisted of those with a GMAT score below 540). The average GMAT score of 540 was chosen as the cut-off score because it was the median score for the sample of business schools in this study.

DataThe main source of data is the directory portion of the U.S. News & World Report’s guidebooks for graduate and professional education. The graduate program directory portion of the guidebooks contains self-reported infor-mation about M.B.A. programs. U.S. News & World Report categorizes Asian-American, African American, Hispanic, or American Indian as minority students. This categori-zation is the same as the one by the U.S. Department of Education. The author and an academic advisor hand-en-tered data from the 2004 through 2018 U.S. News & World Report guidebooks to compile the dataset for this study.

Data from the Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) was used on several institution-level controls. Prior to 2003–04, institutions used different standards to report financial data to IPEDS. Consequently, the 2003–04 academic year was chosen as a starting point of the analysis. The final year was determined based on U.S. News data availability. State-level covariates were gathered from several governmental data systems and described in the Control Variables section.

Missing data were not imputed given the limited power of imputing data for panel data analysis (Young and Johnson 2015). Additionally, the regression method does not eliminate the entire unit of analysis if data are missing for a specific time point. Thirty-nine programs that had less than three program-year observations were removed from the sample.

Missing data reduced the analysis sample and the potential number of program-year observations. Fifty four percent of program-year observations had com-plete data for analysis. The final regression analysis sam-ple was an unbalanced panel of 200 business programs and 1,531 program-year observations. The largest per-centage of cases with missing data was for the 2004–05 academic year. The largest percentage of missing data overall were enrollment counts (minority and interna-tional) and selectivity metrics (GMAT and GPA). Each variable had around 25 percent missing data.

Several variables in the dataset required compu-tation or transformations before they could be used in the analysis. A small number of business schools reported tuition prices for the entire degree program (typically two years in length), so the reported was di-vided by price by two to get an annual price. Several M.B.A. programs reported per credit tuition. In that case, per-credit tuition was multiplied by eighteen (9 per semester) to get a typical full-time credit load for the year). All enrollment and financial variables were log-transformed to reduce heteroscedasticity. The fi-nancial variables were held in constant 2017 U.S. dollars by adjusting for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Control VariablesTime-varying covariates for the study were grouped into three categories: program-level, institution-level, and state-level controls. The control variables are re-lated to institutional demand for both minority and in-ternational students. The first group of controls focused on program-level characteristics and came from the U.S. News guidebooks. This group included the share of full-time enrollment in overall program enrollment. Median GMAT scores and average GPAs of newly admitted full-



time M.B.A. students as well as program acceptance rate were included as controls. The out-of-state tuition price for full-time M.B.A. programs was also included in this group of covariates.

The second group of control variables focused on in-stitution-level factors and came from IPEDS. Graduate and professional enrollment as a percentage of overall enrollment was used to account for the university’s relative focus on undergraduate versus graduate edu-cation. Two major revenue sources for public univer-sities—state appropriations and tuition revenue—were also included in the second group of covariates. Tuition revenue as a percentage of overall revenue was used to control for an institution’s reliance on tuition revenue.

The third group of control variables is state-level fac-tors. State economic conditions have an impact on uni-versity enrollment. Studies showed that declines in state funding lead to increases in nonresident enrollment at public universities (Bound, et al. 2016; Jaquette and Curs 2015). The state unemployment rate (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics) and median household income (from

the U.S. Census Bureau) were added to the third group of controls. This group also included the state-level share of minority population in total population (cal-culated based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau) as it could be correlated with minority enrollments.

Summary StatisticsSummary statistics for the total sample and the two subsamples for the 2003–04 and 2016–17 academic years are presented in Tables 1–3. Between 2003–04 and 2016–17, the median minority enrollment in full-time business programs increased 66 percent, from nine to fifteen students. The median international enrollment grew 50 percent, from eighteen to 27 students during the same period. Full-time students made up propor-tionally fewer of incoming M.B.A. classes at public uni-versities in 2017 than they had fourteen years prior.

There were some differences in the enrollment figures based on program selectivity. In the 2016–17 academic year, more selective programs enrolled a median of seventeen minority students, and the me-

TABLE 1 ➤ Summary Statistics of the Total Sample (n = 200)

VariableFY 2003–04 FY 2016–17

Mean Median SD Mean Median SD

Program-Level Variables

Count of International Students 37 18 28 42 27 45

Count of Minority Students 26 9 54 22 15 30

Share of Full-Time Students (%) 41 37 23 39 34 23

Median GMAT Score 561 554 65 570 561 79

Average GPA 3.30 3.30 0.14 3.34 3.35 0.15

Out of State Tuition ($) 15,321 13,733 7,458 25,471 20,782 13,515

Institution-Level Variables

Share of Graduate Enrollment in Total Enrollment (%) 16 15 7 15 14 7

Share of Tuition Revenue in Total Revenue (%) 38 38 13 50 53 16

State Appropriations per FTE ($) 5,483 5,017 2,145 6,901 6,082 3,708

State-Level Characteristics

Median Household Income ($) 57,709 57,167 7,876 58,998 58,319 8,057

Unemployment Rate (%) 5.95 6 0.89 4.85 5 0.71

Share of Minority Population (%) 19 19 9 23 21 9

Source: U.S News & World Report guidebooks; IPEDS; Census Bureau; Bureau of Labor Statistics



TABLE 2 ➤ Summary Statistics of the Subsample of More Selective Programs (n = 105)








Average GPA 3.3 3.3 0.13 3.37 3.35 0.14








Unemployment Rate (%) 5.95 5.9 0.93 4.86 5 0.72



TABLE 3 ➤ Summary Statistics of the Subsample of Less Selective Programs (n = 95)








Average GPA 3.23 3.21 0.12 3.31 3.32 0.17








Unemployment Rate (%) 5.93 6.2 0.85 4.82 4.84 0.70





dian minority enrollment at less-selective schools was eleven students. More selective programs were also able to attract more international students. Between 2003–04 and 2016–17, median international enrollment at more-selective business schools grew 20 percent from the median of 30 to the median 36 students. At less selective programs, it grew 77 percent from nine to sixteen students during the same period.

There were some changes to the selectivity mea-sures for the period of the study. The median GMAT score slightly increased from 554 to 561 points. The median average GPA grew from 3.30 to 3.35. The me-dian GMAT score grew by nine points for more selective programs, from 603 to 612 points. The median GMAT score slightly decreased from 500 to 498 points for less selective programs. The median average GPA of newly admitted students increased for both more and less se-lective programs. In the 2016–17 academic year, the me-dian average GPA was 3.35 for more selective programs and 3.32 for less selective programs.

Out-of-state tuition prices grew substantially from the median of $13,733 to the median of $20,782. In the 2016–17 academic year, more selective business pro-grams charged a higher out-of-state tuition of $30,000, while less selective programs charged $16,000.

The descriptive results of the institution level char-acteristics show that the share of graduate enrollment remained stagnant at approximately 15 percent. There were changes in the share of tuition revenue in total revenue for public universities in the sample. It grew from 38 to 53 percent for the total sample of business programs. The median state appropriations per FTE grew from $5,017 to $6,082.

The summary statistics for the state-level charac-teristics demonstrate that household income increased from $57,167 to $58,319. The state unemployment rate had slightly declined. The proportion of minority resi-dents in the total population increased slightly from 19 to 21 percent.

Analysis MethodThe study utilized a time-series panel regression tech-nique. The number of full-time racial minority students

in full-time M.B.A. programs is the dependent variable and the number of international students enrolled is the key independent variable. The model also included control variables that can capture program-, institu-tion- and state-level factors that vary over time and af-fect international and minority enrollment for a given business program. The fixed-effects model of interest is shown in Equation 1.

EQUATION 1.Yit = β1Xit + β2Wit−1 + αi + δt + εit

In this model: Y is the outcome variable at program i in year t; the independent variable of interest, X, is the number of international students in the full-time M.B.A. class for a given business school for a given year; 𝛃1 is the coefficient of interest that measures the effect of interna-tional enrollment on minority enrollment; Wit−1 is a vec-tor of program-, institution- and state-level time-varying covariates lagged one year relative enrollment figures of interest; 𝛂i represents the vector of fixed effects; 𝛅t repre-sent time fixed effects and 𝛆it is the error term.

LimitationsThe first limitation of the study is that because of data availability, the sample was limited to AACSB accredited business schools in the United States. The study did not attempt to generalize results beyond AACSB accredited M.B.A. programs and focused on more prestigious full-time M.B.A. programs. Accreditation by internationally respected agencies, such as the AACSB, is an important selling point of programs at reputable schools. AACSB has the most stringent accreditation standards (AACSB 2020). AACSB-accredited business schools typically be-long to research-oriented higher education institutions (Kelchen 2018). There are 820 business schools in 53 countries that have earned AACSB accreditation. These schools represent less than five percent of schools granting business degrees. Thus, the sample is not rep-resentative of the population of M.B.A. providers since there are other accreditors. Besides, business schools in the United States don’t have to be accredited to operate.



AACSB accreditation standards emphasize a need to in-ternationalize student experiences (Gordon, Heischmidt, and Greenwood 2000). This is a strong stimulus to re-cruit more international students. Additionally, several studies indicated that AACSB accreditation is important to students selecting an institution of higher education for their studies (Hunt 2015).

Another limitation of the study is that beta coeffi-cients for the relationship between international enroll-ment and minority enrollment do not directly suggest cross-subsidization or crowd-out effect. To interpret the relationship coefficient as cross-subsidization, it is nec-essary to look at the institutional and program budget and see how much tuition revenue was generated from international M.B.A. students and how much institu-tional aid was given to minority students in full-time M.B.A. programs.

ResultsTable 4 presents fixed-effects estimates of the associ-ation between international enrollment and minority enrollment in full-time M.B.A. programs in business schools affiliated with public universities. They indicate that a one percent increase in international enrollments is associated with a 0.20 percent growth in domestic racial minority enrollment (p < 0.001). The magnitude of this relationship between international enrollment and minority enrollment is similarly small and positive for the subsamples of more and less selective M.B.A. programs. These results demonstrate that as M.B.A. programs increase international enrollment, they do not restrict access for minority students. This may also suggest that international students subsidize minority students; however, as mentioned in the limitation sec-tion, this study estimated the correlational relationship rather than causal one.

TABLE 4 ➤ Results for Fixed Effects Models1

Full Sample More Selective M.B.A. Programs

Less Selective M.B.A. Programs

Coeff. SE Coeff. SE Coeff. SE

Log Count of International Students 0.20a 0.03 0.29a 0.04 0.10c 0.05

Log Out-of-State Tuition Price 0.14c 0.07 0.30a 0.08 -0.15 0.13

Share of Full-Time Enrollment in Total Enrollment 1.02a 0.13 0.86a 0.18 1.08a 0.20

Median GMAT Score -0.00c 0.00 -0.00c 0.00 -0.00 0.00

Average GPA 0.14 0.14 0.24 0.20 -0.00 0.00

Enrollment as Graduate Students (%) -0.97 0.62 0.22 0.76 0.44 0.49

Revenue from Tuition (%) 1.13a 0.33 1.74a 0.49 0.09 0.20

Log State Appropriations per FTE -0.04 0.09 0.03 0.12 -0.68 0.07

Median Household Income 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00

Unemployment Rate 0.03b 0.00 0.02c 0.01 0.04c 0.02

Minority Population (%) 0.02 0.17 0.07c 0.03 0.01b 0.04

Observations 1,531 926 605

Number of Programs 200 107 93

R2 0.1534 0.1949 0.1579

R2, Adjusted 0.0187 0.0783 0.0153

1 Dependent variable is Log Count of Minority M.B.A. studentsa p < 0.001b p < 0.010c p < 0.050



There were several other predictors of minority en-rollment in full-time M.B.A. programs. The share of tuition revenue in total revenue at the university level is the strongest predictor of full-time M.B.A. minority enrollment (B = 1.13, p < 0.001). A one percent increase in the share of tuition revenue in total revenue leads to a 1.13 percent increase in minority student enrollment. One potential explanation is that public universities use additional tuition revenue to subsidize minority students in graduate business programs. Another pos-sibility is that universities actively grow enrollment to increase tuition revenue.

Full-time minority enrollment is also associated with the proportion of full-time M.B.A. enrollment in total enrollment (B = 1.02, p < 0.001). A one percent in the share of full-time M.B.A. enrollment leads to 1.02 increase in full-time minority enrollment. One possi-ble explanation of this relationship is that as business schools try to expand enrollment in their full-time pro-grams, they start to enroll more minority students. At the same time, this relationship is not significant for the subsample of less selective business programs.

There is a statistically significant negative relation-ship between the median GMAT score and minority enrollment. For the full sample (B = -0.00, p < 0.05) and for the subsample of more selective programs (B = -0.00, p < 0.05) the relationship is negative, meaning that as the GMAT score goes down, minority enrollment goes up. Meanwhile, the relationship between median GMAT score and minority enrollment is statistically significant and positive for the subsample of less selec-tive programs (B = 0.08, p < 0.001), suggesting that the growth of the median GMAT score leads to minority enrollment increases.

The state unemployment rate is also a significant predictor of minority enrollment in full-time M.B.A. programs for the full sample of programs as well as for the subsamples of more and less selective business programs. As the unemployment rate goes up, full-time minority enrollment in full-time M.B.A. programs in-creases. The increased minority enrollment could be at-tributed to the declining opportunity cost of education during times of economic decline.

DiscussionAlthough racial disparities in overall graduate education have been narrowing, various stakeholders from both within and outside academia have had debates about eq-uity across M.B.A. recruitment and admissions practices (Graduate Management Admission Council 2018; Ethier 2019; Howard 2019). Master of business administration is a valuable credential for a career in business. This degree offers high potential for return on investment for both M.B.A. graduates and companies that hire them (Gupta and Bennett 2014). It is crucial to understand institutional efforts for addressing racial inequality in M.B.A. admissions because it mirrors the whole educa-tional sector’s attempts to reduce inequality in society.

This study looked at fluctuations in minority en-rollments in full-time M.B.A. programs at public uni-versities caused by international M.B.A. enrollments. It focused specifically on business schools affiliated with public universities because public institutions are fa-mous for their commitment to equity and inclusive excellence for the domestic student population. The commitment can be compromised, however, because public institutions recruit international students that pay higher tuition and fees to increase their tuition reve-nue (Cantwell 2015; Jaquette, Curs and Posselt 2016). The findings, nevertheless, concluded that increases in inter-national enrollments do not reduce access for domestic minority students, and there may be a small increase in minority enrollment as a result. This holds true for both more selective and less selective business schools.

Additionally, this study showed a strong positive, statistically significant relationship between the share of tuition revenue in total university revenue and mi-nority enrollment. This may either suggest that public universities use additional tuition revenue to subsidize full-time minority students in M.B.A. programs or that business schools enroll more minority students to gen-erate more revenue.

The study also showed a positive relationship be-tween state unemployment rate and racial minority enrollment. This finding aligns with Becker’s (1994) Human Capital Theory model. The model theorizes that a weak economy and, consequently, fewer employment



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About the AuthorOlga Komissarova

Olga Komissarova received her Ph.D. in Higher Education, Lead-ership, Management and

Policy from Seton Hall University in May

2020. Her quantitative research projects explore finances and enrollment patterns at universities in the United States. After graduation, she served as an Instruc-tional Aide at the Inter-University Con-

sortium for Political and Social Research. She currently works as a Data Analyst for a software technology company.

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Summer 2021Volume 9(2) 19


Partnering with Faculty to Recruit Undergraduate Students: Successful Tactics for CollaborationBy Lee Furbeck

LE ADING STR ATEGIES

With an increasing number of institutions chasing a shrinking pool of prospective applicants, most schools are actively on the lookout for new recruitment strategies for reaching and converting potential students. A key component of the prospective student experience and an important factor in students’ decision-making process, faculty are better poised than any other university representatives to convey institutional rigor, the classroom experience, and potential outcomes for graduates. When faculty members are committed to institutional mission and values, they are strong, authoritative ambassadors uniquely communicating the student-faculty experience. Because they can confirm student expectations for attending and graduating from the institution, professors personify academic programs. For those seeking to launch or broaden such efforts, this article covers the basics of faculty involvement in undergraduate recruitment, from defining recruitment goals and strategies for faculty participation to organizing, administering, and tracking faculty recruitment initiatives. Once a preliminary coalition of faculty volunteers has been identified, admissions staff should align their faculty resources with on-campus, off-campus, and digital recruitment opportunities. Providing a menu of opportunities for involvement will result in increased participation, collaboration, and success.



Whether a college or university is seeking enrollment growth, shaping the class, or both, competition for un-dergraduate students has increased. Numerous factors including a drop in the national birthrate and the rising cost of college have contributed to recent enrollment decreases, and changes to the National Association for College Admissions Counseling’s “Guide to Ethi-cal Practice in College Admissions” have extended the recruitment cycle. Average yield rates (percentage of admit to enrolled) fell nationally for four-year publics from 37.5 percent in 2017 to 32 percent in 2018, a sin-gle year drop of 5.5 percent (Ruffalo Noel Levitz 2019). As such, institutions must utilize all the tools at their disposal including what is arguably the most valuable resource — faculty. A key component of the prospective student experience and an important factor in their de-cision-making process, faculty are better poised than any other university representatives to convey insti-tutional rigor, the classroom experience, and potential outcomes for graduates, and studies consistently show that positive prospective student interactions with fac-ulty play an important role in the college search. While students may not understand the role of a provost or a dean, prospective students get that professors will play an important role in their experience as a college student and beyond. Because they can confirm student expectations for attending and graduating from the college or university under consideration, professors personify academic programs and serve as “trust agents” (SEM Works 2020). Institutions must go beyond merely declaring that the college has “high quality” programs with “cutting edge” faculty by supplying proof (SEM Works 2020). The intentional integration of undergrad-uate faculty efforts into the recruitment process can positively influence application rates and yield for stu-dents who are able to form relationships with faculty before matriculating (Mee 2019).

Building on the strength of this knowledge, small, private institutions have a history of providing prospec-tive students with opportunities to meet with faculty members. At one small college in the Midwest, ap-proximately 85 percent of prospective students visiting campus meet with a faculty member, and the personal

connection that results is a driving factor in students choosing to enroll. In the experience of one faculty member, “Professors hold a key role in recruiting stu-dents, especially at private colleges and small public schools” (Erickson 2015). But the same can be said for other institutional types, from community colleges to state schools with tens of thousands of students, even if the method of contact differs. A study focused on a set of majors at California State University found that

“more than 70 percent of students choosing [CSU] re-ported a conversation with a professor in a [their] spe-cific area of study during the admissions process” (Rocca 2013). In general, faculty and academic staff play a sig-nificant role in college choice — sometimes more so than parents ( Johnston 2010). When faculty members are committed to institutional mission and values, they are strong, authoritative ambassadors communicating the student-faculty experience in a way that only they can.

For those seeking to launch or broaden such efforts, this article covers the basics of faculty involvement in undergraduate recruitment from defining recruitment goals and strategies for faculty participation to orga-nizing, administering, and tracking faculty recruitment initiatives. Also presented are strategies for mobilizing faculty, articulating benefits, and overcoming objec-tions. Finally, a variety of specific tactics for faculty involvement — ranging from aligning faculty with stu-dent engagement opportunities to faculty involvement in social media and digital marketing recruitment ini-tiatives — will be presented with the goal of equipping readers with the basic tools to build or improve upon their own faculty recruitment initiatives. Case studies are: drawn from the experience of the author (as both a professional and parent); gleaned from colleagues; and discovered through a search of current practice at in-stitutions that have implemented innovative, successful faculty recruitment initiatives.

BackgroundThe idea of engaging faculty in undergraduate student recruitment and enrollment initiatives is not new, and many institutions have always relied on building indi-vidual attention during the recruitment process into



their brand. There is no shortage of writings about fac-ulty involvement in undergraduate recruitment, and to attempt to list them all here would not be practical. As such, selected examples are provided to illustrate vari-ous treatments of the subject.

Early work in this area explored not only faculty participation in undergraduate recruitment but also holding faculty accountable for student enrollment (Todd and Crofton 2001). An advocate of engaging mar-keting faculty in recruitment initiatives, Bristow (1998) serves as another early example of a writer exploring the possibilities and mechanisms of involving academ-ics in recruitment. More recently, Barnds (2013) pro-vided a straightforward approach to mobilizing faculty and leveraging their expertise for student recruitment; Hope (2014) explored faculty involvement more broadly in both recruitment and retention; and others such as Protivnak and Yensel (2017) narrowed the topic to a single discipline and career path, calling for engaging faculty based on their passion for the subject.

Most of the recent recommendations for why and how to involve faculty in recruitment appear in studies done by organizations involved with enrollment man-agement research and those in the higher education marketplace, such as SEM Works and EAB (2020), and in blogs and articles. For example, a SEM Works white-paper offers “7 Effective Faculty-Delivered Student Recruitment Strategies” while a recent EAB webinar focused on enrollment and academic leaders working together to create and implement a scalable strategy. Finally, in recent blog posts an offering from Higher Education Marketing (2016) covers in-person and dig-ital faculty recruitment strategies for domestic and in-ternational undergraduates, and Lauren Elrick lays out strategies for “using faculty as recruitment tools” (2017).

Previous AACRAO publications have also explored faculty recruitment initiatives from various perspec-tives including SEM planning, international efforts, and engagement with on-campus visits and events. In an early example, Huneycutt, Lewis, and Wibker (1990) fo-cused specifically on calling on the expertise of faculty teaching in marketing to influence student recruitment and enrollment behaviors . Carter, Lehman, and Trem-

blay’s “Engaging Faculty in Undergraduate Recruitment: Perspectives, Suggestions and Tips” (2008), Pollock’s

“Undergraduate Student Recruitment: The Role of Fac-ulty” (2003), Freed and Howell’s “Creating a High-Touch Recruitment Event: Utilizing Faculty to Recruit and Yield Students” (2018), and more recently, Smith’s “4 Ways to Engage Faculty in International SEM” (2019) serve as additional examples of various treatments of the topic.

Defining, Organizing, Administering, and Tracking Recruitment Goals and Strategies for Faculty ParticipationOffers of and requests for faculty assistance with under-graduate recruitment often occur without much plan-ning. A senior academic affairs officer may decide that the admissions office should engage faculty in a calling campaign to boost enrollment. A president may decide to devote some time to hand-signing postcards for new admits. Admissions staff may extend last-minute invita-tions to attend a campus event or to meet with a family visiting campus. While these strategies are not inher-ently bad, without a target audience, a clear purpose, and a goal in mind, they are unlikely to be successful. And even if they are, without tracking and measurable goals, no one would know. Proactive, long-term plan-ning in which faculty involvement is a part of a broader recruitment strategy is necessary for the success of fac-ulty recruitment endeavors.

Given the influence of faculty interactions on a pro-spective student’s choice, a strategic approach is nec-essary to integrate such faculty initiatives with other recruitment efforts and to ensure a positive outcome for all participants. Integrating a faculty component into the admissions recruitment plan starts with a common understanding of desired outcomes. As such, all parties should be made aware and kept informed regarding enrollment targets and how faculty interaction fits into the overall recruitment plan. Transparent communica-tion of recruitment and enrollment goals, ongoing as-sessment of implementation measures and results, and positive and negative feedback establish an atmosphere



of mutual trust and respect as well as a shared sense of purpose. Sharing enrollment data and tuition revenue for each department with faculty representatives cre-ates buy-in for shared goals and increases understand-ing of the objectives of the admissions office (Higher Education Marketing 2016).

One way to achieve this state is an enrollment man-agement or student recruitment committee involving representatives from all segments. Such a group can help provide meaningful insights, achieve buy-in, and encourage shared participation in progressing toward defined goals (Higher Education Marketing 2016). An enrollment management or student recruitment com-mittee can function at different levels (i.e. big picture vs. tactical), ensuring all are aligned with enrollment goals and are aware of current and future initiatives. Informa-tion sharing, education, and lessons learned can prove invaluable. A “big picture” committee might include deans or associate deans representing each academic area and senior enrollment leaders. Groups with this make-up are useful for planning and as a venue for in-troducing changes to admissions and recruitment poli-cies and procedures. More tactical groups are best suited for information sharing and brainstorming. In either case, the success of these groups as a launch point for faculty involvement in recruitment relies on ensuring that academic representatives have a seat at the table.

Faculty will be more eager to recruit if they’re ap-propriately incentivized and appreciate seeing proof that their efforts are worthwhile. To keep faculty en-gaged, the admissions staff must develop metrics for success and share results with faculty volunteers reg-ularly. Whether encouraging faculty to promote the institution to former students and colleagues or cre-ating opportunities for deploying videos of professors working with students in a communication stream or in social media, the impact of efforts should be tracked. Analyze the success of faculty recruitment efforts with your campus information system to properly recognize and reward each member’s support, tracking individual contacts and meetings on the path to enrollment. High-light successful interactions that other faculty members have had with prospective students and the results of

those interactions. Admissions teams should always be prepared to provide specific examples of how current faculty members are making a difference and impact-ing recruitment efforts. Finally, closing the loop with an annual summary illustrating the results of faculty initiatives emphasizes the value of their efforts while providing an opportunity to discuss new initiatives and improvements (Higher Education Marketing 2016).

Mobilizing Faculty, Articulating Benefits, and Overcoming ObjectionsFor faculty to play a vital role in any institution’s vi-sion for enrollment goals, they must understand and agree with the desired direction of the institution and feel their contributions are valued. There are many rea-sons why faculty may not or may be hesitant to engage in undergraduate student recruitment. For many, “re-cruitment” connotes activities in which faculty may not wish to be engaged. Some may be uncomfortable with specific activities such as phone calls or too busy to carve out time for impromptu visits with prospective students. Or they may not understand why their assis-tance is needed or useful. Some departments may have more students than they can effectively serve so their faculty have little motivation to participate in activities that would add to their workloads. And, finally, because faculty are usually hired to educate students rather than to promote their institution, they may see recruitment as someone else’s job.

Beyond satisfactorily addressing these concerns, there are many factors that may encourage or discour-age their participation. To achieve the goals of getting faculty involved with student recruitment, admissions staff must ensure that faculty are made aware of the result of their efforts and understand the benefits of participating. Faculty who understand that they can contribute positively and meaningfully in the recruit-ment process are more likely to get involved. Providing information about how connecting with prospective students on a relational level is critical. Prospective students want to know that their professors will invest in them and their educational outcomes, and when



they are assured that this is the case and later when they experience what is promised, the benefits extend far beyond an individual student as the experiences are shared with other future students, influencers, and employers.

In a recent presentation about involving faculty members in recruitment, a question was posed: “What motivates the faculty to help?” (Erickson 2015). The motivational factor depends on the faculty member—their commitment to the institution, their field or a specific population; competing priorities inherent in the institutional reward structure; where they are in their career; and their comfort with and enjoyment in participating in recruitment activities. For instance, if an institution is experiencing an enrollment crisis over-all or in a specific college or department, faculty may be more willing to devote time to recruitment activities. If service is a component in the tenure process and recruitment counts as service, this can be a motivator for newer professors who might not otherwise have time to be engaged. At the other end of the continuum, professors who already have tenure may be able to allot more time to recruitment and may feel responsible for ensuring the future of the institution or the discipline.

Depending on the institutional budget model, rang-ing from fully autonomous responsibility centered management (RCM) models to hybrid models that main-tain some centrally funded functions, faculty, college deans, and other administrators may be conflicted about recruiting for the university in general as opposed to a specific program. Others may be simply overloaded with other responsibilities or have a surplus of students for their colleges or programs and thus perceive no need to engage in recruitment activities. The timing of recruitment events may not be desirable or possi-ble for faculty depending on the time of day or the time of year, such as near the end or the beginning of the term, spring break, evenings and weekends, and inconvenient travel times. Some faculty may not see the benefits for their participation in terms of career advancement, release time, and additional compensa-tion. Or, the benefits may not be attractive enough to warrant the commitment (Erickson 2015).

Assisting with recruitment and enrollment initia-tives doesn’t have to involve student contact. Admis-sions professionals fortunate enough to have faculty interested in enrollment metrics, GPS and market iden-tification, or predictive modeling, can invite them to the enrollment management table. Colleges and universi-ties with business, sales, or marketing programs have a built-in resource for consulting and training. At one large, public institution, economics faculty got involved with admissions and enrollment when a graduate stu-dent produced a dissertation on enrollment metrics. The student earned his doctorate and was recruited to work in enrollment management while the research transformed the operations and focus of the admissions office. At another institution, a professor with expertise in global information systems developed a market share analysis for admissions that was used, as one example, to define funnel-stage targets for admissions territory managers. Indeed, there are probably many opportuni-ties for faculty with related areas of expertise to com-plete a project for institutional enrollment leaders and parlay those efforts into a publication, presentation, or degree, thereby creating a winning situation for all.

Additional incentives for involvement can include the classroom experience and more tangible rewards. Long recognized by faculty and academic staff who work with honors students and other high academic achievers, participating in the recruitment process also provides some control over which students populate the class-room. Faculty at many schools have noted that recruiting the best students provides a more meaningful teaching experience. Other options to consider are additional compensation or changes to the faculty reward struc-ture by weighting service more heavily. Release time for temporary assignments in enrollment management may also be attractive if the role is viewed as desirable.

Finally, if enrollment is a concern at the institution, enrollment leaders can stress the impact that faculty in-volvement can have on enrollment for the collective good of the organization and/or a specific department. Educat-ing and informing faculty about issues such as decreases in state funding (for public institutions) and the growing importance of tuition revenue to institutional viability



can result in a better understanding of the impact of recruitment activities. Because their own college expe-rience and selection process likely differed from that of the typical high school or transfer student, faculty may not realize that students view themselves as consumers and as such, they may have different “buying signals” than expected. When the success of each individual af-filiated with the institution depends on the success of the institution, achieving buy-in can be much easier.

Aligning Faculty with Student Engagement OpportunitiesIn the absence of a mandate from academic adminis-tration (often not the most useful tactic for encour-aging buy-in), how do you identify faculty members who may be willing to assist with recruitment efforts? Harnessing faculty in the thick of the college search with their own children may be a good starting point (Higher Education Marketing 2016). Just as these fac-ulty tend to be more forthcoming about the frequency and quality of the output of the admissions office, they are also able to reflect on the importance of faculty connections as a driver to enrollment. Living through the experience of having a child recruited by a variety of institutions employing a variety of tactics, they can provide immediate feedback about the effectiveness of various strategies. By tapping into this group, admis-sions staff can better understand their experiences and assess their willingness to become more involved with recruitment. Other routes have equal potential. Once a committee or committees with academic representation are established, college liaisons will likely be able to point to willing participants, or even enlist them for the admissions office. Current students can also be a useful source of suggestions as they likely have their favorite professors and know who excels at interacting with current and prospective students. Finally, instead of seeking out the professors on campus with the most name recognition, consider prioritizing professors with more practical, real-world experience. Those without Nobel prizes and prestigious fellowships may have more time to contribute and may be more effective spokes-people for the institution (and more realistic examples).

Once a preliminary coalition of willing faculty vol-unteers has been identified, admissions staff should align their faculty resources with on-campus, off-cam-pus, and digital recruitment opportunities. Faculty members and other academic staff are experts in their fields and not in recruitment tactics and enrollment management metrics (although, once again, recruit those who are). Providing a menu of opportunities for involvement will result in increased participation and collaboration. For every faculty member who does not wish to speak at an off-campus event, there are alter-natives such as writing postcards, being filmed in the classroom and highlighted on social media, participat-ing in a virtual event, or sharing a story about mentor-ing a successful student. At the most basic level, faculty members can identify selling points for their programs to be used by admissions recruiters (SEM Works 2020). Providing templates and content guidelines to profes-sors can help focus their conversations and letters that share their unique perspectives about their field, their notable achievements, and the potential advantages of choosing their program. Letters could reference im-pressive student information, emphasize important aspects of the program, illustrate career possibilities and recent student success stories. Plan around faculty teaching schedules and campus events that they can attend (Higher Education Marketing 2016). Consider international faculty and those who travel frequently for opportunities where they might coordinate their schedules with recruitment fairs and meetings with prospective students in the United States or abroad. Ad-missions staff can alleviate pressure and discomfort by clarifying that a faculty member’s charge is to discuss their research, academic passion, and recent student outcomes, rather than operating as a salesperson for the school. Additional activities can include inviting prospective students to visit faculty during office hours, join classes with current students or, as part of a cam-pus visit event, attend mock lectures with broad appeal led by particularly charismatic professors. To make the most of the time a faculty member can provide, small group events such as a Q&A session or informal recep-tion are effective and efficient.



There are many examples of faculty engagement in on-campus events for prospective students. Most com-monly, these events focus on a single college or related set of programs and highlight student-faculty interac-tion, along with specific opportunities and support pro-grams of interest to students planning to pursue those majors. Baylor University’s Preview Day offers guests a welcome from the university and from the college, a tour, an opportunity to eat lunch with faculty and current students, hands-on learning activities, a visual introduction to support services, and an opportunity for informal conversation at the end of the day. Planned and promoted by a team of faculty and admissions staff, this event resulted in a 70 percent yield rate in year one and a 87 percent yield rate in year two (Freed and Howell 2018). Central Michigan University (CMU) hosts similar college-specific events–College Days in the summer for rising seniors and Discovery Days for juniors, seniors, and transfers throughout the year. Like Baylor’s Preview Days, these events focus on a single college and are co-planned by faculty members and admissions staff. The schedules differ by college and include opportunities for: personal interactions between faculty and students; a chance to view labs, equipment, and facilities related to the majors; an overview of academic support services, residential communities, internships, and career guid-ance; and involvement opportunities. More than half of attendees consistently enroll at CMU. (Note: Baylor’s events are designed as yield events and held five to six weeks prior to the deposit deadline, while CMU’s events are mostly application-generation events. Therefore, there is a difference in yield rates.)

Asking faculty to talk about what they love and excel in is a tactic that always works well. To become a fac-ulty member, one generally must develop a passion for a specific subject or a focus on a certain question. They are the authorities in their field (and generally love to discuss it), which makes them effective recruiters for the discipline or for the institution in general. Encour-aging faculty to share and communicate their strengths is always meaningful. They can accomplish this in per-son, with videos, via social media, during visits to their offices or laboratories, or at on- or off-campus events.

Making calls to admitted students, hosting students on campus for a few hours (with the assistance of a current student), or attending (or hosting) a recruitment event while travelling are all effective ways for faculty to en-gage with prospective students. For those who can’t, or prefer not, to engage in in-person activities, providing or creating content to be shared via social media, print, video, and digital channels represents another way to show students what they can expect from the academic life of the institution. A regular blog post integrated with other features on the university’s website can be an effective tool requiring no face-to-face contact and accomplished on the faculty member’s own schedule. Almost all prospective students are active on at least one social media channel, and finding ways for faculty to engage students where they are can be highly impact-ful (Elrick 2017). Teaching at other colleges, connect-ing with and mentoring students over the years, and collaborating with other professors at different schools can be used as recruitment opportunities. Indeed, many graduate programs have used these types of connections to recruit talented students for years.

Virtual faculty outreach can be an effective mech-anism for undergraduate recruitment and can be customized based on the skills and comfort level of par-ticipants. Virtual recruitment allows schools to connect with students who may be unable to travel and requires a relatively modest time commitment from faculty and administrators participating, as sessions can be recorded for reuse, and frequency and timing can vary by sched-ule. Delivery mechanism includes live video, embedded videos, panels, and webinars (Bredon, et al. 2018).

Finally, faculty have connections at other institutions from which they may have earned a degree or taught previously as well as connections with former colleagues, fellow students, and mentors in the discipline. Such con-nections can be leveraged for undergraduate recruitment. Faculty can engage in activities such as building a net-work of recommenders, hosting events for prospective students in areas where they have connections, capitaliz-ing on existing travel, and guest lecturing at high schools or community colleges (Brendon, et al. 2018).



Recruiting Specific Student PopulationsFaculty with an interest in serving a specific student population are invaluable partners in initiatives tar-geting that group. For example, a faculty member at Central Michigan University recently reached out to admissions to discuss ideas for connecting with Latinx students through community organizations in Greater Lansing, Michigan. As a result, the admissions team has partnered with faculty to sponsor workshops utilizing contacts identified by the professor and to provide and promote enhanced campus support networks. Another CMU administrator from Chicago has been a long-time supporter of efforts to recruit students from Chi-Town to Central Michigan. Recruitment season culminates each fall with a Labor Day barbeque celebration for all Chicago students at the administrator’s home. Chi Cul-ture — a recently formed student organization with spon-sorship and mentors from Chicago — connects current and future students from the same geographic area and sponsors charter buses to/from Chicago during breaks.

Faculty and academic administrators who identify with those who are first-generation students or vet-erans are inspirational examples and usually willing allies in recruiting these populations. For example, a former president at Cleveland State University was a first-generation student, and correspondence from him to first-generation prospective students was the most lauded communication amongst hundreds, as the mes-sage and example resonated with students and parents alike. His successor, a Navy veteran, resonated strongly with prospective students with military connections. Going a step further, faculty with military backgrounds host perspective students on campus visits and partic-ipate in recruitment events and orientation sessions geared toward a military audience. At Central Michi-gan University, retired military personnel lead efforts at satellite campuses on military bases.

Worthy of more in-depth treatment, summer and other targeted programs are ripe for faculty involve-ment and can provide an opportunity to establish a connection and build affinity with prospective students. For example, Ball State University’s Summer Scholars

is a week-long academic-intensive program with the mission of exposing underrepresented populations to higher education through immersion into core aca-demic courses, interactions with faculty and staff, and engagement in the Ball State and Muncie communities. Students participating in the program live in a resi-dence hall, attend classes, participate in community and leadership programs, and enjoy extracurricular activi-ties (Ball State University 2020). Many other colleges and universities have similar programs, whether for high ability students, students interested in STEM fields, TRiO program participants, musicians, and a variety of other topical offerings. By working with the faculty and staff who are hosting students on campus for these op-portunities, admissions staff can capitalize on the famil-iarity and affinity experienced by prospective students.

Transfer student engagement is the topic of a recent article published by the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students. Along with a plethora of ideas for retention initiatives, the authors detail successful recruitment initiatives at Appalachian State University (Morton and Weigl 2020). A team of faculty mentors provide curricular information and guidance to po-tential transfers, host students on campus, and give practical advice for finding internships or study away options — both of which can be difficult for transfer stu-dents. Team members communicate with students for the duration of their admission and college transition experiences. More casual and requiring less time com-mitment, departmental socials connect prospective stu-dents with like-minded faculty. Transfer students feel valued and more quickly identify with their new aca-demic home. Hosting a transfer day attended by com-munity college faculty and their students interested in a related set of disciplines serves as a recruitment event and strengthens connections with sending schools. Stu-dents and community college faculty can view labs and creative spaces and have meaningful conversations with university faculty (Morton and Weigl 2020).

Faculty can also be key partners for recruiting inter-national students through technology, individual con-nections, or travel. Webcasts, video conferencing, and other digital communications allow faculty to follow



up with prospects and help international students begin to establish institutional connections. Professors who hail from a country other than the United States and/or speak another language can form instant connections with prospective students. Parents may appreciate hav-ing their questions and concerns addressed in their na-tive language and will appreciate knowing that there are others at the institution who share cultural similarities or background with them and their students. Profes-sors from diverse cultural backgrounds can also be en-couraged to contribute to international digital content, sharing their experience about cultural communities on campus and addressing questions that may be specific to students from a culture or geographic region (ACE 2015).

If the faculty member is passionate about recruiting and serving a specific population of students, admis-sions officers are sure to find a variety of ways to ensure the involvement and ongoing development of enthusi-astic, engaged faculty and staff.

ConclusionWith an increasing number of institutions chasing a shrinking pool of prospective applicants, most schools

are actively on the lookout for both new enrollment markets throughout the world and new recruitment strategies for reaching and converting potential stu-dents. Mobilizing the talents of some of institutions’ most credible messengers — the faculty — can strongly influence prospective students’ perception of a college or university and their decision to apply (Elrick 2017).

The more faculty are involved in recruiting and enrolling students, the better. Establishing functional channels to encourage an effective communication flow between faculty and admissions teams can be challeng-ing but mutually empowering. The expertise of faculty members and the relationships they build matter. The influence they can have on students—both prospective and current—can truly impact recruitment. By show-casing why faculty involvement is meaningful, letting them choose how to get involved, and encouraging them to utilize their connections, they can play an im-portant and pivotal role in increasing the effects of a university’s recruitment work (Elrick 2017).

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About the AuthorLee Furbeck

Lee Furbeck, Ph.D., joined the Central Mich-igan University team in January 2019. As Exec-

utive Director, she is responsible for admission and recruitment of all student types including undergraduate, graduate, international, and online/global. Prior to

Central Michigan University, she served as director of undergraduate admission and student transition at Cleveland State University. She has also worked in admis-sions at the University of Kansas and Iowa State University. Furbeck earned a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Kentucky. She completed her Ph.D. at

the University of Missouri in Columbia. Dr. Furbeck is a regular contributor to AACRAO publications and at AACRAO meetings on admissions-related topics such as recruitment, access, transfer credit, communications, admissions pol-icy and processes, and transfer students.

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Fall 2020Volume 8(3) 11


Influencing the Mindset of High-Risk Students Early in the College ExperienceLisa Kasper, Diane Walleser and Kristin Waters

Mindset and PovertyThe Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) is a large urban community college that serves 26,000 students from all five New York City boroughs. Seventy percent of students come from families with household incomes of less than $30,000. More than 53 percent of students are first in their family to attend college, and many struggle with issues such as food and shelter insecurities. Research conducted by Claro, Paunesku, and Dweck (2016) identified the dangerous impact that poverty has on academic achievement:

Socioeconomic background is one of the strongest, best established predictors of academic achievement. It is well-known that economic disadvantage can depress students’ academic achievement through multiple mechanisms, in-cluding reduced access to educational resources, higher

levels of stress, poorer nutrition, and reduced access to healthcare (2).

BMCC saw how the economic disadvantage of high-risk students played out on campus. In reviewing the progress of first semester students, the college found that 22 percent of students went on probation. When looking at this group that was stopping out, the college learned:

˺ 34 percent of Black students went on probation;

˺ 32 percent of Hispanic stu-dents went on probation;

˺ 18 percent of White students went on probation; and

˺ 47 percent of students with a Col-lege Academic Average (CAA) lower than 70 went on probation.


The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) implemented a plan in 2019 to improve the mindset of at-risk students with the goal to increase their overall success. In developing their plan, BMCC’s Enrollment Management team explored behavioral science research in order to gain a greater understanding of the sociological and emotional challenges that students face as they begin their college journey. Several strategies were successfully implemented to improve communications and relationships with students.



The enrollment management (EM) team began to consider how they might start influencing students ear-lier in the admissions and enrollment process to help ensure that they get off to a positive start. The team observed the work their advising and faculty colleagues were engaged in around growth mindset theory and questioned whether using mindset theory would help how they approached students. The research (Claro, et al. 2016) summarized the following:

Numerous studies have found that students fare better if they believe that their intellectual abilities can be de-veloped—a belief called growth mindset—than if they believe that their intellectual abilities are immutable—a belief called fixed mindset)…Students with a fixed mind-set tend to avoid situations in which they might struggle or fail because these experiences undermine their sense of their intelligence. In contrast, students who have a growth mindset tend to see difficult tasks as a way to increase their abilities and seek out challenging learning experiences that enable them to do so. As a consequence, students who have a growth mindset tend to earn better grades than students who hold a fixed mindset, especially in the face of difficulty (3).

Optimistically, the study went on to suggest that stu-dents from lower-income families who did not possess a positive growth mindset could be positively influenced and enjoy the same academic benefits as their wealthier peers if they were able to transition from a fixed mind-set to a positive mindset. The EM team realized that pro-viding tips to students and encouraging tenacity could help those overwhelmed with the college’s admissions and financial aid processes focus instead on their stud-ies—not the complicated business of attending college.

Faculty and advising teams at BMCC were already using growth mindset theory to help students believe they are capable of learning and were providing tips on how showing them tenacity combined with good habits could generate positive results. The EM team began to consider how they might influence the positive mind-set of students during the admissions and enrollment process so they could reduce the number of students dropping out the first semester.

Imposter TheoryIn addition to growth mindset theory, the college’s en-rollment leaders considered the impact of imposter theory on their students. Sakulku and Alexander (2011) pointed out in the International Journal of Behavior Science that 70 percent of people admit to feeling like an im-poster at some point in their life. The study maintains that these feelings can sneak into one’s mind, reminding the individual that he or she is not good enough and does not deserve success. Similar are the feelings of a first-generation college student at orientation or those of an underrepresented male student as he enters nurs-ing class on the first day of college. Focusing specifically on those insecurities that surround the transition to col-lege, the team looked at work by psychologist Bradley Busch who offered four ways to help students overcome the sense that they don’t belong:

˺ Attribute successes to the student’s actions — it takes more than luck to be successful at college.

˺Discourage comparisons with other students — stu-dents are used to being compared to other stu-dents. Encourage students to focus on their own learning and how their progress is improving.

˺ Remind students they are a work in progress — young brains are still growing and developing, and en-couraging students to feel comfortable growing is important.

˺ Teach students to fail better—after all, don’t we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes?

(Busch and Lucas 2017)

These concrete actions gave the EM team some spe-cific practices that could be implemented in student conversations and communications to help give stu-dents a greater sense of belonging.

Liminal TheoryAnother factor influencing BMCC’s incoming students and their ability to connect with college is described by Liminal Theory and explored in a study by Palmer, O’Kane and Owens (2009). This study suggests that stu-dents, at a very early point, determine whether or not



they belong at a particular institution and, sometimes, whether or not they belong in college at all. The study further explores betwixt spaces and turning point expe-riences for students in their first year of college. It ex-plains how students go through an emotional process that separates their past life of attending high school and transitions them to a “betwixt” stage where they are uncertain if they belong. The research emphasized that in the life of a college student, this betwixt stage is relatively short, lasting only about six weeks. It is only if the student bonds with the college during this critical time that they will progress to the third stage, where they make their investment to stay.

Figure 1 shows the three stages of Liminal Theory and the psychological phases students go through in their early college career. By focusing on this critical six-week period of internal restlessness and understand-ing growth mindset and imposter theory, BMCC chose to target their messaging and speak to students’ needs, supporting them when they were most vulnerable. With a deeper understanding of the emotional chal-lenges that so many students were facing, the college began to develop strategies that could influence behav-ior early in the college process. The approach included the following steps:

˺ Audit all student messaging

˺ Include language that reinforces the beauty of blunders

˺Demystify the college process and elucidate plan-ning and next steps

˺ Reinforce the importance of early connection with professors, peers, activities

˺Dial up the quality of care

Auditing Student MessagingTheir first step was to take a very real look at the com-munications the college was sending to students. BMCC discovered that there was not only inconsistent messag-ing, but letters and emails that were cold, rigid, author-itative, and very often punitive. It soon became clear that the staff was primarily reaching out only when the school required something of the student (such as to make an appointment, send a deposit, or fill out a FAFSA). Other communication seemed to be centered around those times when students had already done something that resulted in a negative consequence (such as missing a deadline, being placed on academic pro-bation, or an account being sent to collections). Con-sistent, task-oriented, corrective messaging resulted in low open rates, disengaged students, and—perhaps most damaging—a perception among students that the college was a source of stress and angst, rather than a source of support and assistance. It soon became obvi-ous to the BMCC team that this type of communication (sparked by institutional requirements or student mis-steps) established an overall negative tone for the crucial relationship the college was attempting to create with students. With these types of messages being the domi-nant (or only) attempt at communication, one began to see the significant impact words and tone might have

FIGURE 1 ➤ Three Stages of Liminal Theory

Students separate from

high school and enter new college environment

Students make a commitment to stay

Students decide if they belong

Separation Betwixt Investiture



on a student’s level of anxiety and self-doubt. Missing from most of the BMCC communications were words of support and encouragement, glimpses of humanity, and sincere gestures of interest in the students’ educational and personal well-being. At the end of their communi-cations audit, one thing was made clear to the team: a significant overhaul was needed.

Using Reinforcing LanguageThe team established a comprehensive repository of their enrollment communications (admissions, finan-cial aid, registrar), and created a rubric that assessed the message’s tone, call to action, and clarity of next steps. The team looked at the level of personalization of the message, the tone of the pivotal introductory sentence, and the transparency and breadth of the options pre-sented. In reviewing many of the college’s letters, prior administrative writers had simply presented the option that he or she perceived to be “in the student’s best in-terest” rather than giving the student multiple options from which to choose. By linking to key websites for more information, students were given the benefit of choosing a path that best fit their needs, without being overwhelmed with text and directives from college ad-ministrators. Not only does this type of transparency establish a greater amount of trust, it allows the student greater control over his/her future and reinforces the importance of learning outside of the classroom. Next, it was time to gather the division’s best writers and grammarians to ensure that each letter contained an element of growth mindset theory, reinforced a posi-tive message, and fostered a sense of belonging to their campus community. One of those writers was Direc-tor of Admissions and Outreach Lisa Kasper, who spent several years as an adjunct English instructor. Kasper noted similarities between this exercise and the mea-sures taken to minimize the psychological damage to new college freshman upon receiving a graded writing assignment riddled with negative feedback. She recalled, “When I taught my very first freshman writing course, I was warned by a fellow instructor, ‘Don’t comment on the negatives without first finding a positive, and, above all else, stay away from red pens!’” That advice

was pivotal in converting anxious and insecure col-lege freshmen into fearless writers and thinkers. The feedback they received provided a balance of positive encouragement, information, and direction to success-fully navigate them to next steps in writing. After fif-teen weeks together, not only had they possessed the academic competency to face the challenges of another semester, but the incalculable advantage of having a pos-itive intellectual and psychological mindset. Kasper ap-plied the very same principles to BMCC’s division-wide Communication Rewrite Campaign.

Although it can sometimes be challenging to use reassuring, supportive language when delivering the not-so-enjoyable details of admissions denials, finan-cial aid verifications, and academic action, it is not en-tirely impossible. The first step is to refrain from certain words that seem to set a negative tone for the message being delivered. In an effort to be clear, concise, and efficient, enrollment management professionals may be inclined to deliver a message using words like re-gret, rejection, denial, probation, or revoked with relatively few qualifying or kind words to soften the blow. These negative words can often make a student feel bad about themselves and deflate their spirit, making them ques-tion whether or not they really belong at the school, or maybe even whether or not they belong in college at all. These words tend to focus on the recipient’s failure and the consequences of that failure — failure to follow instructions, failure to accomplish a goal, failure to re-spond to one of our rules or policies. Often the tone is set from the very first word. The BMCC team was quite surprised to learn that more than 20 percent of their communications began with the word “Unfortunately,” and a few even opened with “We regret to inform you.” Although neither opening is deliberately harsh, both de-liver a negative tone that could prevent a student from reading further details. Communications that open with a foreboding tone can have the very same effect on a stu-dent’s self-confidence as a writing instructor’s dreaded red pen.

One of the team’s greatest successes was the trans-formation of the admissions denial letter. As an insti-tution that embodies the very mission of access, the 2.0



grade point average requirement for transfer students was a difficult standard to communicate to students who were eager to make a fresh start at BMCC. The original message was certainly clear, but it lacked both empathy and options, and failed to add the critical ele-ments of motivation and, a human touch:

Thank you for your interest and application to the Borough of Manhattan Community College. After careful consid-eration of your application and supporting transcripts, we regrettably are unable to offer you admission to the College.

Thank you for your interest in BMCC and I wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,Office of Admissions

In exploring the possibilities of rewriting such a letter, the team was well aware that the elements of encouragement, recourse, concern, and care were much needed. However, they were also able to see the very real possibility of reuniting the institution with its mission. The result was the creation of a Second Chance Pro-gram that has assisted more than 600 students since its inception over the past two years. The BMCC denial letter was not just revised; it was revolutionized. What was originally the educational equivalent of a Do Not Enter sign was at once transformed into a supportive, encouraging Welcome:

Thank you for applying to BMCC. After a review of your application, we are unable to offer you transfer admission at this time. As you are probably aware, transfer admission at BMCC requires a minimum 2.0 GPA.

Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to be the end of your col-lege dreams! Though GPA is a major factor in determining student success, we know that sometimes a GPA does not tell us the whole story. Some of the things that can affect a GPA have less to do with intelligence or motivation, and more to do with factors that exist beyond the walls of a classroom — often not within a student’s control. As a re-sult, we have created a Second Chance Program. If you believe that your GPA is not an accurate reflection of your academic potential, go to bmcc.cuny.edu/secondchance to learn more about our Second Chance Program.

Wishing you all the best in your future academic en-deavors,

Lisa Kasper, Director of Admissions

Changing those negative words to ones that are a bit more optimistic can also change the way students respond. Positive words and tone should focus on the recipient’s potential for success, as well as the beneficial consequences of the process of learning (sustained effort, planning, and strategy), as well as the reinforcement that the student is more than a GPA or a test score — greater than the sum of his/her parts. Focusing on each student’s potential for success and using phrases like when you accomplish this, when you boost your GPA, when you are in good academic standing can help students to believe in themselves and feel that their college believes in them too. Looking to the future as partners in the educational process and using the collective we can also help rein-force the team approach to success: we will work together; we will try another approach; we may want to consider.

Through all of these conscious communication shifts, BMCC’s EM team accomplished more than sim-ply delivering messaging with greater sensitivity and tact; they reestablished a new state of mind. In many instances, they reinvented the concept of failure, using it as a rite of passage, redefining it as the ultimate in-spiration for further growth and eventual success. This is certainly a new concept for higher education profes-sionals and students alike. Living in a world that typi-cally focuses on winners, success stories, and perfection, one rarely has the opportunity to see the multiple, often devastating, losses that come before the big win. Em-bracing the inner educator inside us all, it is vital to share this valuable lesson with our student audience. It is up to us to create messaging and support interac-tions that focus on the lessons learned throughout the process and not solely on the victory or defeat. Asking questions like What would you do differently next time? What went right/wrong? Who might you have turned to for support or guidance? is an invaluable part of the process, critical to self-assessment and self-awareness. Not only do these questions help the student to critically reflect on the



process, they can assist them in gaining control and power over the situation for the next time.

Demystifying the College ExperienceAs communication continues throughout the admis-sions and onboarding process, transparency and ex-pectation-setting become key components. Providing students information on next steps and what to expect during the first weeks at college helps to reduce anx-iety and fortify a relationship. In order to incorporate such elements into the first semester experience, the enrollment management division assembled a peer out-reach team and created a special communication plan that focused on the most at-risk new students—those who enter college with a CAA lower than 70. First, the outreach team made phone calls to this group with no particular call to action, just one student welcoming another student and having a conversation around one simple question: “How’s it going?” Students’ response to this exercise was so positive, that they began visit-ing the admissions office to continue these conversa-tions in person. Next, a targeted communication plan was launched that focused on: fun events and activities during the first few weeks; support services (both aca-demic and social/emotional) during the next few weeks; and tutoring and library hours during midterms. The cycle was repeated for the second half of the semester, highlighting different programs, activities, and oppor-tunities for campus involvement. After two semesters, this program improved the retention rate of this at-risk group to match that of the college cohort.

Additionally, the Student Affairs division at BMCC had great success with a program called Panther Part-ners. This program matches first-generation students with first-generation staff mentors. Many members of the BMCC EM team are Panther Partners. The benefits of the program work both ways; students are provided additional mentoring, especially in the first semester, and administrators hear first-hand accounts of what students are experiencing on campus. This provides the team with the unique opportunity to view their division’s service shortcomings and other challenges

through a student lens. Unfortunately, the view is not always a good one.

As higher education professionals, we understand the rules, regulations, and policies that govern our stu-dents’ enrollment experience. We are experts in appli-cation processing, course management, and financial aid verification, and we know the difference between non-degree and visiting students. But to our students, this seems like a different language. For many first-year college goers who have never had to explore the land-scape of higher education, it’s like entering a foreign country for the first time. In choosing to use our unique higher education language when working with stu-dents, we are not meeting them where they are. Feeling overwhelmed by new surroundings, new people, and a new language can surely cause a student (especially a first-generation college student) to think, “Clearly, I’m not college material, and I don’t belong here.” Over the last several years, at the end of each add/drop period, BMCC surveys their new students about their experi-ence with the enrollment process. Students often share their frustrations of not knowing all of the steps needed to enroll, the lack of access to information on what they need to do, and the wait time to meet with staff members. At BMCC, it became apparent that the ser-vice model needed to change in order to meet students where they were and eliminate the barriers that caused them to feel disconnected and alone on their journey.

Dialing up the Quality of CareStudents have been quick to express their frustration in receiving conflicting messages from different offices. They especially do not appreciate when something they perceive to be a quick visit or quick call turns into an issue that takes significantly more time to resolve. They also told staff that they prefer meeting with the same staff member upon their return and for all of their enrollment needs. The BMCC EM team responded by establishing consistent customer service standards to ensure that all of their students have similar experi-ences, each and every time they visit or call our offices.

One of the first steps the team took was to expand the service offered in the contact center. Initially, the



contact center only handled inbound calls related to admissions but realized there was a need to expand call services to all facets of enrollment services. Over the course of two years, the expansion grew to include registrar, financial aid, testing, and bursar-related calls. Finally, a student was able to call one number and have all of their questions answered by one agent. Next, they implemented a similar, all-inclusive model of the con-tact center for in-person visits by creating a one-stop enrollment center that was designed to service students with registrar, admissions, and financial aid needs. The unit, which opened in July of 2019, was met with over-whelmingly positive responses from students. Both the one stop and the contact center were created to uphold the standards of student service demanded by the en-rollment management leadership team. BMCC chose to adhere to three main principles of operations in an effort to uphold those standards: 1) centralize the three service offices into one front facing service unit, 2) es-tablish service standards of excellence, and 3) foster staff trust and belonging. By combining registrar, admissions, and financial aid services, enrollment specialists were finally able to connect all of the chapters in each stu-dent’s enrollment story.

In 2019, BMCC’s Contact Center collaborated with Benchmark Portal, an organization that uses twelve quantitative and qualitative key performance indicators to audit the efficiency and effectiveness of a service unit. Now, for the first time, BMCC’s Contact Center has been officially recognized as a Center of Excellence for the quality of training, customer service, and delivery stan-dards they offer to students.

And what about immediate delivery of in-person customer service? After hearing students express their frustrations about waiting in lines for service, BMCC implemented QLess, a virtual line management tool for students to use when seeking the services of the one stop. For the first time, students were able to virtually be assigned a place in line instead of physically standing in line to meet with a specialist. In addition, the data analytics provided by QLess allowed BMCC to assess wait time, service time, repeat visitors, staff output, and student satisfaction on service. This instant feedback

allowed the team to provide instant coaching to staff on service standards and support student feedback on wait times, which was never a priority before. It didn’t take long for BMCC to realize that the implementation of ser-vice standards helped provide a more positive student experience and encouraged students to remain enrolled during their first semester.

In establishing service standards, the contact center staff began following introductory and closing scripts, ensuring that each caller has the same experience. Calls are monitored throughout the week and used for on-the-spot feedback training. A quality assurance team of part-time staff has been established as well. This team calls back students, at random, to ask further questions about their call experience. In the one stop, all students are asked to complete a four-question survey after visit-ing the unit. This information is to be shared with staff to understand the students’ experiences and expecta-tions and to establish a standard for all team members. Staff are encouraged to ask the students about their se-mester and their studies, to reinforce the importance of academics and doing well in classes. Students are provided a canvas bag, pen, and notepad on days where the wait time is longer than usual, as a way to thank students for their patience and understanding. Finally, Federal Work Study students were hired to serve as greeters to the one stop. These greeters welcome stu-dents, assist them in signing into the QLess system, and direct them to meet with appropriate staff members. Before greeters, the percentage of arrived students (stu-dents who signed into QLess and saw a staff member) was 81.4 percent. After adding the greeters, the arrived percentage increased to 85 percent. In addition, the no show rate (students who signed in but did not show up when it was their turn to see a specialist) decreased after the addition of the greeters.

While listening to student feedback and instituting unit-specific customer service standards, Enrollment Services managers have made a very conscious decision to encourage an atmosphere of trust and care. It be-comes increasingly important to establish trust when working with a student service team, as it is impera-tive that staff trust each other and trust the information



that is being shared with students, ensuring the most consistent voice possible. This provides a positive work environment where team members can depend and rely on each other. Taking it one step further, the “Be Nice” campaign within the contact center launched earlier last year and provides opportunities for staff to show their support of one another by being nice. The goal of the campaign is to encourage staff to support each other in a variety of ways, such as random acts of kindness, kudos for support, thanks for going above and beyond, and ac-knowledgements of quality calls from the management team. Essentially, the department leaders believe that if their staff are in a warm and caring environment that feeling will translate over the phone to callers.

In another effort to build morale, the one-stop unit implemented a weekly MVP (Most Valuable Panther) where staff nominate another team member who has gone above and beyond. Staff submit their nominations before the weekly staff meeting. One team member reads the nomination, and the MVP is given the opportunity to guess their nominator. This initiative has established trust, encouragement, and recognition among the team, resulting in staff who are more willing to assist each other when working with escalated issues with students.

The most evident first win was a shift in the staff mindset about what is good service and why it is im-

portant to create a welcoming environment for students. Through the development of thoughtful training pro-grams and a lot of practice, the BMCC service teams are building their skill as care agents for students. Two years ago, staff struggled to recognize language and service practices that demotivated students. Now, staff members are quick to identify messages and practices that fail to connect and reassure students that they can succeed at college. This shift in staff mindset will continue to em-power the EM work teams to provide positive and wel-coming services for students who are seeking a sense of belonging and need reinforcement to know that they made the right choice in coming to college.

In establishing a plan to improve the culture of care for students, the college will spend the next year access-ing the outcomes of the plan. Retention numbers will be assessed to see what impact the plan had on student engagement and enrollment. Survey data will continue to be collected from students to review the services of-ferings of the one stop and the contact center. Annual audits will be established to review the communications and ensure they are up to date and engaging with the student audience. BMCC is optimistic that these ini-tiatives will help create a welcoming and supportive environment that students want and need to positively support their college success.

ReferencesBoice-Pardee, H., E. Richardson

and E. Soisson. 2018. Elevating Customer Service in Higher Education: A Practical Guide. Denver, CO: Academic Impressions.

Borough of Manhattan Community College. 2019. Students for Additional Outreach Analytics. New York: Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Analytics.

Busch, B, and A. Lucas. 2017. Four ways to help your students overcome impostor syndrome. The Guardian. February

21. Retrieved from: <theguardian.com/teacher-network/2017/feb/21/four-ways-to-help-your-students-overcome-impostor-syndrome>.

Claro, S, D. Paunesku and C. Dweck. 2011. Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement. International Journal of Behavioral Science. 6(1): 73–92.

McNamara, H. 2018. Lessons from the Pathways Classrooms: Improving Student Mindsets Leads to Improved

Success. Presentation at Pathways 2.0 Institute #2, Scotsdale, AZ.

Palmer, M., P. O’Kane, and M. Owens, 2009. Betwixt spaces: Student accounts of turning point experiences in the first-year transition. Studies in Higher Education. 34(1): 37–54.

Sakulku, J., and J. Alexander. 2011. The impostor phenomenon. The Journal of Behavioral Science. 6(1): 75–97. Available at: <doi.org/10.14456/ijbs.2011.6>.

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http://doi.org/10.14456/ijbs.2011.6



About the AuthorsLisa Kasper

Lisa Kasper is the Direc-tor of Admissions and Outreach at Borough of Manhattan Community

College, overseeing the recruitment and processing operations as well as the International Student Services Office.

Prior to her time at BMCC, she served as Director of Admissions at Ocean County College (New Jersey), Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Mont-clair State University (New Jersey), and Manager of Enrollment at the Culinary Institute of America (Hyde Park, NY). She

received a bachelor’s degree in English from Montclair State University and a master’s degree in English and Compar-ative Literature from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She has worked in college admissions for 26 years and was a col-lege writing instructor for ten years.

Diane Walleser

Diane Walleser, Ed.D., is Vice President for Enroll-ment Management at Borough of Manhattan

Community College, which serves 26,000 students as part of the City University of New York system. Walleser oversees the offices of admissions, financial aid, the registrar, and enrollment services.

Previously, she served as Vice Pres-ident of Enrollment Management and

Student Services at Columbus State Community College (Ohio) and as Vice President of Enrollment Management and Marketing at Madison Area Technical College (Wisconsin). In 2013, Walleser received AACRAO’s SEM Award of Excellence for her leadership in strate-gic enrollment management at two-year institutions. Prior to beginning her work in higher education, Walleser spent fifteen

years in private industry in finance and brand management leadership roles.

Walleser has an Ed.D. in higher edu-cation leadership from Edgewood Col-lege (Wisconsin); an M.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, a bachelor of science in business administration from Viterbo Univer-sity (Wisconsin), and an associate of applied science in finance from West-ern Technical College (Wisconsin).

Kristin Waters

Kristin Waters, Ed.D., served as the Director of Enrollment Services at Borough of Manhat-

tan Community College from 2017–2020 where she managed the Panther Station, the one stop enrollment center focused on registrar, admissions, and financial aid inquires. She also oversaw the Contact Center that manages enrollment and bur-

sar related calls with the goal of offering wrap around student services to increase satisfaction for BMCC’s 26,000 students. She now serves as the Assistant Dean of Student Services for The Graduate School of Education, Bank Street Col-lege. In this role, Kristin is responsible for implementing a one stop service center for financial aid, registrar, and bursar stu-dent needs, creating a positive student

experience for enrollment needs. Kris-tin holds a B.A. from Millersville Univer-sity of Pennsylvania, a Master of Arts in Education from Virginia Tech, an M.B.A. from Capitol College, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Frostburg State University. Her dissertation focused on teleworking in higher education.



Managing Enrollment during the “Unprecedented”By Tara Sprehe

Unprecedented. Chaotic. Tumultuous. Uncertainty. These words and others have been used to describe 2020. At most higher education institutions in the United States, the global pandemic, a stressful election season, social unrest, and economic uncertainty have meant enrollment managers are scrambling to meet their current enrollment and retention goals. At com-munity colleges, the challenge has been even greater. For a week in September 2020, in which wildfires forced our college to delay starting school for a week, I longed for “just” a pandemic. Indeed, community col-leges lost about 400,000 students in the fall of 2020, nearly double the decline seen in 2019 (Amour 2020).

As many colleges and universities face continued restrictions to in-person instruction, and “normal” eco-nomic impacts are anything but, key questions for en-rollment managers are emerging:

˺ How do we predict enrollment in an environ-ment that we haven’t experienced before?

˺ Is there a recession within the current recession?

˺ Will there be a different recession when the current global crisis “ends”?

˺ What should we consider to influence enroll-ment and retention efforts at our institutions?

Community College Enrollment (2000–2020)While Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) con-cepts and strategies have been around for more than 30 years at universities, community colleges, as open access institutions, were largely immune from internal and external factors influencing enrollment (Bontrager and Clemetsen 2009). Likened to “accidental” enroll-ment, community college enrollment patterns largely remained consistent through the 1990s, which meant many community colleges let enrollment occur without planning strategically.

VIEW FROM THE TOP

As widespread restrictions to in-person instruction continue to impact higher education, community colleges in particular are seeing significant enrollment declines. Implications to budgeting, the success of students, and the uncertainty of current and future recessions are challenging enrollment managers across the United States. This article discusses community college enrollment and recession impacts and identifies key strategies/questions to consider for the future.



In analyzing Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System (IPEDS) data, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC 2019) noted that growth in community colleges began in earnest at the beginning of the 21st century with 5 percent growth in 2001–02 and 1 percent growth until 2006 when a recessionary period began.

During a typical recession, enrollment at commu-nity colleges increases. In the “great recession” years of 2006–2010, community colleges saw an explosion of enrollment as thousands of individuals found them-selves unemployed or underemployed and sought the opportunity to skill up, complete a certificate or degree, or change career fields. Enrollment grew by 20 percent over a four-year period (5 percent annually). Figure 1 shows the enrollment patterns at community colleges from 2001–2017. Enrollment managers suddenly found

themselves with a new set of problems: not enough instructors and course sections to meet demand, or not enough staff to help new students navigate systems. At the same time, budgets were slashed, compounding an already difficult situation. Community colleges started asking the same questions universities had been asking themselves for years. What is the right size of our institu-tion? How do we plan for the ebb and flow of economic booms and busts? “Accidental” enrollment gave way to the rise of an emerging group of strategic enrollment managers at community colleges. The timing proved fortuitous as the next decade brought new challenges.

During robust economic times, enrollment typically declines as prospective community college students choose employment over education. Due to the strong economy in recent years, coupled with declining num-bers of high school graduates, enrollment at community

FIGURE 1 ➤ Community College Enrollment, 2001 to 2017Source: AACC 2019, 2

Enro

llmen

t in

Mill

ions

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

02001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

14% Drop



colleges has steadily declined since 2010. Between 2010 and 2017, enrollment decreased by 14 percent nationally. The Midwest and Northeast were particularly hard-hit areas of the country. And the trend continues with en-rollment declines reported for 2018 and 2019, including a 3.4 percent drop in the spring of 2019 compared to 2018 (Fain 2019). Fall reporting (Sedmak 2020) demon-strates that 2020 will be no different.

As 2020 began and the Seattle area became ground zero for the early stages of the pandemic, colleges and universities shuttered their doors, converted face-to-face instruction to online learning, and saw significant declines in enrollment. By the summer of 2020, col-leges and universities grappled with uncertainty as to whether they would be open or online only. The public questioned paying “full price” for an online education at a prestigious four-year institution when classes could be completed at a much-reduced rate at community colleges (Kerr 2020). Enrollment managers at commu-nity colleges anticipated picking up much needed en-rollment when university bound students decided to enroll at community colleges instead of packing up and heading to universities. As summer turned into fall, it became clear that this did not happen to the extent an-ticipated. Many universities opened their residence halls but kept courses online. Some institutions returned to limited face-to-face instruction. Many students origi-nally intending to attend four-year institutions did so, and many community college students didn’t attend at all. As of October 22, with 76 percent of institutions re-porting their enrollment, community colleges saw the deepest decline in students attending their institutions. While enrollment was down across all sectors except graduate students, community college enrollment was down 9.5 percent compared to 2019, and for first-year students, the decline was 19 percent (Sedmak 2020). Community colleges faced two challenges: addressing an immediate (current academic year) enrollment cri-sis and predicting what will happen once a vaccine is widely available and colleges can return to “normal” (the post-pandemic environment remains unclear).

It should be noted that the pandemic has impacted some systemically non-dominant undergraduate popu-

lations greater than white students (down 6.6 percent in fall 2020). Notably, Native American (down 9.6 percent) and Black (down 7.5 percent) students were not attend-ing colleges and universities in 2020 at the same rate as in 2019. Hispanic (down 5.4 percent) and Asian (down 3.1 percent) students also were not enrolling at the same rate as other populations.

What’s Next?As the data presented previously indicate, when the economy struggles and unemployment is higher, indi-viduals take the opportunity to gain a new skill, com-plete that long-ago started associate degree, or change careers. When students are presented with opportu-nities for increased wages in a strong economy, they will often choose jobs over postsecondary education. Skilled community college enrollment managers build their enrollment management plans in reaction to, and preparation for, the ebbs and flows of the economy.

Recessions are defined as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, nor-mally visible in production, employment, and other indicators.” (NBER 2020). In 2019, a majority of econ-omists were predicting a recession in 2020 (Sherman 2019). Some community colleges began anticipating increased enrollment in reaction to a looming reces-sion. And then, in June 2020, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER 2020) officially declared what most consumers already knew; the United States was officially in a recession. There was double-digit unemployment, and thousands of businesses shuttered, including the hard-hit services sector, construction, and real estate.

But enrollment managers were left wondering, is the declared recession of June 2020 what economists had predicted? Or a direct result of the pandemic? Or possibly a combination of the two, in which an emerg-ing recession was accelerated due to the global health crisis? And most importantly to enrollment managers, will the current recession sustain into 2021 and 2022? Will the pandemic-related economy rebound but the recessionary period predicted in 2019 linger? How will we know what prospective students will do with their



choice between employment (if there are jobs) and at-tending school (if there aren’t jobs)?

Some economists are stating that we are actually experiencing “a recession within a recession” (Rabouin 2020). This would mean the looming recession that economists were predicting prior to the pandemic is happening, and the pandemic-related job losses, lack of product output, and less spending by consumers is a temporary recession happening inside what would be considered a “normal” recessionary period. Some economists are warning that we will feel the second component of the economy when the pandemic “ends.” This means that the global health crisis created a severe but likely short-lived economic downturn that will end when a vaccine is widely available. But underneath the short-lived challenges of the pandemic, are increasing permanent job losses, failed businesses, and consumers saving money instead of spending it. To help enrollment managers anticipate what could happen, here are some potential scenarios. Each assumes those institutions not already offering in-person instruction will be able to do so by fall 2021; at the same time, most, if not all, restrictions established by local and state governments will have eased significantly if not entirely.

Scenario One: The Roaring Twenties (Part II)Between 1920 and 1929, the United States saw signifi-cant economic growth mostly attributed to consumer spending. Admittedly, there were many new things to spend money on that previously didn’t exist (e.g. cars). And technology was advancing at an unprecedented rate. Women began entering the workforce in greater numbers. One hundred years later (2020–2029), we will likely see continued technological advances. But perhaps more importantly, U.S. consumers are saving money. A record 33 percent of Americans have income left at the end of each month after taxes and spending (the definition of savings) during the pandemic.

This is all to say, some economists anticipate that we will be able to quickly regain lost ground as the economy picks up post-pandemic recession. Consumers who can spend will do so. If the government provides additional bailouts, failed or failing business will get

back on their feet again resulting in hiring employees. The result for community college enrollment? A likely return to pre-pandemic trends of declining enrollment.

Scenario Two: The Economy CratersTake a moment to think about your own pandemic en-vironment. For many of us, our local economies were destroyed in March and April of 2020. Restaurants, retail, construction, and real estate, all halted. Travel? Shuttered. But in fall 2020, all reports (Thopson-DeVeaux 2020) indicated that the retail sector was back (albeit mostly online). Restaurants, though decimated, shifted to take-out and delivery in ways they never dreamed possible. Construction workers and real estate agents figured out how to build and sell real estate (at least residential). What becomes of the travel industry remains to be seen.

Much of the workforce figured out how to work remotely. Prior to the pandemic, “roughly 5 percent of full-time employees with office jobs worked from home, a figure likely to settle at 20–30 percent in the new normal” (Levanon 2020). Again, imagine your own pandemic environment, but think about the commer-cial district—your local strip malls, brick-and-mortar retail shops, and high density commercial real estate in thriving cities. Do we really need all that occupied space if we are working remotely? And if we are working remotely, and got used to ordering our food, clothing, and other essentials online, do we need to visit those places again? It is worth considering that major sectors of business, including higher education, figured out how to be more efficient, automate more, and, generally, rely on fewer people during the pandemic. Will those jobs return? Maybe not. But we could see more Amazon drivers and warehouse workers. Technological advances will continue to thrive. The wage gap is expected to continue growing. But it could take several years for the economy to recover from the pre-pandemic, almost recession, and the pandemic-related recession.

Forbes (Marr 2020) recently identified eight skills that will be needed in the post-pandemic workforce:

˺ Adaptability and flexibility

˺ Tech savviness

˺ Creativity and innovation



˺ Data literacy

˺ Critical thinking

˺ Digital coding skills

˺ Leadership

˺ Emotional intelligence

For community colleges that are not already lay-ering these learning outcomes into programs for all students (not just transfer students), now is the time to build them into all programs, including career and technical education programs. In an increasingly auto-mated world, businesses will be looking for these skills in addition to a specific tool of the trade. The result for community college enrollment? A likely slight increase in enrollment as industries change how they work and a new labor force is needed.

Scenario Three: Economy Returns to NormalAccording to a survey of economists (Thomson-DeVeaux 2020) conducted in the fall of 2020, 66 percent pre-dicted that the economy will not truly be back to normal until 2022 or later. The double-digit unemployment rate in April 2020 of 14.7 percent was down to 7.9 percent by September 2020. Still, lingering doubts about future stimulus packages have economists concerned that the rebound will not be as quick as originally hoped.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (n.d.) include widely reported unemployment rates. They also provide what is called the “real unemployment rate,” which includes the underemployed (those who do not have enough paid work or are not doing work that makes full use of their skills, abilities, and experience); marginal-ly-attached workers (those who are able and willing to work and have either held a job or searched for employ-ment within the last year but are not actively seeking

employment now); and the discouraged worker (those who prefer to work but are no longer actively seeking employment due to inability to find work). These num-bers are often significantly higher than the unemploy-ment rate.

By looking at unemployment rates over the past decade and comparing them to your own enrollment trends at the same time, you can begin to anticipate what enrollment might do at your institution in the next couple of years. The result for community college enrollment? Community colleges are likely to see an initial increase in enrollment when pandemic restric-tions are eased or ended. Additionally, slight increases in 2022 and 2023 may occur as the economy struggles to get out of the recession.

Moving ForwardUnderstanding the current landscape of enrollment, including the impact of a global health crisis, gets en-rollment managers only so far. In a “typical” economic environment, when asked by your college president for an enrollment update, enrollment practitioners use es-tablished tools and processes for meeting that request. However, we are in uncharted territory, and some may be wondering what to do in the face of the unprece-dented. For those of us with existing SEM plans (in-cluding established Key Performance Indicators or KPIs) (Bontrager and Clemetsen 2009), there are a couple of options to address goals and targets:

˺ Choose to evaluate and update your KPIs based on what you are seeing currently in the pandemic enrollment data. At our institution, we ultimately decided not to do this. Our current set of KPIs and goals are set for 2024–25. Resetting them interrupts the activities underway to influence the targets and

TABLE 1 ➤ Unemployment Rates, 2000 to 2023a

2000 2010 2018 2020 (April)

2020 (Sept.) 2021 2022 2023

Unemployment Rate (U-3) (%) 3.9 9.5 3.7 14.7 7.9 5.5b 4.6b 4.0b

Real Unemployment Rate (U-6) (%) 7.0 16.9 7.5 22.8 12.8 — — —a Except where noted, percentages reflect September of each year provided.b Estimated percentages.



ultimately would make measuring the impact of our activities difficult.

˺ Assuming you have KPIs established and are report-ing on them annually, you can asterisk the data for 2020–21 to reflect the global health crisis. Didn’t make progress toward your yield target? Asterisk and explain that the number of applicants who did not enroll was a result of the decline in enrollment for first-time college students in almost all sectors of higher education.

But if your college president asks you to predict the enrollment for the next several years, what should you do? The best way to predict the future is to look to the patterns of the past. You see predictive analytics in the real world every day, maybe no more so than when you shop using Amazon. Based on your purchasing behavior, Amazon will predict what it thinks you will buy next. Harnessing the data of customer patterns is what the private sector has used for decades to anticipate what consumers will do next.

Higher education is no different. Collecting and analyzing data are essential tools for any successful enrollment manager. According to Strategic Enrollment Management: Transforming Higher Education (Bontrager, Ingersoll, and Ingersoll 2012), many of us fall into the trap of merely collecting data and reporting it. We de-sign brochures for prospective students laden with facts about the student profile. We create reports to share with the college community and our boards of edu-cation. And we routinely report our data to national, state, and local entities as required or requested. We look for behaviors of students to help inform our deci-sion-making in setting enrollment and retention goals. For example, we look to high school GPAs to predict student success in college. But many school districts moved their spring 2020 semester grades under pass/no pass policies. We also look to a student’s Estimated Family Contribution (EFC) for financial aid purposes to help us determine aid eligibility. But many parents may have lost jobs during the pandemic or had to make difficult decisions about staying home to support their family instead of working.

In an ideal state, we are supposed to collect the data, think about the data, and look for patterns that over time help predict the future. If the current behaviors we use to predict the future have never happened before, what is the best way forward?

Grounding your work in already established SEM practices is key. Gather what data you can about what is happening during the pandemic and compare it to pre-viously gathered data. Examples of important data in-clude (Bontrager, Ingersoll and Ingersoll 2012, 158–159):

˺ Market share, market penetration, and [awareness] information (success relative to peers and competitors)

˺ Census and population projection information

˺ Competitor information

˺ State graduation and college-going rates

˺ Potential market analysis (such as per capita income)

˺ National/State financial information

˺ Institutional data (space availabil-ity, program, capacity, etc.)

˺ Other institutional key performance indicators

The above list is an excellent approach to get the big picture of enrollment data and to begin thinking about analytics and, ultimately, predicting the enrollment for your institution. Here are some specifics steps to gath-ering the data you will need to shape your projections:

Start with reviewing what you do know is happen-ing currently and compare that to 2019:

˺ Applicants

ɬ Yield — how many of your fall 2020 applicants ultimately enrolled?

ɬ How many FAFSAs were received? How many of those students enrolled?

˺ Enrollment

ɬ Do you have the same headcount but your FTE took a dive? The same number of students are taking fewer credits.

ɬ Did both your headcount and FTE decrease?

ɬ Which segments of your student population (transfer, career-technical, developmental edu-



cation, full-time, part-time, race, ethnicity) de-creased the most?

˺ Retention

ɬ What is happening within the term? Are stu-dents enrolling and then dropping? Are you fol-lowing up with them to learn why?

˺ External Factors

ɬ What are the enrollment trends of your com-petitors? What about institutions in your region that are similar in size and make up to your own college?

ɬ Use Bureau of Labor Market data to analyze em-ployment patterns in your region. Have employ-ment rates increased, held steady or decreased since the great recession, the three years leading up to the pandemic, April 2020, and fall 2020? Compare these numbers to your enrollment.

ɬ Talk with business industry leaders. What do they anticipate they will need for 2022 and 2023?

ɬ Talk with high school partners. What are their students saying about attending college in the fall of 2021?

If you have a robust SEM plan but haven’t looked at it in some time, refresh your memory on the development of the plan. If you haven’t created a SEM plan before,

use the above steps to help respond to questions and concerns about enrollment. And know that you are now on your way to being a strategic enrollment manager.

ClosingBy sharing national enrollment trends, ascertaining un-employment rates, discussing recessionary climates, and identifying key questions to ask while building a data-base that tells the story of the enrollment at your insti-tution during the pandemic, this article was written to help community college enrollment managers feel more confident in finding a way forward when the health cri-sis ends. Managing enrollment is challenging enough without a pandemic. Predicting how many students will be on your campus when we simply don’t know what the economy will do nor what prospective and current students will do as they face college choice decisions is even more challenging. For community colleges, at least eight years of consecutive enrollment declines were al-ready wreaking havoc on budgets, and enrollment man-agers were being asked difficult questions about how to recruit and retain students. But predicting enrollment isn’t impossible. Start small and ensure you have a snap-shot of what is currently happening at your college, and determine where you can anticipate what enrollment might do in the next couple of years.

ReferencesAACC. See American Association

of Community Colleges.American Association of Community

Colleges. 2019. Community College Enrollment Crisis? Historical Trends in Community College Enrolment. Washington, D.C: American Association of Community Colleges. Available at: <aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Crisis-in-Enrollment-2019.pdf>.

Amour, M. 2020. Few positives in final fall enrollment numbers. Inside Higher Ed. December 17. Available at: <insidehighered.com/news/2020/12/17/final-fall-enrollment-numbers-show-pandemics-full-impact>.

Bontrager, B., and B. Clemetsen. 2009. Applying SEM at the Community College. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Bontrager, B., D. Ingersoll, and R. Ingersoll. 2012. Strategic Enrollment Management: Transforming Higher Education. Washington, D.C.: American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Fain, P. 2019. College enrollment declines continue. Inside Higher Ed. May 30. Available at: <insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/05/30/college-enrollment-declines-continue>.

Kerr, E. 2020. Smart money moves for college students this fall. U.S. News & World Report. July 22. Available at: <usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/smart-money-moves-if-coronavirus-forces-colleges-online-this-fall>.

Levanon, G. 2020. What the post-pandemic will look like. Forbes. August 17. Available at: <forbes.com/sites/gadlevanon/2020/08/17/what-the-post-pandemic-economy-will-look-like/?sh=291940ba7835>.

Marr, B. 2020. 8 job skills to succeed in a post coronavirus world. Forbes. April 17. Available at: <forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2020/04/17/8-job-skills-

http://www.aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Crisis-in-Enrollment-2019.pdf



https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/12/17/final-fall-enrollment-numbers-show-pandemics-full-impact



http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2019/05/30/college-enrollment-declines-continue



http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/smart-money-moves-if-coronavirus-forces-colleges-online-this-fall




http://www.forbes.com/sites/gadlevanon/2020/08/17/what-the-post-pandemic-economy-will-look-like/?sh=291940ba7835




http://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2020/04/17/8-job-skills-to-succeed-in-a-post-coronavirus-world/?sh=3d7e1b492096




About the AuthorTara Sprehe

Tara Sprehe serves as the Dean of Academic Foundations and Con-nections at Clackamas

Community College in Oregon. This unique division blends all functional areas of student affairs (including ath-letics and counseling) and includes the academic areas of math, English, adult basic skills, and English for Speakers of Other Languages. Sprehe has 30 years of experience working in higher education with 20 of those years in the community college environment. Prior to her role as

dean, Sprehe was the associate dean for enrollment and student services, which included the following functional areas: admissions and recruitment, academic advising, disability resources, financial aid, registration and records, and test-ing services. She served as the college registrar for nine years at Clackamas.

Prior to her work in community col-leges, Sprehe worked in admissions, aca-demic advising, residence life, and career services for several four-year public uni-versities. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Oregon

and a master’s degree in student affairs in higher education from Miami University (Ohio). Sprehe served as president of Ore-gon ACRAO (OrACRAO), the local arrange-ments committee chair for PACRAO 2013, was an editor for the 2016 edition of the AACRAO Academic Record and Transcript Guide, and a member of the AACRAO Disciplinary Notations on Transcripts Work Group. She regularly presents at the annual Strategic Enrollment Management Conference and feels incredibly lucky to do this challenging and rewarding work.

to-succeed-in-a-post-coronavirus-world/?sh=3d7e1b492096>.

NBER. See National Bureau of Economic Research.

National Bureau of Economic Research. 2020. Business cycle dating announcement, June 8, 2020: Determination of the February 2020 peak in US economic activity. NBER News. Cambridge, MA: Author. Available at: <nber.org/news/business-cycle-dating-committee-announcement-june-8–2020>.

Rabouin, D. 2020. Here comes the real recession. Axios. September 2. Available

at: <axios.com/recession-within-recession-coronavirus-0bcb2af4–4c1a-4ded-9579–096214c5b2d6.html>.

Sedmak, T. 2020. Fall 2020 undergraduate enrollment down 4.4%; graduate enrollment up 2.9% (press release). Herndon, VA: National Student Clearinghouse. Available at: <studentclearinghouse.org/blog/fall-2020-undergraduate-enrollment-down-4–4-graduate-enrollment-up-2–9/>.

Sherman, E. 2019. A majority of economists predict a recession will come by the election. Fortune. June 4.

Available at: <fortune.com/2019/06/04/next-recession-2020-predictions/>.

Thomson-DeVeaux, A. 2020. The economy won’t be back to normal until 2022 or later, according to our survey of economists. FiveThirtyEight. October 19. Available at: <fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-economy-wont-be-back-to-normal-until-2022-or-later-according-to-our-survey-of-economists/>.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. n.d. Databases, Tables & Calculators by Subject. Washington, D.C.: Author. Available at: <bls.gov/data/>.



http://nber.org/news/business-cycle-dating-committee-announcement-june-8-2020



http://www.axios.com/recession-within-recession-coronavirus-0bcb2af4-4c1a-4ded-9579-096214c5b2d6.html



http://www.studentclearinghouse.org/blog/fall-2020-undergraduate-enrollment-down-4-4-graduate-enrollment-up-2-9/



https://fortune.com/2019/06/04/next-recession-2020-predictions/

https://fortune.com/2019/06/04/next-recession-2020-predictions/

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-economy-wont-be-back-to-normal-until-2022-or-later-according-to-our-survey-of-economists/




http://www.bls.gov/data/

Winter 2021Volume 8(4) 3


SEM As a Connector: Building Relationships in a New NormalStanley E. Henderson and Kevin Pollock

We see a foundational value of strategic enrollment management (SEM) as a connector between students and institutions, both in recruitment and retention. Whether the toolset is data analytics to predict student persistence and prescribe interventions or the magic a faculty member spins in the classroom to engage her students one-on-one, we are about building relation-ships. The complexity of those relationships reflects the tapestry of our students’ life experiences and aspira-tions. We no longer see traditional students as “normal” and non-traditional students as “the other.” The new normal is the diversity of the student threads in that tapestry of higher education.

In normal times, strategic enrollment management (SEM) has a full arsenal of tools to connect prospective

students to campuses and then form relationships for student success after enrollment. Institutions visit high schools, attend college fairs, hold open houses, and send mailings, emails and texts to students. Campuses try to engage parents and students. Students go through sim-ilar processes: recruitment, application, enrollment, orientation, financial aid, and advising. However, in the virtual space required by a global pandemic, students’ only ties to their campuses have been through their computer screens. SEM professionals still need to build connections and relationships, but this is a new normal. How can we ensure that our students feel they belong and are engaged in the full education process?

We submit that, while the pandemic raises new issues, ensuring that students belong and engage is a

VIEW FROM THE TOP

This article seeks to make the case for how relationships are essential to meeting the tapestry of student needs by examining experiences and challenges of several student threads in that tapestry, using both two-year and four-year institutional perspectives. How faculty, staff, and administrators respond—or don’t—in building rapport and connections that help students feel they belong ultimately ensures institutional enrollment health, the core aim of SEM. This article also examines how the 2020 pandemic has disrupted our ability in the twin pillars of SEM—recruitment and retention—to meet student needs, not just with transactional services but with the deeper bonds of belonging.



cornerstone of SEM in any setting or time. And that re-quires a clearer understanding of the relationship side of what we do in SEM. The rock-ribbed importance of data in SEM can sometimes mask the human nature of why students come and stay at college. Connections and relationships need to be the principle that keeps students at the center of what we do. We need to appre-ciate the process of connecting students to institutions and then using those connections to build relationships with faculty, staff, and other students. The sense of be-longing that comes from that process can be a key factor in student success.

Between the two of us, we have worked at a wide range of colleges and universities in our careers—four-year and two-year, commuter and residential, urban and rural, private and public. Our lived experience has given us perspective on what challenges face students and what makes them feel they are part of the campus com-munity, in or out of the classroom. Our commitment to SEM has given us tools to make connections and build relationships. Using our individual lenses, we focus on student groups with particular needs for connections, partnerships that help create relationships, and SEM tools that guide us.

Isolation at College: A Need for RelationshipsStudents who attend both residential and commuter campuses, four-year universities, and community col-leges express feelings of isolation, of not belonging in the midst of crowds of other students, faculty, and staff. “In a 2019 survey at the University of California, Davis, half of college freshmen said making friends was more difficult than they’d expected” (Murthy 2020, Section II, 3021–23). A 2014 University of Washington study found that 41 percent of students who transferred or left the university said their decision to leave was influ-enced by “feeling socially alone” (Murthy 2020, Section II, 3052). One student, who might speak for college stu-dents of all ages and circumstances, lamented, “If I left campus and never returned, there wouldn’t be anyone that I would miss, nor would I feel missed by others” (Murthy 2020, Section II, 3057).

A mid-Atlantic regional university, in surveying its freshmen and sophomores about their needs for reopening the campus after the pandemic, found that these younger students were adamant about wanting in-person classes. In an interview (Henderson 2020), the president said they felt that the pivot to online had robbed them of their ability to connect to the campus and feel that they belonged. “We need to belong to com-munities of people—neighbors, colleagues, classmates, and acquaintances—with whom we experience a sense of collective purpose and identity,” noted Murthy (2020, Section II, 3495–3496). Even encounters as seemingly inconsequential as “micro-moments” (Section II, 3692) and small, incidental interactions such as a “flicker of recognition and a welcoming smile” (Section II, 3622) encountered as one walks across a campus can connect a student to something larger than herself.

The Role of SEM in Belonging: Data and Trust to Connect and RelateWhat role can strategic enrollment management play in connecting students with an institution? The litera-ture of SEM illustrates the essential elements of enroll-ment management as the three faces of SEM: structure, planning, and leadership (Smith and Kilgore 2006; Henderson and Yale 2008; Henderson 2012; 2017). “The successful enrollment management program integrates these three components—‘faces’—of SEM into some-thing that is greater than the sum of its parts. Blending the three faces of SEM requires an understanding of the complex dynamics that shape the university’s enroll-ment environment” (Henderson 2012, 102). However, the blending of these three faces of SEM depends in large measure on a fourth face: the community face. It is quintessentially a human one, about building relation-ships: “Understanding how to create and then nurture relationships in the campus community—whether with faculty, staff, or students—will help the enrollment manager to structure, plan, and lead…on her campus. If she also ensures that she is serving not just the external markets of prospective students but also the internal campus community members, she can be assured of success” (Henderson 2012, 104).



A relationships emphasis to SEM gives it a more fo-cused and prioritized role in collegiate institutions. “If we look at the Community Face of SEM as a way of integrating its separate elements by bringing them to bear on the success of individual students [using data as a toolset] through partnerships and collaborations, there is even more power in the SEM approach” (Henderson 2017, 145).

SEM, in a sense, uses all of its data and technology tool sets to connect students to campuses. However, suc-cessful recruitment goes further than just connections: it builds a relationship of trust, as exhibited in this video of Suzanne Lepley (2020), Kalamazoo College’s director of admissions. If a student feels she belongs before she is even on campus, the chances of her staying to graduate are significantly increased. Once she is on campus, the work of SEM is to connect her to support services and campus life by building relationships that go beyond involvement to true engagement in her learning in the curriculum and the co-curriculum (Henderson 2017).

Stan Henderson’s PerspectiveBuilding Community: From Flickers of Recognition to Engagement

When I first became vice chancellor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, I noticed a campus “vibe” that struck me as different from the usual institution of higher edu-cation. It was a warmer, more engaging place where one might get Murthy’s “flicker of recognition” walking across campus. I decided this was not an institution of higher education but a community of higher education. I started to use the language of community to introduce the uni-versity to prospective students and families and then to describe us whenever I spoke on campus. I used it to talk about participation and contribution, about how to act on campus—”Take those stupid buds out of your ears and LOOK at people and say ‘Hello’ when you walk across campus!” It resonated, and soon students were quoting me—“As Vice Chancellor Henderson says, we are a com-munity of higher education.” One of my happiest moments was the first time a student, instead of quoting me, said,

“At UM-Dearborn, we are a community.” They had inter-nalized the concept and would pass it on to others without it being driven by me (Stan Henderson).

The concept of a university as a community gives a powerful tool for building relationships with prospec-tive students—and their parents. You welcome students into a place where they can see themselves as mem-bers, participants expected to contribute and make a difference. If they will be members of a community, they will belong—and the community will look out for them. When I told parents that we expected their stu-dents to be members of the campus community and to contribute, they looked knowingly at their spouses and nodded: it was the kind of place they wanted their stu-dents to be. “We talk about differentiators in SEM. Here is a quintessential one. The power of language cannot be dismissed, and the images that the word ‘commu-nity’ brings to mind give an identity to our campus that reinforces what faculty want to emphasize in terms of engagement in the classroom. In a community you do not just sit in class without engaging with the professor and classmates. You participate, contribute—and with-out knowing it, you belong!” (Henderson 2017, 152).

Community as a concept goes beyond recruitment to become a hallmark of persistence and student suc-cess. Students connect to the university through com-munity behavior. They contribute to the academic community through engagement in the classroom, thereby investing in their success. And they participate outside of class in on-campus jobs or student organi-zations and build their sense of belonging. At the Uni-versity of Michigan-Dearborn, that expectation was set at orientation by telling students they had a community obligation to engage with faculty—and even to greet people on the sidewalk as they walked across campus.

In SEM, Each Has a RoleThe essence of enrollment is the relationships we de-velop with those who would be, or already are, our stu-dents. The tools we have to take the first steps to build those relationships are the data that tell us who those students are: their backgrounds, their preparation, their

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successes, and their missteps. The data help to connect students to resources, and the resources—and the fac-ulty and staff who deliver them—move the connections into relationships.

SEM should be instrumental in determining which messages will connect prospective students to campus and build ongoing relationships with them once they enroll. Part of the SEM role is, in and of itself, build-ing collaborative relationships with faculty, staff, and administrators to identify messages and services, build consensus around them, and instill them into every-one’s vocabulary and actions. If everybody—faculty, staff members, and administrators—can articulate these kinds of consensus messages and deliver targeted ser-vices, the campus takes on more coherence and con-sistency. This, in turn, models what students will soon realize is a common bond that ties them to the univer-sity. It gives a foundation for engagement, which leads to persistence and success (Henderson 2016).

Each of us in a SEM environment has a role in build-ing relationships—a role of action, of walking the talk around the culture of our campuses.

Faculty teach, mentor, and advocate for students.

One day while I was vice chancellor for enrollment man-agement and student life, a faculty member with a par-ticularly crusty disposition, known especially for his love of students and for never having met an administrator he liked, came to see me unannounced. He sat in my office and said, almost accusingly, “My students tell me they like you. Why is that?” His experience didn’t suggest that students would, or should, like administrators, and he wanted to see for himself who I was, in case he had to warn them not to be conned by another administrator on the dark side. I must have convinced him I was genuinely on the students’ side: when a student who did NOT like me sent a nasty message to the world pillorying me, this faculty member sent me an email, “I have seen the latest missive about you. It would appear that you are either the anti-Christ or a man wronged. I doubt it is the former” (Stan Henderson).

Staff serve and develop students—and not just those in so-called “professional” roles. On one of my campuses, a

family was on their way from the parking structure to an admissions appointment. They stopped at a campus map to check their bearings close to where a groundskeeper was mowing. The staff person stopped his mower and came over to the family, greeted them, and asked if he could help them find where they were going. Having someone who mows lawns show interest in you is the stuff an admissions director’s dreams are made of.

On one campus, a veteran ID checker at the dining hall has more visibility and affection than the presi-dent: “Chip” greets each student with a warm remark or a menu tip of the day, accompanied with enthusiastic good humor. Her simple relationship building shows the university’s students—especially first generation students—the campus is not just people with multiple degrees and titles, but also folks just like their own fam-ilies, making it a familiar place where they can belong.

These examples put the lie to the bias that line staff “just stay in their lane,” maintaining the transactional nature of their jobs without thinking about how they can develop relationships with students and make them feel a part of the campus community.

Administrators serve and facilitate. Enterprise leaders can sometimes be isolated from student relationships by bureaucracy and the corporatization of higher edu-cation. However, leadership also requires a focus on the well-being of students. Developing services that support and ensure processes are pathways, not barriers, should be administrators’ enterprise contribution to relation-ship building. Administrators can also build students’ sense of belonging by being visible. A president who uses a Segway to move across campus, a vice chancellor who is a cheerleader for student achievement, and a dean who attends student organization meetings model how everyone should behave in a community.

In the Beginning: Parents as Partners in RelationshipsNinety-six percent of parents in one survey singled out the development of strong moral character as a priority for college. Yet, in a study of their students, two-thirds believed that their parents would rank academic success over empathy for others. There is a gap between what



parents appear to value and what their students think they do (Murthy 2020, Section II, 3949). Enrollment professionals can be instrumental in narrowing that gap.

This meshed with my experiences when I talked about “Roots and Wings” with parents of incoming stu-dents. I would ask a room of 200 parents, “How many of you expect your student to have all As after the first term?” Maybe a half dozen hands would go up. “But,” I would say, “When I ask your students that question, probably 30% would raise their hands.” How can that miscommunication happen? Well, how do we often talk about grades with our children? “Your mother and I only want you to do your best.” Many incoming freshmen were high achieving students in high school; they know if they do their very best, they can get all As. Ergo, Mom and Dad must expect all As.

I would then suggest how parents might talk with their students about the realities of grades in the first term of college: “You know, I heard at orientation that grades tend to fall in the first term. Have you thought about what you might do to reduce that drop?” These kinds of interactions were intended to develop connections and arm our par-ent partners with resources to help their students be suc-cessful. Four years (or more) later at graduation, parents would remind me of the insights they took away from those orientation discussions (Stan Henderson).

Residential Living and Belonging

Relationships abound on residential campuses. Tinto (1993) writes that “residence halls help newcomers to find an early physical, social, and academic anchor during the transition to college life” (125). Erb, et al. (2015) demonstrate how student identity is strengthened by hall symbols and competitions while interactions are enhanced by signature events, and professional support staff and living learning communities build solidarity.

J. K. Rowlings’s creation of the wizarding world culture at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts with its houses and their trappings (including a house ghost), Quid-ditch matches, and engaged staff such as Hagrid the groundskeeper brilliantly illustrates the concept. All of these elements improve students’ sense of belonging,

integrating them into a community of support through relationships. Their integrated experiences lead the stu-dents to a sense of solidarity and ties to the school, “fos-tering the persistence of individual first-year students” (Erb, et al. 2015, 4).

Significantly, Braxton, Hirschy, and McClendon (2004) note that residence halls will not provide this function as effectively for students whose “cultures of origin do not resemble the dominant culture of the social communities of their college or university” (33). Student success professionals will need to provide services outside residence halls that can provide an an-chor for students such as underrepresented minorities or those who are first in their families to attend col-lege. Building connections for specific students in mul-tiple spaces will extend the impact of residence halls in connections and relationships.

Faculty Engaging with StudentsResearch shows that “student-faculty relationships are the most crucial connection within a collegiate com-munity” (Duberstein 2009). Students with “strong con-nectedness with college instructors reap many benefits, including: better persistence, engagement, and effort.” (Brown and Starrett 2017). Students who feel connected to faculty can have increased motivation and invest-ment and feel a sense of security and comfort (Brown and Starrett 2017). However, research also suggests that only slightly more than 50 percent of students report rapport with faculty (Buskist and Savile 2001). Parks and Taylor (2020) find that only 19 percent of students are confident that they will have quality education or rela-tionships in the online environment of the pandemic.

At one campus, while I was assisting with developing strategic enrollment planning, a college dean asked me to do a workshop with his faculty to develop better rapport with their students. During a student focus group before the workshop, I asked what students needed from their professors. The ensuing discussion was revealing: “Some students are resistant to reaching out for help—they’re overwhelmed, but they won’t seek help for fear of seeming dumb,” said student A. Student B continued, “There needs



to be an ability to see that not everybody is getting it. Too often, professors look around from the board, say, ‘Every-body got it?’ and turn immediately back to the board to go on.” “Yeah,” said Student C, “don’t just plow ahead; stop and back up to try another angle!” (Stan Henderson).

To address concerns during the pandemic, the reg-istrar’s office provides Elon University faculty with stu-dent data that alerts them to aggregate characteristics of the students in front of them. Data dashboards for each class lay out the profile of students enrolled: the average and median GPA; home regions; distribution of academic majors; and aggregate counts of those with leadership, service, internship, research, and other types of engagement experiences. Faculty can use the student data to highlight potential student interest in the subject matter based on their experiences as well as anticipate and respond to challenges students may have in the class. The data are a toolset for building classroom rap-port (Parks and Taylor 2020).

On some campuses, faculty benefit from partner-ships with student service units in building positive relationships and engagement in the classroom. The Simon Fraser University’s (2020) Health Promotion de-partment and the university’s Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC) initiated a project on creating conditions for well-being in learning environments. Literature and evidence relating to the impact of well-being on academic success formed the foundation of the proj-ect. This built buy-in among faculty.

Faculty, staff, and students developed ten conditions for well-being in learning environments:

˺ Social Connection

˺Optimal Challenge

˺ Civic Engagement

˺ Instructor Support

˺ Inclusivity

˺ Personal Development

˺ Services and Supports

˺ Positive Classroom Culture

˺ Flexibility

˺ Real Life Learning

Student recommendations identified faculty cham-pions to provide examples already being used in SFU classes for each of the conditions. Significantly, “The focus on well-being was not an add-on to faculty mem-bers’ already heavy workload, but rather something that could complement their existing goals” (Stanton, et al. 2017, 158). More than 100 faculty have become involved in the project.

Different Threads in the Same TapestryDoug Shapiro, the director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, laments that the main-stream media focuses on students at elite campuses while ignoring the students and institutions that are home to the vast majority of American higher education (Shapiro 2020). Indeed, first generation students, Pell eligible students, students of color, and adult students have long since moved from being “the other” to being the mainstream. Our campuses now deal with a tapestry of students who require approaches to building connec-tions that help them find their sense of belonging. “One size fits nobody,” Laura Wankel (2020) said in describing the future of higher education. Looking at all of the students in front of us in four-year institutions gets us to a better understanding of how to build relationships.

One example of looking at all students focuses on those who are first generation, defined as neither par-ent has graduated from college. They are a significant population throughout American higher education. Fif-ty-eight percent of American undergraduate students’ parents do not have a bachelor’s degree. Twenty percent of those first generation students who begin college will earn a baccalaureate degree. For continuing-generation students, the figure is 42 percent. Fifty-two percent of first generation students choose community colleges; but 40 percent attend four-year campuses, and 34 per-cent choose moderately to less selective institutions (Redford and Hoyer 2017). Besides often being under-prepared academically and under-resourced financially, these students may also have cultural and social hurdles to clear in order to make the connections that will help them feel they belong on this unfamiliar turf.



We sometimes fail to understand these students, even in our recruitment of them, with the “academ-ic-ese” we use on our admissions websites. A study of admissions language on website pages regarding high impact practices (HIPs) shows that first generation stu-dents actually see a disconnect to programs that are ideally suited to connect them to campus and help them succeed (Thurmer 2020). The study’s analysis showed that institutions tended to position HIPs as happening outside the classroom, often in places where students might expect to need transportation to reach—some-thing first generation students could see as a barrier. HIPs were described as happening in “real life,” visually represented as the corporate spaces of internships, not the familiar working class locations that first generation students often inhabit. The study found that visual de-sign choices erased identity by blurring faces, removing the opportunity for students to see if students experi-encing HIPs look like them. The research suggests that universities in the study were not meeting first gener-ation students where they are, or we might go further to say SEM professionals are unsure how to find where they are. In fact, the web pages might be deterring these students from pursuing HIPs because, as presented, they would deter the students from choosing to participate.

Culturally, first generation parents lack “college knowledge” (Selby-Theut n.d.). Not only are their par-ents unable to help them navigate the college environ-ment (Vargas 2004), only 50 percent of first generation students say their parents are supportive of the decision to attend college. These students “[live] simultaneously in two vastly different worlds while being fully accepted in neither” (Selby-Theut n.d.). In short, they may not be able to rely on family and friends for guidance during their time at college.

Socially, first generation students are less engaged on campus; they are more likely to live off-campus and are less likely to value or engage in co-curricular clubs and activities (Pike and Kuh 2005). Strikingly, they identify their best friends as full-time employees—the people with whom they work—rather than the college stu-dents with whom they sit in class. They are more likely to identify themselves as isolated and objects of dis-

crimination, and they see faculty as aloof, unconcerned with them as individuals (Selby-Theut n.d.; Mahan, et al. 2014).

First generation students’ disconnect from faculty puts added emphasis on the need for building rapport in the classroom to establish relationships. These students need to see faculty as interested in them, as approach-able, as committed to their success as students, as being human. The campus relationships that are more likely to engage—and satisfy—first generation students are those with their faculty and the advisors, tutors, and academic coaches who support their academic work.

Faculty who take the time to understand these stu-dents’ circumstances, to appreciate the competing forces in their lives that can pull them away from their aca-demic work, and who work to draw them into the pas-sion of the academy will help them form connections and relationships for success. Academic programs with well-articulated learning outcomes and guideposts that point the way to the final goal will tie the first genera-tion student to the institution and the degree and con-tribute to their sense of belonging. Accessible academic support services well-integrated into the curriculum meet the needs of students who often work sixteen or more hours per week (often off-campus) and live off-campus. If they joined co-curricular activities, they would be more likely to choose programs such as facul-ty-led learning communities offered through academic departments (Mahan, et al. 2014).

Additional programming to build a sense of belong-ing might include programs that would connect first generation students with faculty and staff on campus who were themselves the first in their families to attend college. Seeing role models of first generation students who are now successful professionals connects students to people who understand their challenges and helps them feel they can belong in college. Western Wash-ington University (n.d.) posts photos and information on first generation faculty and staff. Wichita State Uni-versity (n.d.) solicits First Gen Forerunners (faculty and staff who were first generation) and Supporters (those who want to connect with first generation students to help them be successful) to create a sense of commu-



nity. Florida Atlantic University (n.d.) has an Office of First Generation Student Success that supports a struc-tured co-curricular program to engage these students in a community environment around high impact prac-tices and extracurricular opportunities.

Connections to Attack Inequity: “Piecemeal Doesn’t Work”There are many inequities in higher education; one of the most significant is the discrepancy between gradu-ation rates of Pell eligible (often those from first gener-ation and/or underrepresented minority groups as well as from lower socio-economic levels) and non-Pell eligi-ble students at four-year institutions. A 2015 study con-ducted by the Education Trust of over three-quarters of public and nonprofit bachelor’s institutions showed that Pell students had a 51 percent graduation rate compared to 65 percent for non-Pell students. Forty-five percent of institutions studied had a gap of more than 10 per-centage points; 96 had gaps greater than 20 percentage points. One institution had a gap of 61 percentage points between its Pell and non-Pell students (Nichols 2015).

There is no silver bullet in determining how to im-prove graduation rates of Pell students—or other groups of students—at four-year colleges. However, reports suggest that there are some commonalities of practice at institutions that are making a difference in closing the graduation gaps. One of the most significant is a commitment to make student success an institutional priority from the groundskeepers to the front-line staff to faculty to the administration. Then, into this sense of community, this we’re-all-in-this-together-for-the-students ethos, they introduce intentional use of data—collection, analysis, and application—to identify at-risk students. And they use the data to design personalized interventions that enhance the ability to succeed in aca-demics, the social environment of the campus, and with finances. “In short: leadership, data, and targeted sup-ports” (Whistle and Hiler 2018) that connect and build relationships are provided.

The Association of Public and Land Grant Universi-ties (APLU) honored the University of California, Riv-erside with its 2016 Degree Project Completion Award

(Grant 2016). In accepting the award the provost of UC Riverside at the time credited a campus task force for driving the significant improvement in Pell student (and overall) graduation rates. As described by the chair of the initiative, “The task force focused on providing the right number and distribution of seats in classes, the creation of structured course plans, investment in ac-ademic support programs that work, and changing the three-courses per term norm among students” (Grant 2016). UC Riverside’s chancellor, Kim Wilcox, cham-pioned the integration of the university’s portfolio of support programs. He described a “network connecting programs and the students in those programs across the academic, the social, the cultural” (Hebel 2014). Too often, he says, “we take these small pieces for this group of students we think are at risk or these students in this situation, and think that will fix the problem when all we’re doing is trying to help them with a much bigger environment that exists. … We have to think in a much more integrated and integral fashion across all the di-mensions” (quoted in Hebel). In other words, piecemeal doesn’t work.

Georgia State University (n.d.), in its equally suc-cessful work to improve graduation rates and student success generally (the university is a 2013 APLU winner), employs “a consistent, evidenced-based strategy based on…student-centered initiatives” (Georgia State Univer-sity n.d.). These begin by addressing common barriers, such as missing financial aid verification forms and failure to sign-up for orientation, that keep admitted students from enrolling in college. Once the students are enrolled, the Georgia State LIFT (Learning, Income, and Family Transformation) program, focused on combin-ing data-driven academic advisement with scholarships, employment opportunities, and leadership training to make early connections. LIFT uses more than 800 ana-lytics-based alerts to track undergraduates daily, identify at-risk behaviors, and have advisors intervene.

To build on these data-driven connections, GSU fa-cilitates the development of actual relationships through freshmen learning communities and meta ma-jors. Eighty percent of GSU freshmen engage with small cohorts organized around these “meta majors,” group-



ings of academic interests, instead of specific majors, to help students find their own communities and explore academically in GSU’s embedded career/graduate school planning initiative, College to Career.

SEM and the Strategic Building of Best Practices: A Cautionary NoteThe considered issues and experienced solutions men-tioned above should not be taken as templates that can be laid down on any campus and moved into positive outcomes. The normal reaction, when anyone in aca-demia considers issues and challenges, is to go straight to solutions, into the weeds chasing shiny objects and squirrels. “We can do XYZ. Or this could work. We need ABC.” In a way, it is human nature, but it is exacerbated in higher education because of how faculty, particu-larly, are trained. Doctoral programs teach students to do research to solve problems. Instinctively, academics go for the solutions.

That, in turn, leads to the search for “best practices,” the quintessential shiny objects. “Just tell us what has worked someplace else, and we can get started imple-menting it here.” However, there is no set of best prac-tices from another institution that can be laid over a campus and solve all of the issues that need to be ad-dressed to help students make connections and succeed.

Best practices are contextual. What works on one campus, even one similarly sized and situated, might not work at another. When recruiting a student, admis-sions officers will tell her that she needs to look for the best match between her personality and the personality of the various schools she is considering. That college personality, the institutional culture and history, is a paramount influencer of which SEM program or or-ganizational structure will work. That is not to say that culture and the influence of history preclude any action or change, but they can either impede change if ignored or accelerate action if harnessed. And they will shape both change and action regardless.

A successful blueprint for SEM planning argues for starting with the institutional strategic plan. Ground-ing what happens in SEM with what the institution establishes as guiding principles and priorities in the

strategic plan, will inform practice in SEM. In a very real sense, it will allow a university or college to build its own best practices in enrollment because the strategic alignment will prioritize and focus actions. An institu-tional strategic alignment focused on success of first generation students will recognize and seek to emulate the efforts of Chip, the dining hall checker, with other university staff such as residence hall custodians, ex-panding a sense of belonging among students. What is chosen as the final organization of programs, initiatives, and structure for SEM, in conjunction with the insti-tutional strategic plan, will show results and be recog-nized by other campuses as best practices they will hold up to emulate.

Recognizing the Changing SEM Blueprint for Different InstitutionsConsider that SEM planning is a blueprint that, many times, has to be continually adjusted to the ever-evolv-ing campuses, and world around us. The onset of the pandemic showed institutions where they were solid, where they were weak, and where they were simply covering known issues. Each campus is reacting in its own way to the new normal, and adjustments on campuses continue. In this vein, we should pause and remind that much of the first part of our article pri-marily dealt with four-year institutions. Many ideas and concepts found in the first section also apply to two-year institutions. However, two-year institutions have their own unique issues and challenges. These campuses also have to deal with a new normal, and we will now present a look at some of two-year institutions’ unique characteristics and challenges.

Kevin Pollock’s PerspectiveI have been fortunate to have worked at four-year private and public universities, as well as several community col-leges, providing insight into similarities and differences between the types of institutions. One of the most notable differences lies in the recruitment and service area of the two-year institutions, as they traditionally recruit a major-ity of their students within their districts, as opposed to the



four-year institutions who cast a wider net for students. For example, while I was a vice president at a small, rural, community college in Michigan, our entire service area, while over two counties wide, only had around a dozen high schools, many with small student enrollments from which we could recruit students. While this can limit potential student enrollment, it also allows for a better connection with the local communities. After all, the word community is in our name. This word should not just represent our connection with our physical community, but also represent our need and desire to connect students with our campus community. With this in mind, in this section of our article, I am going to present the unique challenges facing the two-year colleges and their students (Kevin Pollock).

Diversity of Students, Diversity of Challenges

Like their four-year counterparts, community colleges have a desire to find better methods to connect students to their campuses. The bulk of four-year institution stu-dents come directly from high school and are consid-ered “traditional.” Besides enrolling these traditional students, community colleges have students who are older, have been away from academic settings longer, and come from lower socioeconomic settings. The Na-tional Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recognizes nontraditional students as those who identify with at least one of the following criteria: “be at least 25 years old, attend school part-time, work full-time, be a vet-eran, have children, wait at least one year after have school before entering college, have a GED instead of a high school diploma, be a first-generation student, enroll in a non-degree program, or reenter a college program.” (MacDonald 2018).

A look at the 2019–2020 American Association of Community College’s Fast Facts sheet (AACC 2020) can show the diverse nature of the community college stu-dent body. Community college students represent 41 percent of all college undergraduates, and their average age is 28. The demographics show that 45 percent of stu-dents are White; 26 percent are Hispanic; and 13 percent are Black. Nearly 30 percent of students are first gener-ation; 57 percent are women; and nearly two-thirds are

attending classes on a part-time basis. Sixty-two percent of full-time students work, while 72 percent of part-time students work while attending classes. Nearly 60 percent of students are receiving some sort of financial aid, with 33 percent of students receiving Pell Grant assistance (AACC 2020). When one compares the NCES definition of nontraditional with the AACC Fast Facts data, it is easy to see that the definition of “nontradi-tional” student is essentially a “traditional” student at a community college. With 67 percent of nontraditional students dropping out of college before receiving a de-gree (MacDonald 2018), it is critical to connect these stu-dents with the campus at the earliest possible moment.

These students have special challenges, such as dif-ficulty in finding a niche, knowing how to find assis-tance, having competing allegiances such as family and friends, and balancing finances. Low-income students are “significantly overrepresented at community col-leges, and most need to strengthen both academic and nonacademic skills” (Bailey 2017). Community college students have a longer completion time for a degree, have a higher probability of being underprepared aca-demically, and have a higher chance of enrolling in at least one developmental class. In addition, community college students may not have a singular goal of grad-uating with a two-year degree. Many take classes that will transfer to a four-year program, while others take classes to upgrade skills, fulfill a work requirement, or solely for the purpose of personal pleasure (Bontrager and Pollock 2009).

The Challenges of Connecting with StudentsWith such a unique student population, connecting stu-dents to a campus is challenging on many levels. When one understands that nontraditional students may “lack a sense of familiarity or belonging on campus, which makes it more difficult to ask for help,” how can a cam-pus reach those students (Miller, Blakeslee and Hope 2018). There are additional challenges facing community college students. Food and housing insecurities, or an unexpected expense such as a car repair, complicate a student’s attempts at an education and can disconnect a student from a campus (Schwartz 2019).



The organizational structure of community colleges may also be an unintended hindrance to the success of attending students. “The traditional community college employs a ‘cafeteria-style’ or ‘self-service’ model. This cafeteria organization creates problems in three areas: the structure of college-level programs, the intake pro-cess and student support, and developmental education” (Bailey 2017). Community colleges must look at their organizations and determine if they are running in the best interest of their students and change accordingly.

Community college enrollments peaked in fall 2010 and have declined since. Even with projected increases starting this decade, numbers will still not reach those attained in 2010 and 2011 ( Joszkiewicz 2019). There are many reasons why students leave community colleges. These include cost, competing demands on student’s time, wasted credits, various life issues, transporta-tion problems, childcare difficulties, work and fam-ily responsibilities, and a lack of a sense of belonging (Mintz 2019). With students finding it easy to stop and start their programs and return when it is convenient, it is critical for community colleges to find ways to strengthen the connections between students and cam-puses, particularly before students start classes and during their first few months.

It is imperative that community colleges connect students to faculty, support services, and the campus as early as possible. As noted in “A Matter of Degrees,” (Center for Community College Student Engagement 2012) no matter what programs or practices a college implements, there is likely to be a greater impact on student success if the design incorporates some of these multiple principles:

˺ A strong start, focusing on the front door, and ensuring that students’ earliest contacts and first weeks incorporate experiences that foster per-sonal connections and enhance their chances of success.

˺ Clear coherent pathways that help students move through an engaging collegiate experience.

˺ Integrated support in recognizing time is a re-source, effectively connecting students in the classroom and building support in skills develop-

ment and supplemental instruction into course-work, rather than referring students to services.

˺ Intensive promotion of student engagement, making it inescapable for students during their time in college (Center for Community College Student Engagement 2012).

Building upon this, community colleges can begin connecting students to the campus long before they set foot in a classroom. However, to be effective, a campus must have a solid student success plan and have cam-pus community members know their roles and be on board with that plan. Only then can a campus efficiently contact students and begin guiding them through the various college processes.

An excellent example of early connections with potential students can be found at St. Clair County Community Col-lege, an institution where I was honored to be president. A focus on creating a college-going culture in the service area, combined with early outreach efforts by staff and faculty, showcased multiple successful efforts to reach stu-dents. Each year, every eighth grade student in the service area toured the campus, allowing the students to experi-ence a college but also allowing the college to make early connections and impressions on the students. The college created one of the first early colleges, allowing high school students to begin their college career while still in high school. To better connect the college to the community, the college partnered with the city where it sits and took over and renovated a junior ice arena into a premier college fieldhouse. Since that time, the college has hosted several state championship games in volleyball, basketball, and softball. These events have allowed potential students to come to the campus, while also providing a boost to the local economy (Kevin Pollock).

Faculty as Connectors and Relationship Builders

Faculty can connect with students before they ever start classes by assisting in various recruitment efforts. Fac-ulty can visit high schools, place calls to prospective stu-dents interested in their respective programs, and attend



open houses and admissions receptions. In addition, faculty can be part of the admissions efforts by serving on enrollment committees and providing input on ad-missions literature pieces. Faculty are particularly in-terested in recruitment and retention efforts that affect their departmental enrollment as well as opportunities to share information about their programs. Therefore, care should be taken to utilize faculty assistance that helps impact department and programs (Pollock 2004). Community colleges that have early college programs with local high schools also provide faculty with an excellent chance to connect with future students.

Particularly important to adult students is feedback from instructors, especially for those students who have been away from the classroom for a few years or had difficulty in prior learning experiences. Many lack con-fidence in their academic abilities, do not have support outside the college, and need reassurance. These stu-dents want stronger connections with faculty and more feedback than just that of graded assignments. They want clear expectations. Adult students do not want “busy work;” they want to know that what they are learning is related to the course material and their out-side lives. “Instructors who can articulate the learning outcomes of their courses and relate them to broader degree program objectives are typically very respected by adult learners (Berling 2013).

Nontraditional students may also face problems with notetaking, test taking, reading textbooks, time manage-ment, and teacher expectations (MacDonald 2018). These issues can lead to an additional problem, as many stu-dents “perceive seeking help as an admission that they are not ‘cut out’ for college, and still others seek it out too late in the semester to turn their grades around” (ideas42 n.d.). As such, they may face an additional burden of finding a support network of mentors, role models, and advisors on their own. Without these connections, these students may make decisions that adversely affect their education (Fishman Ludgate, and Tutak 2017). In addi-tion, evidence shows that “students may underestimate the amount of study time needed to pass classes and have difficulty balancing their schoolwork with everyday ob-ligations like work, family, and friendships.”

Faculty interaction with students can come in many forms. Faculty want to get to know students, and stu-dent office visits are among the most positive of student behaviors. Even a consistent faculty presence and par-ticipation online are important to online students (Du-berstein 2009). “Studies have shown significant effects on non-traditional learners that positive, frequent in-volvement from instructors and advisors has on student efficacy, perception, satisfaction, motivation to learn, and thus retention” (MacDonald 2018).

Missed ConnectionsEven the best laid plans to connect students and faculty can face setbacks, but these issues can be addressed to better support students. Building connections to col-lege services will help ease student reluctance to seek help. A 2006 NISOD Innovation Abstract found faculty members at Austin Community College (ACC) reporting they were unaware of available student services even though the services had been promoted via multiple means, including departmental websites, emails, and newsletters. As a result, ACC Library Services “decided to promote existing student resources to faculty con-sistently and comprehensively in one online location” ( Jones 2016). The focus was to help faculty embrace available resources to help students clear fail points, and a “Faculty Teaching Toolbox” was created to list available resources for faculty. Eventually, a “Student Learning Success Toolbox” was created to help to link services such as counseling, Blackboard, tutoring, library, and the like. Additional platforms helped with goal setting, time management, notetaking, and more ( Jones 2016).

We can believe we are reaching out to students yet can still improve our work. While I was a vice president at a small community college, we created a Women’s Re-source Center, in recognition not only of the percentage of women attending classes but also to address the unique challenges many of them face while in college. During one semester, our director told me she had gotten to know a student who often came to the center for encouragement and support. The student was an adult single mom who had made the decision to attempt college later in her life.



She was apprehensive and decided to take a single class in her first semester to see if she was able to be success-ful in her endeavor. She came to the center several times over the course of the semester, filling the director in on her progress. At the end of the semester, she came in and proudly declared that she had passed her class with a C and knew she could be successful in college. She then made a statement that stunned our director. “You know, I think if I could have afforded the book for my class, I think I could have gotten a B” (Kevin Pollock).

A major difficulty facing community colleges is their inability to provide comprehensive advising for all students. There are, at times, hundreds of students for every advisor or counselor. According to Bailey (2017): “college intake and advising often consist of a brief face-to-face or online orientation and a short meeting (not always mandatory) with an advisor, focused on regis-tering for the first semester’s courses. Most colleges do not provide an organized process to help students form long-term goals and design an academic program to achieve those goals” (4). Community college students increasingly have shifting educational goals, the ability to stop out, and often enroll part-time; therefore, it un-derstandable that colleges may have difficulty trying to monitor the progress of these students. Community col-leges must find a way to address advising issues as they build student success plans to consistently and more effectively reach students.

Good BeginningsCampus tours and open houses provide students with the ability to get comfortable with a college campus, explore their passions, start plotting career paths, learn about financial aid, check out student organizations, and perhaps meet faculty and alumni. They can get a real feel for the college and the campus and start to make initial connections that can help them after they start classes. For the college, it is a chance to impress the student, not only with their facilities, but with their people. Friendly and caring staff and faculty can make students feel sup-ported, and they can be the initial connections for many who might have issues and concerns later.

Connections need to go beyond the traditional methods of gathering information and sending letters and information to students to attract them to a college. Phone calls, texts, and emails are nice, but it is import-ant to lead students to a specific outcome and put them on a pathway at the college. These connections need to be part of a strongly organized plan that continually finds ways to connect the student to the campus. They must engage and make the student feel welcome and a viable part of the campus community. The opportunities to make mundane touch points special are everywhere: open houses, placement testing, and, especially, orienta-tions and advising appointments. As noted by Fishman, Ludgate and Tutak (2017), “Registering for courses, se-curing financial aid, developing study skills, master-ing difficult course material, students must overcome a wide variety of obstacles on the path to graduation. Student services that are effectively targeted and deliv-ered in a timely fashion can do much to help students along and produce better outcomes” (8).

Orientation is an excellent opportunity to connect students and their families to the campus, faculty, and support services. “Research shows that orientation ser-vices lead to higher student satisfaction, greater use of student support services, and improved retention of at-risk students” (Center for Community College Student Engagement 2012). A solid orientation provides a stu-dent with an introduction to the college’s support ser-vices, the college’s academic support network, and the utilization of additional services, such as the library. Ori-entation usually also connects a student with an advi-sor, who helps them select their initial courses and sets them on the path toward their long-term plans. Orien-tation should be mandatory, and, if possible, be held on the college campus. Due to COVID-19, this is not always possible. While it is difficult to replicate the on-campus experience when orientation is hosted virtually, there are still ways to engage students.

Orientation can be a single event that lasts for a couple of hours, or it can be built into a student success course that lasts an entire semester. This type of course “helps students build knowledge and skills essential in college, from study and time management skills to



awareness of campus facilities and support services. Research indicates that students who complete these courses are more likely to complete other courses, earn better grades, have higher overall GPAs and obtain de-grees.” In addition, students who participate in first-year experience programs “demonstrate more positive relationships with faculty, greater knowledge and use of campus resources, more involvement in campus ac-tivities, and better time management skills” than those non-participating students (Center for Community College Student Engagement 2012). According to Mac-Donald (2018): “Mandatory freshman seminar courses have been on the rise because of their success. Approx-imately 94 percent of all postsecondary schools offer a seminar course.”

Connections to RelationshipsThere are other methods to connect faculty and staff to students. A Project Futures research student at Portland State University and local community colleges (Miller, Blakeslee, and Hope 2018) tested evidence-based men-toring strategies with underserved students. To better connect students, Project Futures introduced Campus Champions, which combined peer mentoring plus ac-cess to trained faculty and staff, providing a “uniquely accessible network of support” for students. Campus Champions are motivated faculty and staff who volun-teered as point people to provide support to under-rep-resented students, especially those who lacked a sense of familiarity or belonging on campus. Students were better connected to tutoring and homework help, ac-ademic advising, financial aid, student groups such as LGBTQ and cultural centers, disability services, and counseling (Miller, Blakeslee, and Hope 2018).

There are numerous other methods to build an engaged campus and connect students to the commu-nity college. According to Campus Compact (2018), “[S]ervice-learning is identified as one of six high impact activities that promote deep/integrative learning and personal development among both first-year students and seniors. Engagement during the first year yields es-pecially powerful benefits for historically underserved students.” In addition, “[O]ne of the most consistent pre-

dictors of persistence, self-reported learning gains, and GPA is ‘Active Collaborative Learning,’ which includes community-based projects as part of a regular course” (2). However, as noted earlier, Thurmer (2020) points out that the language used to introduce students to these demon-strated HIP benefits can actually disincline them to par-ticipate. SEM recruitment must be able to position these benefits in ways that speak to students where they are.

Students can be actively connected through joining clubs and campus organizations. Such participation al-lows students to find others with similar interests, com-mon causes, or courses of study. Involvement in these groups allows students to create collaborative work experiences, plan activities, and perform community services, all while creating deeper connections to the campus (College of St. Scholastica 2017).

Additional methods of connecting students could be through: special orientations for transfer students; orga-nizing and supporting student interest groups,; summer bridge programs and boot camps; peer-led study groups; increased opportunities for mentoring; and creating one-stop access assistance with finances, registration, and other support services (Mintz 2019).

If community colleges want to make students feel more welcome and supported, while potentially in-creasing student success and completion rates, they must continually find ways to connect students to the campus. Community colleges can continue to grow, adapt, learn from best practices, and find new methods to connect with students. The benefits to those students will last a lifetime.

Relationships in a New NormalWankel (2020) asserts that “we do traditional learners well.” However, she asks, “What about the non-tradi-tional learners, the new normal in higher education?” The academy has historically dictated the terms of col-lege programs—the requirements, the deadlines, the use of the credit hour and the semester. What we have enshrined in the academy may no longer meet the needs of students with multiple lives outside their educational programs. The pendulum may be shifting to the stu-dents who make up the increasingly diverse tapestry



of our collegiate institutions to determine what their education will look like. Wankel says students are in-creasingly declaring that what they want is, “Just in time. Just enough. Just for me.” Flexible scheduling, “bite-size” credentials, such as badges and stackable cer-tificates that build toward a degree, fit those phrases. These approaches were around before the pandemic, but COVID-19 may be accelerating their adoption as much as it is disrupting what we’ve always done.

In many respects, COVID-19 has certainly acceler-ated what was already happening in instruction. Higher education responded with remarkable speed and effi-ciency in the face of a global pandemic, pivoting to fully online education—something the academy would never have envisioned possible in January 2020. Students on many campuses—especially those with lives beyond college—have long clamored for online programs, while institutions have cited challenges—and costs—of tech-nology and training faculty. Faculty have too often been a major source of the resistance, and that has often sty-mied online program development. Still, before the pan-demic, online education had been making headway on many campuses—even flagship campuses—and some undergraduate and graduate programs are being offered entirely online.

Although there were technology and faculty training issues evident in the spring of 2020, institutions—and faculty—can no longer claim that online is too difficult or too expensive or not good enough. Online opportu-nities will only grow moving forward. Scott Galloway, a Stern School professor at New York University, said, “Now everyone’s learning what tools, technologies, and tricks work. You need to be more animated online. You need to force the students to turn on their cameras; you need to see their faces more; you need to hold them ac-countable…. There’s going to be a better variety of tools…Zoom times ten” (Walsh 2020).

While faculty concentrated on improving Zoom techniques, colleges and universities, in their rush to bring students back to campus, may have given more emphasis to the tools of teaching and less to the impor-tance of relationships. “Community is what students seek when they attend college in person” (Gessen 2020).

In that spirit of community, colleges and universities should be actively involving students to ensure they are safe and have the connections that will help them feel they belong. “Instead, they are treating them alter-nately as clients and as children, people to be pleased or managed” (Gessen 2020). Wayne Frederick, president of Howard University, agreed: “We have to involve and engage them in the process” (Harris 2020).

However, when the University of North Carolina’s flagship campus in Chapel Hill abruptly pivoted to on-line-only classes eight days after reopening, student leaders expressed dismay that administrators had ig-nored the concerns they had raised repeatedly through four months of planning meetings. “There was a con-sensus among all student leaders who were involved…that remote learning was the best and only option,” a senior student leader told NBC News (Wong 2020).

This experience and those on other campuses whose reopening plans were upended with early COVID-19 out-break clusters suggest that campus leaders ignored some significant tenets that should guide enrollment plan-ning. We sometimes say that data tell stories that raise issues that need solutions. Data in a pandemic certainly raise issues, but the solutions chosen to meet them may not have been the best for a “new normal.” The lead-ership of campuses in crisis may need to consider the role of the SEM community face: it puts students at the forefront (as all of these leaders have professed they do) but also suggests that in building relationships, students themselves may have new solutions to suggest.

Our backgrounds and experiences have a major impact on how we as faculty, staff, and administrators build connections and form relationships with our stu-dents. Unless those backgrounds and experiences are continually refreshed with information about our stu-dents’ circumstances, they can become biases that build barriers to understanding.

When I do workshops for faculty on connecting with stu-dents, I focus on challenges that first generation students face in college: Without family “college knowledge,” they have no reference for navigating social and cultural issues of college, let alone financial and academic ones. During



one of these workshops, a faculty member put up his hand and asked, “Do we have a lot of these students?” I turned to the dean, who was in the audience, and said, “Well, Dean, I think the figure for first gen students is about 40%.” “That’s right,” he confirmed. “Oh, my gosh,” cried the professor, “I’m going to have to change everything about how I teach!” When I told my campus liaisons about this, they were dis-missive of the faculty member: “Oh, we know who that was.” I had to interrupt: “Wait a minute. He came up to me after the workshop and told me he had been a fifth generation college student, and this had been a revelation to him. He genuinely was interested in changing his approach. The university needs to support this self-recognition of bias by better communication and even education of faculty about who your students are. Without that information, he will fall back on his own experience and biases” (Stan Henderson).

The process of “continually refreshing” our own ex-periences with new information leads to more creative approaches to solving problems. SEM’s community face of connections and relationships is a tool that invites students to bring fresh eyes to challenges every day. Could more reliance on relations with student leaders have led to more creative approaches to safe re-open-ings beyond just including them in meetings? Could students who wanted to be in “bubbles” of safe practice have helped to expand learning communities beyond a residential experience into academic engagement with “pods” that offered classes in smaller segments than the traditional sixteen week semester? Would a sense of belonging, as well as the practice of safety, have de-veloped more readily if students were living with the same students they were taking classes with? This could have given the campus more flexibility in scheduling for safety of students in the pods if infections spiked in other parts of campus. And more flexible curricular choices such as badges, the “bite-size” academic units that can be stacked to form programs, could have given students more academic options in the COVID-19 world. This could be seen as somewhat analogous to Colorado College’s (n.d.) well-established “block” approach.

The power of community as a provider of connec-tions and builder of relationships fosters the collab-

orative nature of SEM. As the University of Michigan planned for partial reopening, administrators at the Dearborn and Flint campuses asked their students for help in achieving a safe environment. Students, in turn, created a student pledge built around mask wearing, so-cial/physical distancing, and practicing good hygiene. It ended with a call to all students to engage in some-thing larger than themselves, modeling what one does in a community: “For Me, For You, Go Safe, Go Blue.” (University of Michigan-Dearborn 2020). This may have contributed to positive enrollment outcomes in the fall semester; the Dearborn campus managed to maintain flat freshman enrollment, while the state’s fifteen pub-lic universities’ overall freshman numbers declined an average 7.4 percent (French 2020).

The pandemic could actually strengthen the role of relationships in SEM. In doing so, SEM professionals will be increasingly positioned as enterprise leaders with the responsibility of bringing data to the table to support creative solutions of scheduling, curriculum, and sup-port that will connect students to the campus—virtual or otherwise.

Colleges and universities, Vowell (2020) writes, are where “large quantities of random adults are thrown together and made to coexist for years on end: the bud-get-minded, the lightly parented, the formerly incar-cerated, the downsized, the underestimated, veterans, refugees, late bloomers, single moms, divorced dads, Bible thumpers, empty nesters, your swankier hicks, Mormons who didn’t get into Brigham Young University and a hodgepodge of souls who are working toward…a fair chance at a decent life.” This is the tapestry of Amer-ican higher education today—the new normal is already reflected in who our students are. As SEM professionals we have a responsibility to these students to think beyond mere transactional services to develop connections to our campuses that, in turn, will develop into relationships to support their success. We must listen to what they tell us about their needs and be willing to design new ways of doing old jobs in partnership with them. As one wise stu-dent said of the future of higher education in the summer of 2020, “[W]hy try to make things as they were before when the world isn’t as it was before?” (Gessen 2020).



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About the AuthorsStanley E. Henderson

Stanley E. Henderson retired from the Univer-sity of Michigan-Dear-born where he served

as Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management and Student Life from 2005–2015. In that role, he provided lead-ership to campus enrollment efforts that resulted in record enrollment and cham-pioned a spirit of community to grow student engagement to new levels.

Henderson has long been a national leader in developing new models for universities to better recruit and retain students. His leadership in designing an enrollment facility at the University of Cin-cinnati helped to create a widely studied model of one-stop service and integrated recruitment and retention delivery.

He served as associate provost for enrollment management at the Univer-

sity of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign from 2003–2005 and as associate vice pres-ident for enrollment management at the University of Cincinnati from 1995 to 2003. Previously, he was director of enrollment management and admis-sions at Western Michigan University and director of admissions at Wichita State University. His roots in enrollment began as an admissions counselor at Michigan State University in 1970–1971.

He also has been deeply involved at the national level of AACRAO, where he served as the association’s first vice pres-ident for enrollment management in 1991–93 and as president in 1995–96. He was a founder of the association’s national SEM Conference, now in its 30th year. He is a frequent contributor to AACRAO publica-tions, including the first history of enroll-ment management, as well as a frequent

presenter at state, regional, and national levels. He is also a recipient of the Distin-guished Service Award and the Founders Award for Leadership. In 2014, AACRAO presented Henderson a Lifetime Achieve-ment Award for “Outstanding Leadership in the SEM Profession” and awarded him Honorary Membership in 2015. He contin-ues to serve the association as a senior consultant for AACRAO Consulting.

Henderson earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Michigan State University in 1969 as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and a master’s degree in government from Cornell University in 1971. He also completed course work in the doctoral program at the Univer-sity of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.

Kevin Pollock

Kevin Pollock, Ph.D., is President at Central Car-olina Technical College and an AACRAO Senior

Consultant. Prior to these roles, he served as the fifth president of Montgomery County Community College. Dr. Pollock has more than 38 years of education experience at four-year private and public colleges as well as community colleges. His diverse roles include college admin-istration, strategic planning, leadership,

and enrollment management. He is a national expert on student success mod-els, a frequent national speaker who has spoken more than 130 times at confer-ences and colleges, and has authored more than 20 book chapters and articles.

At Montgomery County Community College, Dr. Pollock where he oversaw the implementation of a new core curric-ulum and the creation of pathways for all college programs. During his tenure, the college created a new vision, mission, and

strategic plan, and updated its brand and marketing strategies. The college imple-mented an integrated holistic advising approach, developed through the Gates Foundation iPass grants. In addition, the college enhanced its student success models by creating short-term enrollment goals, moving to a virtual bookstore plat-form, and creating a 24 x 7 tutoring model.

Before arriving at Montgomery County Community College, Dr. Pollock served as president of St. Clair County Com-

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munity College in Port Huron, Michigan, from 2009–2016. During his tenure, the institution experienced record enroll-ment, embarked on new student suc-cess initiatives, created early and middle college programs, increased its grant funding, became a leader in green ini-tiatives, and strengthened its connec-tions with the community. The institution

also adopted a new vision, mission and data informed strategic plan, that was tied to national best practices.

Prior to assuming a presidential role, he spent nine years as vice pres-ident of student services at West Shore Community College in Scott-ville, Michigan. He also held a number of leadership roles in admissions and

recruitment, and he taught middle and high school English early in his career.

Dr. Pollock holds a Ph.D. in Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education from Michigan State University and a Mas-ter of Arts in Education and Bach-elor of Science in Education from Central Michigan University.



The Coming of Age of Data Analytics in Higher EducationBy Reid Kisling, Andrew Peterson and Robert Nisbet

“Marley was dead: to begin with…. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.”

—CHARLES DICKENS, “A CHRISTMAS CAROL,” 1843

So it is with data analytics in higher education. One thing must be clearly understood before analytics can provide much benefit: institutions must change the way they view and use their data. This paradigm shift in thinking is absolutely necessary, or nothing good in the long term will come from efforts to develop analytical applications in higher education.

The purpose of this article is to describe that para-digm shift and to serve as a primer for those who hav-en’t explored yet the power of data analytics to support institutional strategic enrollment management (SEM) efforts. A cursory review of core SEM resources will reveal that data is foundationally important to organiza-tional decision-making and planning (Hossler and Bon-

trager 2014; Sigler 2017). However, institutional leaders are continuously challenged by the advent of new tools for data analytics and how to use them effectively for SEM planning and goals.

During the last 20 years, data analytics applications have been created in schools, usually in “digital sand-boxes,” to show the power of analytics in educational operations. A particular use case for higher education has been student retention, given the ability of analytics applications to unearth patterns of behavior that are not possible through standard means of data analysis. These patterns serve as a proxy for how students act (and per-haps think) in a given context. Yet, data analytics has been limited in many ways to these basic patterns of behavior.

Development of a synergy between the application of data analytics in education and the psychology of in-struction in our schools and colleges is underway. The ability to tap into this synergy and put analytics to use in educational operations requires a change in how an institution views and manages its data. The traditional


Data analytics is undergoing an evolution through effective data use to support both operational and learning analytics models. However, this evolution will require that institutional leaders transform their data systems to best support the needs of application modeling and use their intuition to help drive the development of better analytical models for the future.



view of data in most schools is organized around archi-val and business purposes. A fundamental shift in this view is necessary to unlock the vast potential of the school’s database to permit data-driven planning and decision-making.

To facilitate this paradigm shift, this article will ex-plore:

˺ The evolution of education psychol-ogy during the last 100 years;

˺ The rise of data analytics in education;

˺ Current predictive analytics applications in education;

˺ The pressing need to apply data analytics in education and how to do it.

The Evolution of Educational PsychologyTo understand the impact that data analytics has gen-erated in education, it is critical to understand the pro-gression in psychology and technology that has led to its development. Instructional design still requires a theoretical base and the craft of educational technology (Sawyer 2014). The historical phases in the development of instructional psychology over the past 100 years have moved from behaviorism characterizing educational theory to that of cognitivism and then to constructiv-ism. This transition in educational theory is marked by an initial emphasis on overt behavior patterns (Tomic 1993), followed by a shift in focus to covert cognitive algorithms, and then to subjective perception ( Jenkins 2000). The precision of behaviorism, the formalization of cognitivism, and the dynamics of constructivism condition the educational designer’s focus to bear on the key aspects for instruction related to each phase.

Paradigms for Educational DataCross-currents in educational psychology began early in the 20th century with the behaviorist learning par-adigm, which provoked studies based on cognition. The study of behavior as habitual responses to specific stimuli was the dominant science for education until the 1980s. It produced programmed instruction with

an emphasis on immediate correct responses. When key experiments began to show the inadequacy of psy-chology without the concept of “mind,” educational researchers and practitioners became serious about including the logical protocols of thinking as part of learning. While the inability to directly observe some-one’s thought processes resulted in its study being re-jected in the past by materialistic science, the necessity of hypothetical constructs like cognition became clear. Even for prediction and control with humans, aspects of a learner’s thinking pattern became necessary to cap-ture and analyze.

At the time of the transition of the mainstream to cognitive psychology, computer science advances led to the suggestion of artificial intelligence. The idea of mimicking human thinking patterns became the model for designing information processing methodologies in every aspect of general psychology in the 1980s. But like behaviorism and despite the incorporation of internal constructs relating to human thinking, it remained a rather mechanistic approach; the concepts of insight, curiosity, challenge, etc., were still absent. Educational leaders in philosophy, psychology, and business were not satisfied with the lack of these concepts in education planning for the future. These developments laid the groundwork for the application of machine learning technology to educational psychology in the 21st century.

Beginning in the 1970s, Hubert Dreyfus at UC Berke-ley continued to challenge the assumptions and con-clusions from the AI researchers at MIT, Stanford, and elsewhere. With his analysis from What Computers Can’t Do (Dreyfus 1972) still on the table, he yearned for ed-ucation with more insight and action as one moved from novice to beginner to expert status. Another scholar who moved from behaviorism and cognitivism to constructivism was Omar K. Moore of Yale and the University of Pittsburgh. He was convinced by Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem that a strictly behavioristic model was impossible. Based on a combination of in-sights from sociology, psychology and logic, he executed a 20-year research program to study the best environ-ments for learning, including much interaction and data collection and analysis (Moore 1971; 1980).



Moore’s four principles about learning (learning should be productive, include multiple perspectives, be personalized, and autotelic) represent various quality measures of the educational process. These quality mea-sures can then be used to characterize various learning environments, but quantitative studies are needed to find non-intuitive patterns in the data sets. Data ana-lytics in education can add metrics to this qualitative approach. Analytical classroom applications in online and on-campus venues can be used in many ways to promote the development of personalized instruction programs, similar to the development of personalized medical practices (Miner, et al. 2015).

The Rise of Data Analytics in EducationData analytics is a broad category that includes any ap-plication that distinguishes patterns in data sets, which can be used to guide management operations in an or-ganization. Data analytics in any field today begins with the “three Vs”: volume, velocity, and variety. Powered by the unrelenting Moore’s Law of increasing computing power year to year, the volume, velocity, and variety of data processing operations are rapidly increasing. The largest volumes of business data consume petabytes (1,000 terabytes) for all the records, transactions, and tables in an organization like Google. Velocity is in-creasing rapidly in all modes, by batch, near time, real time, and in streams. Academic data sets can be com-posed of a variety of data types, structured into tables, in unstructured text, and in semi-structured forms. Academic data analytic applications expose profile pat-terns that can be used to answer important business and educational questions.

The Three Vs Plus TwoIn addition to the “three Vs” of increasing volume, ve-locity, and variety of data produced by “big data” oper-ations, value is also important, along with the concept of “very interdisciplinary.”

˺ Volume — This part of the data dynamic refers to the size of electronic storage forms, measured in multiple terabyte- or petabyte- class data, motivat-

ing the use of such highly parallel next-generation data management technologies as MapReduce, Ha-doop, and NoSQL that can be used on much, much cheaper hardware.

˺ Variety — Big data goes beyond numbers in rela-tional databases, a.k.a. “structured data.” Such “un-structured” data sources include web search log files, tweets, call center transcripts, telecom messages, email, and data from sensor networks, video, and photographs. The multi-structured nature of big data in part accounts for its large volume and often high degree of “messiness” and “noisiness.”

˺ Velocity — Because much of it emanates from sen-sors, web search logs, real-time feeds, or mobile de-vices, very large data sets are generated continuously, particularly in online organizations at a very fast rate (e.g., Google).

˺ Value — Delivery on strategic goals for the organiza-tion regarding the very positive impact on revenue.

˺ Very Interdisciplinary — The effective use of analyt-ical applications requires a team with diverse capa-bilities and expertise. A fully functional team might include these competencies: business consultants, subject matter experts (SMEs), educational technol-ogists, statisticians, and database programmers.

Education at Apple: The Synthesis of Instruction and Descriptive AnalyticsAs a practitioner and business expert at Apple from the Silicon Valley, John Couch embraced a proactive learner approach with emphases of challenge, collabo-ration, and context. He operationalized the insights of Dreyfus and Moore into the development of the Apple Education ecosystem (Couch and Towne 2018; Peter-son 2017). With both computer technology and con-structivist education philosophy, Apple created tools (i.e., the user interface) that combined an effective com-munication capacity with normal computer operations. Contemporary predictive analytics combines similar elements of user intuition plus machine learning pro-cessing. Thus, predictive analytics operations can com-port well with constructivist educational psychology,



including immersive learning with interactive online social simulations.

The Apple Education ecosystem provides a form of data analytics that is descriptive, not predictive. Charts, graphs, tables, and trends are composed from the instructional data to guide instructor’s evaluation of student progress. The greater need, however, is use-ful information gleaned from analytical operations to predict various outcomes in the educational process and prescribe appropriate actions based on the predictions.

It is very common to find that some of the most important predictor variables in analytical models are those that the analyst derived from existing variables, based on intuition and business domain expertise. The two dominant development paths in modern predictive analytics are automation and incorporation of human thinking and intuition. These development paths appear to be contradictory, but in practice, elements of both must be included in future analytical applications.

Predictive Analytics in EducationThe descriptive analytics capabilities of the Apple Ed-ucation ecosystem are useful to provide information to answer the “what” category of questions. These de-scriptive applications are suitable for a starting point, but they beg more profound questions about “how well” and “when” things happen. Predictive analytics (PA) in education includes applications of two forms: (1) op-erational analytics (e.g., student retention and donor development); and (2) learning analytics (student per-formance in the learning environment). Operational an-alytics applications are focused on the business aspects of the school while learning analytics applications are focused on optimizing success in educational activities (i.e., instructional effectiveness, student performance).

Operational AnalyticsAlmost all of the early operational analytics applica-tions in schools and colleges addressed student reten-tion (Manyanga, Sithole, and Hansen 2017). The authors recount the descriptive modeling activities for student retention as beginning in the 1970s, but the first predic-tive analytics models didn’t appear until 2010.

By 2015, Western Seminary recognized that they had a problem with student retention. Recognition of this problem led to developing a proof-of-concept an-alytics model for student retention in 2015 to explore the extent of student attrition (“churn”) in the past and predict student churn rates in the future. Analysis of the past decade of data showed that as many as 80 per-cent of Western students in degree-granting programs left the school without completing a degree (defined as student churn). This loss of students, the income they represent, and the lack of program continuation toward completion of students’ intended goals constituted a major problem for the school. Based on model results that revealed some important predictive factors of stu-dent churn, interdiction strategies were introduced (e.g., increase in the number of points of student contact) to reduce the churn rate.

The student churn model was updated in a 2019 study supported by the In Trust Center for Theological Schools. Results of this study showed that the student churn rate had decreased from about 80 percent in 2015 to 49 percent in 2019. The interdiction strategies put in place during the previous four years worked. This study also showed the power of text analysis by identifying an important predictor variable as the presence to the word “probation” in the text of a comment field in the student database (something that the authors believe had not happened to date in retention analytics studies). The information in this database field was available to any staff who might see and read it, but it was not avail-able to the analytics algorithm until text mining data preparation was performed to tag it as a candidate pre-dictor variable. The increases in opportunities to serve many more students with degrees in those programs and the increase in student revenue were very signifi-cant, and they were crucial to maintaining the ongoing educational operations of Western Seminary.

Education costs in the United States have increased faster than health care costs. The average college student debt load stands currently at about $29,800, but some students amass nearly a quarter of a million dollars in educational costs (Hess 2019). Simultaneously, most schools are under greater scrutiny to document success



levels in the workplace to justify the high cost of edu-cation. Parents and students are becoming increasingly focused on relating the high cost of tuition to clear results. Despite the provision of significant government funding in education, it is possible that an education

“bubble” will burst soon, similar to what happened with the tech bubble in 2000 and the housing bubble in 2008, and many schools may have to close. The results of the COVID-19 pandemic may be precipitating this effect now, as Gordon College in Massachusetts announced that it would reduce its tuition cost for the 2021–22 ac-ademic year by 33 percent (Gordon College 2020). Thus, efficiencies must be provided to maximize student re-tention to ensure the survival of academic programs and as revenue protection measures. Data analytics provides the means to achieve this goal. This current new focus in education parallels the perceived needs in business that led to the development during the last 20 years of customer relationship management (CRM) applications for customer acquisition, retention, and purchasing growth. Education must follow the lead of business to optimize efficiencies in operations activities ranging from strategy formation to performance growth to eval-uation of benefits.

Student retention studies like these represent the “low-hanging fruit” of opportunities in schools and col-leges to leverage predictive analytics’ power to provide immediate and tangible benefits to the institution. Suc-cesses like these in operational analytics set the stage for the application of predictive analytics to the educational learning process itself, known as “learning analytics.”

Learning AnalyticsLearning analytics (LA) is a rapidly developing appli-cation of predictive analytics that focuses on analyzing data gathered from classroom instruction activities to predict outcomes related to instructional effectiveness and student performance. LA models can be applied to answer questions related to the effectiveness of various instructional activities. Analysts can search through prepared data sets to find critical patterns to help them formulate new instruction plans that include appro-priate feedback to promote student success. Progress

in instruction can be monitored and amplified with proper interventions at an appropriate time based on analytical results. Analytical models in LA can be ap-plied to provide patterns and relationships specific to and can enhance education at all levels, ages, and ven-ues in conjunction with faculty input.

It is important to understand the potential oppor-tunities and limitations of applying LA models. One potential benefit of LA is that it can provide a more per-sonalized and sustainable instruction model than can be offered by traditional means. For example, an “en-gagement index” can be applied and used to assess and monitor the effects of increasing the number of student touch points. The explosion of online learning provides a rich venue for the development of such data analytics applications. LA can also be applied to predict student performance, based on various predictive factors.

Many of the early models in Learning Analytics (LA) were performed in India and Eastern Europe. Most LA student performance models classified performance into groups, often just pass vs. fail. Prior statistical re-gression models performed poorly, possibly because the data sets used violated one or more of the assumptions implicit in regression theory (particularly, the assump-tion of a linear nature of data relationships). One of the earliest classification models of student performance was performed by Osmanbegović and Suljic (2012) for University of Tuzla students in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This model predicted whether a student in a business informatics class would pass or fail using three ma-chine learning algorithms: Naïve Bayes (overall accu-racy = 77 percent), a C4.5 decision tree algorithm (overall accuracy = 74 percent) and an artificial neural network algorithm (accuracy = 71 percent). The most important predictor variables among the models included GPA, entrance exam score, diversity of study notes materi-als (including notes of other students), and the average weekly number of hours devoted to study. The predic-tive effects of GPA and of the entrance exam scores are rather intuitive. The finding that showed the impor-tance of the proper use of study materials is logical, but it may not be immediately intuitive in the minds of school administrators. Such non-intuitive predictor



variables can be used to guide the development of in-terdiction programs with faculty, designed to increase levels of performance for students at risk of failing.

The Pressing Need to Apply Data Analytics in Education and How to Do ItThe sharply rising costs of education (including the cost of student attrition) and the current constraints on college operations posed by the COVID-19 pandemic pose massive challenges to school administrators. New ways must be crafted to meet these challenges, and many of them require the input of information gained from data analytics operations. Operational analytics modeling operations for student retention and even donor development offer a large potential to assure the financial survival of the school. Millions of dollars have been retained for Western Seminary by reducing the student churn rate from 80 percent to 49 percent in four years, based on results of two student churn models. Without those monies, the school might very well have had to close its doors. Learning analytics op-erations can provide critical information to optimize the learning environment and student performance in it. Student performance models can illustrate key prac-tices of successful students to increase the performance of other students. While operational analytics must be data-driven to optimize the business operations of the college, learning analytics must be competency-driven to succeed in moving the “center of gravity” of student performance upward. As students learn more, they will find greater success in the job market and recognize the great worth of the educational system based on analyt-ics that provided it.

Database Systems in Education to Serve AnalyticsDatabase systems in schools and colleges were devel-oped in the past to serve two primary purposes: (1) as a repository for general student records (including grades and other educational activities); and (2) to support ac-counting systems (financial and records of program completion). It has only been in recent years that insti-

tutions have begun collecting and maintaining broader records of student engagement (i.e., CRM activity, learn-ing management system [LMS] assessments). The origi-nal purposes defined the way database structures were designed and may have restrictions due to hardware space limitations (including memory cost in past years).

In addition to natural limitations that existed in the past (and may still undergird the structures of today’s applications), these older data structures were designed to track information about specific student programs re-sulting in granting a degree rather than to track general information about a given student. For example, a stu-dent who has elected to suspend an academic program for financial or family reasons will “stop out.” Many students incur many stop-outs in their programs while some students enroll in sequential degree programs (e.g., M.S. and Ph.D). The result of multiple programs is to add multiple records to the database for a given student ID.

Information from these multiple records for a given student is currently composed of reports generated with Structured Query Language (SQL) reporting pro-grams. To support PA efforts, information accessed by these programs could be collected together to form a master student table, with one row per student. This new student table is analogous to the customer table in a business, composed of many line items of information in the accounting tables. The student ID can function as a relational key in the student table to point to records in other tables of the database containing information specific to a given student ID.

In the Western Seminary In Trust project, the num-ber of stop-outs for a given student was a significant predictor. This number represents a value that could be calculated and stored as a field in the master stu-dent table from where it is immediately available for analysis by a modeling algorithm. However, in many of our institutional data systems, such predictor variables for PA models are not stored but must be compiled separately to support PA efforts. Many other fields like this could be added to the student record to facilitate analysis. Table 1 shows a typical student courses table.

For analytical purposes, the information in multi-ple records for the same student must be aggregated



or combined mathematically to yield values in multiple fields of the same record. If this data preparation is not done, it must be done every time a new model is built. Indeed, data preparation is the most time consuming part of PA efforts. Table 2 shows a combined student ana-lytical record, which is much more suitable for use by data analytics modeling algorithms.

Information in the student ana-lytical record table can be updated each night, and be available for use on the next day, based on informa-tion present in the student courses table. Some of our institutions have begun utilizing data warehouses that store data that can be used for PA purposes, while many such data warehouses are simply storage struc-tures for historical summary data useful for trend analysis. In this way, the student analytical table is dependent upon the stu-dent courses table. The diversity of information related to students may require multiple tables to be populated with data aggregated or computed from other tables in the academic database. These tables will contain keys to link them together with each other, but not with the tables in the main student records database. Such a multiple table data structure is called a dependent an-alytical data mart.

IBM SPSS Modeler, SAS Enterprise Miner, Rapid Insight, and KNIME analytical packages include data preparation nodes that can easily integrate data inputs from multiple tables in the dependent analytical data mart, without impacting response time on the main student records system. This independence is complete when the analytical data mart is dedicated to a sepa-rate database server, updated each night automatically through the institutional network.

The required paradigm shift in thinking by student database managers requires a shift from the previous

focus on student data as input for search and reporting purposes to a new focus on provision of data for an-alytical purposes. Sometimes, these two purposes run counter to each other. Therefore, search-and-retrieval and reporting operations can be dedicated to one com-puter system optimized for those purposes. In addition, a separate computer system with its separate analytical data structures can be optimized to serve analytical needs.

The “Last Mile” in Deployment of Data Analytics Systems in EducationAcademic data must be adequately prepared; as much as 90 percent of the project time will be spent in data access, data integration, data cleansing, and other data preparation jobs before modeling operations can even begin (Nisbet, Miner, and Yale 2017). These data prepa-ration operations can be performed automatically in the dependent analytical data mart operations to provide input information for data integration tasks in analytical modeling operations. This change in data infrastructure

TABLE 1 ➤ Typical Student Courses Table in a Traditional Student Records Database

RecordID StudentID Degree Term CourseID Grade StopOut

1 1 M.S. F2017 3 A

2 1 M.S. W2018 7 B

3 1 M.S. S2018 6 A

4 1 M.S. F2018 4 C

5 1 M.S. W2019 12 B

6 1 Yes

7 1 Ph.D. S2019 23 B

8 1 Ph.D. F2019 34 A

9 1 Ph.D. W2020 41 A

10 2 Ph.D. F2019 3 A

11 2 Ph.D. W2020 9 B

12 2 Ph.D. S2020 15 A

TABLE 2 ➤ An Example of a Student Analytical Record Table, Suitable for Use by Modeling Algorithms

StudentID Degree1 Degree2 GPA1 GPA2 #StopOuts

1 M.S. Ph.D. 3.20 3.66 1

2 Ph.D. 3.66 0



constitutes the “last mile” in the data pathway (anal-ogous to the “last mile” in a telecommunications net-work). Those “last mile” implementation problems in deployment can kill a project in any organization, par-ticularly in a higher education institution. Many busi-ness models just sit on the shelf because they can’t be implemented in the ongoing business operations of a company. We must approach developing a data analytics capability in a school as a system, not just as a group of individual processes. These processes will almost never work together unless their needs and feeds are coor-dinated together as a system in the overall planning process before the individual processes begin.

Summary and ProspectData analytics has proven to provide valuable informa-tion to administrators for increasing student retention and increasingly to instructors to improve the learning environment. Analytical applications have been applied successfully to other nonprofit organizations to drive donor development operations; they can benefit aca-demic organizations as well. There are, however, few examples of donor development models in higher edu-cation. Organizations like the American Red Cross and the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) have used data analytics for more than 20 years to increase donation receipts. The University of California at Irvine includes a PVA data set to train data scientists in the Acceler-ated Certificate Program in the Division of Continuing Education.

The development of database systems optimized to support analytical operations is a crucial factor for suc-cess in developing analytical applications in education. Otherwise, modeling operations will be very cumber-some and inefficient. This inefficiency will augur poorly for the application of data analytics in many areas of operation. Academic and enrollment data managers must shift their focus to view data, not just a record of student achievement but also as a source for data analytical operations. This paradigm shift may spawn the development of a dependent analytical data mart to provide input data efficiently for analytical purposes.

Despite the importance of data analytics in edu-cation, the human element provided by educational administrators and faculty is critically important in an educational program to assure that graduates are prepared properly for their future job responsibili-ties. Schools must provide learning environments that are tuned more closely to specific human needs and perceptions of students. Such an operation to match student expectations with academic results is very sim-ilar to the use of recommendation models by Netflix and Amazon Prime Video for matching past viewings to probable future viewings by a customer. Successful graduates compose the only end result that will assure program sustainability in education.

Improvements in student recruitment, achieve-ment, and retention can greatly improve the financial viability of an institution. Increased personal contacts can enhance the degree to which students engage their educational program to facilitate learning. Increased engagement of donors driven by patterns learned in analytical studies can greatly influence giving behav-ior leading to increased giving receipts. Data analytics, when planned and executed properly, can be one of the most cost-effective means to achieve those ends. These analyses can generate significant increases in the quality and quantity of the learning process in schools and colleges.

As SEM professionals seek to support efforts for improved planning and mission fulfillment across the institution, it is incumbent upon these leaders to be-come conversant in the language of predictive analytics so that these models can indeed be used to refine and support institutional SEM plans. SEM professionals may think that they must possess all of the skills of a data scientist, but this isn’t necessary (Henke, Levine, and McInerney 2018). Instead, SEM leaders would do well to begin with a cursory understanding of these issues and develop the ability to help others with deeper analytic capabilities translate institutional data and intuition into actionable models to benefit their institutions.



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About the AuthorsReid Kisling

Reid Kisling, Ph.D., is cur-rently the Vice-President of Student Development

and Chief Information and Effectiveness Officer at Western Seminary, Portland,

OR. Reid received a Ph.D. in Organiza-tional Leadership from Regent University.

Andrew Peterson

Andrew Peterson, Ph.D., is Vice-President for Educa-tional Innovation and

Global Outreach at Western Seminary, Portland, OR. Andy received a Ph.D. in

Educational Technology from the Univer-sity of Pittsburgh.

Robert Nisbet

Robert Nisbet, Ph.D., is a retired data sci-entist who has written many books in the field

of data analytics. Bob continues as an Instructor in the Predictive Analytics Certificate Program at UC Irvine teach-ing the Applications of Predictive Ana-

lytics and Effective Data Preparation courses in the program. Bob received his Ph.D. in Ecosystem Analysis and Mod-eling from Arizona State University.

http://hbr-org.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/hbr.org/amp/2018/02/you-dont-have-to-be-a-data-scientist-to-fill-this-must-have-analytics-role




http://cnbc.com/2019/05/20/how-much-the-average-student-loan-borrower-owes-when-they-graduate.html




http://gordon.edu/gamechange



The Relationship Between Institutional Budget Models And Graduate Strategic Enrollment Management StructuresBy Joseph H. Paris, Matthew Birnbaum, and Nicholas Dix

Hundreds of U.S. institutions of higher education started 2020 under significant financial pressures to operate with a balanced budget and the ability to meet their stra-tegic goals. While the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these pressures (Butrymowicz and D’Amato 2020), for the past decade, many public universities experienced declining state appropriation revenue ( Jaquette 2019; Li 2017; Mitchell, Leachman, and Masterson 2016), and undergraduate and international student enrollments (Smalley 2020). These realities have required institutions to consider difficult financial, organizational, and per-sonnel decisions (Butrymowicz and D’Amato 2020; Gei-ger 2010; Li 2017) and seek alternative sources of revenue ( Jaquette 2019). As the population of traditional-aged undergraduate students declines at an accelerating

rate (Grawe 2018), greater emphasis is being placed on strategies for increasing graduate and professional stu-dent enrollments and tuition revenue (Barr and Turner 2013; Jaquette 2019). As institutions pursue these reve-nue streams, there is an increased need to understand the role and function of graduate strategic enrollment management (SEM) and how its principles are informed by and work in conjunction with institutional budget models. This article provides a primer on common in-stitutional budget models and the potential implications of these models on graduate SEM. It was written with three primary audiences in mind: administrators who work in graduate SEM or related areas; faculty members involved in graduate admissions; and graduate students engaged in academic research or similar pursuits.

GR AD AND PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS

Graduate strategic enrollment management (SEM) professionals must become fluent in the mechanics of their institution’s budget model in order to better understand how graduate enrollment headcount and tuition revenue translate into the resources that power the institution and fortify it to withstand a potentially uncertain future. This article provides a primer on common institutional budget models and the potential implications of these models on graduate SEM.



Graduate Enrollment ManagementEnrollment management practices began in the late 1980s as an attempt to predict matriculation rates for incoming undergraduate classes (Hossler and Bontrager 2014; Kalsbeek 2006). It has since evolved to include a strategic philosophy and comprehensive framework for identifying, recruiting, and yielding an undergraduate class with high predictors of academic success and de-fined characteristics that align with an institutional mis-sion (Hossler and Bontrager 2014; Kalsbeek 2006). Over the past decade, institutions have attempted to apply similar practices to graduate education, resulting in the development of graduate enrollment management.

Graduate SEM considers the graduate student life-cycle, from pre-admission through the student experi-ence, graduation, and alumni engagement (Pavlik 2015; Williams 2008). Although graduate and undergraduate SEM share similar underlying principles, there are sub-stantial differences between undergraduate and grad-uate students. Graduate SEM encompasses strategies designed to address the diverse educational objectives of prospective and current graduate students and, there-fore, requires distinct financial resources in order to maximize these outcomes.

One of the differences between graduate and un-dergraduate SEM is the approach to tuition discount-ing. Graduate SEM traditionally involves the financial support of graduate students through assistantships, fellowships, and other awards intended to enhance the affordability of graduate education. Unlike undergradu-ate merit-based and need-based scholarships and grants, these sources of financial support often require recip-ients to complete administrative, teaching, or research responsibilities in exchange for the benefits associated with the award (principally tuition remission, a living stipend, and health benefits). While the objectives of offering tuition discounts to graduate and undergradu-ate students are similar, the requirements and benefits associated with graduate tuition discounts differ sub-stantially from those offered to prospective undergrad-uate students.

Graduate SEM models vary substantially across and within institutions due to differences in the size of the graduate student population and resources available to support graduate SEM functions (Diminnie 2012; Mi-chel, et al. 2019; Williams 2008). Additionally, graduate SEM structures are influenced by organizational culture and the overall role graduate programs have in support-ing the enrollment process, the institutional mission, and its financial vitality (Williams 2008). Further, the prominence of graduate education often is related to institutional typology. For example, institutions with high research productivity may place greater empha-sis on graduate education as an institutional priority compared to institutions that focus on undergraduate teaching and training. Each of these factors and institu-tional characteristics influence graduate SEM structures.

Although SEM is commonly a function of a grad-uate school or centralized graduate admissions office, decisions about graduate enrollments tend to be more decentralized as opposed to the typical centralized un-dergraduate admissions model (Diminnie 2012; Kent and McCarthy 2016; Michel, et al. 2019; Orfield 2014; Williams 2008). These differences are in part due to the need to ensure graduate admissions applicants possess the discipline-specific qualifications and characteristics required for success in their chosen field (Diminnie 2012; Posselt 2016). Therefore, faculty are central to the graduate admission decision-making process. An implication of this is that graduate SEM practitioners within graduate schools or centralized graduate admis-sions offices need to develop and maintain relationships with academic units. Further, in most decentralized graduate SEM models, academic schools, colleges, or departments have primary responsibility for managing enrollment headcount and tuition revenue. Regard-less of the model employed by a particular institution, there are inherent relationships between graduate SEM practices and institutional budget models. Successful graduate enrollment managers understand the effec-tive practice of SEM strategies and its components (e.g., recruitment, marketing, tuition discounting), and the



mechanics of the budget model and resource allocation process at their institution.

Institutional Budget ModelsInstitutional budget models can be understood as ex-isting on a continuum; centralized budget models exist at one end, and decentralized models exist at the other. In centralized budget models, central administration allocates financial resources and directs financial de-cision-making processes. In decentralized models, aca-demic schools and colleges receive financial resources, allocate resources to central administration through a formula, and generally make autonomous financial de-cisions. Many institutions use hybrid models that fall somewhere on the continuum. The extent to which a budget model is centralized or decentralized generally depends on an institution’s size and organizational com-plexity and how it intends to deploy financial resources to attain strategic goals. How these models work is also subject to the whims of decision-makers who have dis-cretionary powers outside the stated model.

Previous studies have considered institutional bud-geting in the context of undergraduate enrollment man-agement (e.g., Brown and Gross 2014; Jaquette, Kramer, and Curs 2018). Fewer have been written about how

graduate SEM is shaped by institutional budget models. The need for this understanding is of particular impor-tance given the variability of graduate SEM structures (Connor, LaFave, and Balayan 2014; Williams 2008) and institutional budget model characteristics (Lasher and Greene 2001). This article addresses the aforementioned gap in understanding and informs readers about the re-lationship between their respective institution’s budget model and graduate SEM.

Common Budget Models in Higher EducationThis section describes common budget models as they are conceptualized in higher education finance. How-ever, these models are infrequently adopted and imple-mented in pure form (Barr and McClellan 2018) because informal relationships, strong personalities, and tech-nological barriers exist across all campuses. Additionally, these models are shaped by external factors, historic and institutional traditions, and often unwritten agreements. Most commonly, institutions select the components and principles of budget models that align most closely with their mission and values. As presented in Table 1, incre-mental budgeting is the dominant centralized budget model and responsibility center management (RCM) is

TABLE 1 ➤ Percentage of Budget Models Used by Institutional Sector1

Budget Model Used(2010–2011 Academic Year)

Performance- Based Incremental Revenue

Center Mgmt.Zero-Based Budgeting

All Institutions 19.6 60.2 14.2 30.0

Public Institutions 21.0 59.3 11.8 25.6

Doctoral Universities 25.5 78.7 21.3 00.0

Master’s Institutions 19.6 73.8 8.9 16.1

Baccalaureate Colleges 17.2 72.4 20.7 13.8

Associate/Community Colleges 20.8 47.4 8.7 37.6

Private/Non-Profit Institutions 18.2 62.3 17.1 33.2

Doctoral Universities 24.0 56.0 48.0 20.0

Master’s Institutions 14.8 71.6 12.3 25.9

Baccalaureate Colleges 19.1 58.4 15.2 37.6

1 Adapted from Green, Jaschik, and Lederman (2011). Percentages may exceed 100% as some institutions employ a combination of budget models.



the dominant decentralized budget model maintained by higher education institutions.

Performance-Based BudgetingPerformance-based budget models, also referred to as formula funding and outcomes-based budgeting, use specified criteria and performance metrics to determine the allocation of resources. While more commonly implemented at the statewide level for public appro-priations (Barr and McClellan 2018; Jones, et al. 2017), at the institutional level, performance-based budget-ing has utility as a transparent, efficient centralized model for administering across-the-board allocations of resources. If properly designed and implemented, performance-based budget models can be effective in refocusing institutional priorities, meeting institutional goals, and promoting the attainment of outcomes such as graduate degree completion. Institutional perfor-mance-based models yield the greatest results when unit-level metrics are strategically aligned with insti-tutional priorities.

Many states use performance-based budgeting to incentivize specific outcomes, simplify the budget de-velopment process, and allow for institutional level planning. Since states use varying metrics to define and measure performance, models vary considerably across states ( Jones, et al. 2017). We include this in our primer because state formula budget models that include grad-

uate student input (e.g., enrollment headcount) and out-put (e.g., degree conferrals) metrics will impact graduate SEM at institutions within those states. For example, Tennessee’s outcomes-based funding formula includes metrics for graduate degree completion (Rosinger, et al. 2020). Therefore, graduate SEM professionals working at institutions in states such as Tennessee might de-velop strategies to maximize the enrollment of graduate students with the greatest likelihood of degree com-pletion. Table 2 presents an example of the effects of a state-level formula budget model on a hypothetical public university.

In this example, the institution received $1,000 per FTE graduate student, $100 per graduate credit hour generated, and $10,000 per graduate degree conferred. The formula rewards institutions that graduate a high percentage of the graduate students it enrolls. It there-fore incentivizes institutions to admit students with a high probability of completing a graduate degree. This model, and its associated incentives, serves as an ex-ample of the levers state departments of higher edu-cation use to increase the number of graduate degree conferrals. Other funding models may incentivize FTE headcounts more than graduation rates, resulting in different institutional responses.

At the institutional level, performance-based bud-get models can serve as powerful tools for rewarding productivity and the attainment of mission-driven

TABLE 2 ➤ Example of the Effects of an Outcomes-Based Funding Model on GEM University1

Metric Rate OutcomeOutcomes-Based Revenue for GEM

University

Percentage of Total Appropriations for Fiscal Year

Graduate Enrollment by Headcount $1,000 per FTE23,000 FTE2

graduates enrolled$3,000,000 for graduate FTE2

1.5

Graduate Enrollment by Credit Hour$100 per graduate

credit hour

36,000 graduate credit hours generated

$3,600,000 for graduate credit hours

0.5

Graduate Degree Completion$10,000 per

graduate degree completed

340 graduate degrees completed

$3,400,000 for graduate degree

completion6.5

1 Adapted from Barr and McClellan (2018). 2 FTE = Full-time equivalent.



outcomes. Advocates of these models believe they are rational, transparent, and remove politics from deci-sion-making. However, these models may also reproduce existing structural inequities in which well-resourced units are better equipped to achieve greater perfor-mance and, therefore, receive the corresponding incen-tives. Graduate SEM professionals in institutions with performance-based budget models should pay atten-tion to how adjustments to performance metrics may affect available resources for graduate SEM. In perfor-mance-based budgetary environments, graduate SEM professionals require an understanding of how graduate student enrollment headcount, graduate tuition reve-nue, graduate degree conferrals, and graduate student retention rates serve as measures used to assess per-formance at the central and unit levels. An increase in one or more of these measures may result in increased resource allocations. Conversely, a decrease in one or more of these metrics may result in financial pressures for the institution, especially if the attainment of these measures is directly tied to the level of state appropria-tions provided to a public university.

Those involved in graduate SEM at institutions with formula or performance-based budget models should consider the following questions:

˺ Does my institution’s budget model include per-formance metrics that incentivize specific grad-uate student inputs (e.g., enrollment headcount, credit hours) and outcomes (e.g., graduate degree conferrals)? If so, what strategies can be devel-oped to maximize performance based on these metrics? How can a centralized graduate school or graduate admissions office collaborate effec-tively with academic colleges, schools, depart-ments, and programs to maximize performance?

˺ Is my institution’s budget model driven by indi-cators of graduate student quality (e.g., academic quality, diversity, talent, ability)? If so, what strategies can be developed to maximize the quality of the graduate student body?

˺ What happens if a unit or department does not meet a performance metric? How will this affect

the availability of resources in the short-term (i.e., current fiscal year) or long-term (i.e., subse-quent fiscal years)?

Incremental BudgetingIncremental budgeting relies on small changes based on the budget of the previous fiscal year (Barr and Mc-Clellan 2018). A fundamental assumption of incremental budgeting is that institutional priorities and the op-portunities that exist in the broader marketplace are stable, thus providing a basis by which predictions can be made with reasonable accuracy. However, in times of uncertainty, incremental budgeting may limit respon-siveness to changes to institutional priorities, market conditions, or emerging opportunities (Barr and Mc-Clellan 2018).

Institutions with incremental budget models may be challenged to respond to rapid changes in the mar-ketplace. For example, institutions may experience dif-ficulty responding to unexpected increases in operating expenditures or decreased revenue due to a pandemic. In addition, the more fluid nature of the graduate ad-missions process presents unique challenges to the in-cremental budget planning process because it does not account for changes in future enrollments and revenues. Incremental budgeting places added pressure on grad-uate SEM as a critical anchor to bolster undergraduate enrollment shortfalls or to balance an increase in unan-ticipated expenses. Therefore, the nature of incremental budgeting, in its purest form, provides minimal incen-tives for exceeding enrollment goals.

Those involved in graduate SEM at an institution with an incremental budget model should consider the following questions:

˺ How have marketplace trends or strategic oppor-tunities been accounted for in the development of my institution’s budget?

˺ How does my institution incentivize program growth and entrepreneurial activities?

˺ How does my institution allocate resources in support of graduate SEM functions?



Responsibility Center ManagementThe previous models discussed in this article generally apply to institutions with centralized organizational structures in which financial decisions are made by central administration and financial resources are allo-cated by central administration to the academic colleges, schools, and departments. Responsibility center man-agement (RCM), also commonly referred to as revenue center management, is a decentralized budget model that shifts responsibility for financial decision-making from central administration to “revenue centers.” Rev-enue centers are commonly individual academic units such as academic colleges, schools, or departments within a larger university structure. Under RCM, reve-nue centers are allocated a portion of the revenue they generate as a means of incentivizing entrepreneurial activities and strategies.

Given that there is often less centralized control at the graduate and professional levels, in RCM environ-ments, revenue centers often employ SEM professionals who develop and implement strategies and tactics to achieve student enrollment headcount and net tuition revenue goals (Paris 2020). These SEM professionals fre-quently work within a “local” context in which they are responsible for building sustainable enrollments for a particular academic college, school, department, or program. SEM professionals embedded within revenue centers have the advantage of tailoring strategies to a specific set of academic programs and aligning these strategies with the underlying value propositions of each program. In theory, RCM affords revenue centers the decision-making authority to respond swiftly to changes in the marketplace. However, SEM profession-als in RCM environments must also work within a set of constraints: a limited range of academic program of-ferings, uneven distribution of graduate SEM resources across revenue centers, and internal competition for resources (principally credit hours) that can thwart in-terdisciplinary collaboration.

Those involved in graduate SEM at an institution with a RCM budget model should consider the follow-ing questions:

˺ How do revenue centers engage in coordinated efforts to attain institution-wide graduate en-rollment and tuition revenue goals (e.g., devel-opment of interdisciplinary academic programs) or are GEM practices fragmented and academic program centric?

˺ How are revenue centers resourced to effectively manage graduate enrollments and tuition reve-nue?

˺ To what extent are graduate SEM practices aligned with the broader institutional mission or the “localized” mission of each revenue center?

Zero-Based BudgetingZero-based budgeting can be applied in both central-ized and decentralized organizational structures. This model has one prevailing notion: each item in the bud-get must be justified when the budget is being devel-oped. In other words, no program, initiative, or service is assumed to continue from one fiscal year to the next (Barr and McClellan 2018). Given its start-from-scratch underpinnings, zero-based budgeting may invoke anx-iety regarding program or service discontinuation. Therefore, not only do SEM professionals play a central role in ensuring robust enrollments, but in quelling fears that essential services in support of students may be suspended or discontinued. Conversely, a strength of zero-based budgeting is the close linkages between institutional priorities and planned allocations of the financial resources to support these priorities. Unlike incremental budgeting, the rebuilding of zero-based budgets is time and labor intensive and often only ap-plies to small academic and administrative units (Barr and McClellan 2018).

SEM professionals should be aware of zero-based budgeting because the model may result in substantial fluctuations in the allocation of resources that support specific programs and services. Fundamental to ze-ro-based budgeting is the concept of return on invest-ment (ROI), which ties resource allocation to outcomes. Graduate SEM professionals should understand how the institution calculates the ROI on the resources allocated



to support the graduate SEM functions of each unit (Paris 2016). The calculation of ROI can be challenging because (1) the expenditures and returns often are not directly linked; (2) while expenditures are easily quan-tified, important educational outcomes are not. SEM professionals at institutions using zero-based budgeting should understand the need to justify each dollar allo-cation and be prepared to lose resources if the return is deemed inadequate.

Those involved in graduate SEM at an institution with a zero-based budget model should consider the following questions:

˺ How are institutional priorities and planned allocations of financial resources linked to an-nual enrollment headcount and tuition revenue goals?

˺ How is the relationship between graduate en-rollment and tuition revenue metrics related to the financial stability of programs and services?

˺ What tools, resources, or data are available to demonstrate efficiency and return on invest-ment?

DiscussionPresented in Table 3 is a four quadrant matrix that high-lights potential attributes and considerations based on the level of centralization inherent in budget models and graduate SEM structures.

The historic reliance on undergraduate tuition rev-enue has resulted in many institutions developing ro-bust undergraduate enrollment management models. However, the declining enrollment of traditional-aged undergraduate students has placed greater focus on graduate enrollment as a means of ensuring fiscal sus-tainability. As institutions turn to graduate education to balance their budgets, those responsible for graduate education may experience increasing pressure to imple-ment SEM practices. However, they are likely to become

TABLE 3 ➤ Attributes of Institutional Budget Models and Graduate SEM Structures, by Level of Centralization

Budget ModelGraduate SEM Structure

Centralized Decentralized

Centralized

▶ Provides greatest alignment between senior leadership’s interpretation of university mission, overall graduate enrollment goals, and budget model principles

▶ Maximizes financial decision making authority at the university level

▶ Supports the influence of graduate SEM on university decisions that may affect graduate education

▶ Promotes expedient reallocation of resources toward specific priorities and emerging opportunities

▶ Separates university decision making and service delivery at the “local” level

▶ Provides minimal alignment between senior leadership’s interpretation of university mission, unit level graduate enrollment goals, and budget model principles

▶ Supports minimal influence on decision making at the university level, particularly on decisions that may affect graduate education

▶ Limits expedient reallocation of resources toward strategic priorities at the “local” level

Decentralized

▶ This model may exist in limited institutional settings. Given the nature of this model, graduate SEM structures are likely to exist both at the central (e.g., Graduate School) and Academic Unit (college, school, department) levels. In pure form, this model is unlikely to function effectively in meeting institutional goals due to the misalignment between financial decision making authority and the graduate SEM structures necessary to generate financial resources at the academic unit level.

▶ Provides greatest alignment between primary financial decision making authority and the strategic priorities of the academic units within which graduate SEM functions. These priorities are not always the same as university priorities.

▶ Misaligns university decisions (e.g., setting tuition prices) with the strategic priorities at the academic unit level. This misalignment may present specific challenges for graduate SEM.



frustrated if they do not believe they have the access to the resources necessary to do so. Because access to resources is dependent on the principles of a budget model, it is critical for graduate SEM practitioners to understand the relationship between these principles and the resources available to support the execution of graduate SEM strategies.

The matrix we present illustrates four possible quad-rants connecting budgets and graduate SEM structures based on the centralization or decentralization of these models. Institutions rarely fit into a single quadrant, as few institutions implement a discrete budget model nor a fully centralized or decentralized graduate SEM structure. The size and scope of graduate education at any specific institution requires it to adopt budget and graduate SEM models to meet particular objectives and needs. Large and complex institutions with high num-bers of graduate programs are more likely to have de-centralized budget models and graduate SEM structures. Conversely, small institutions with fewer graduate pro-grams are more likely to have centralized budget models and graduate SEM structures.

As noted in the matrix above, institutions with a decentralized budget model and centralized graduate SEM structure may experience problems because of competing priorities that arise between academic units and the centralized graduate SEM unit (e.g., graduate school or graduate admissions). In this configuration, academic units are responsible for revenue generation and establishing their own priorities, yet are dependent upon the performance of a centralized graduate SEM unit that provides administrative and technical support and conducts prospective student outreach. However, the centralized graduate SEM unit does not bear the financial responsibility for the attainment of enroll-ment goals. Further, the centralized graduate SEM unit may lack the resources and “local knowledge” of the academic programs for which they recruit prospective graduate students.

A centralized budget model and decentralized grad-uate SEM structure also presents specific challenges. This arrangement may seem attractive to institutional leaders because it keeps perceived costs lower by limit-

ing the need for a large centralized graduate SEM unit. However, it results in the delegation of many graduate SEM functions to academic units that may not have access to the data, technology, personnel, and the fi-nancial resources needed to effectively execute enroll-ment management strategies. This may also result in the duplication of graduate SEM efforts among numerous academic units.

It may be tempting for institutional leaders to be-lieve that developing graduate SEM structures similar to undergraduate enrollment management models will yield comparable results. However, some budget models may not support centralized graduate SEM structures. For example, RCM models are best aligned with decen-tralized graduate SEM structures as revenue generating activities are incentivized at the academic unit level. Further, graduate SEM relies on close working relation-ships and collaboration between administrators and graduate faculty members to meet goals (Posselt 2016).

Conclusion and Advice for PractitionersThis article concludes with some further context to the ideas we presented. Individuals new to graduate SEM must become competent in the skills and language of the profession. Mastering these competencies is not enough to be successful because their application oc-curs within a budgeting model. Budget models exist within an organizational context and institutional cul-ture. As strategic enrollment management has evolved, each subsequent approach promises better solutions to complicated problems if only the end users can adopt them quickly (or at least faster than their competitors) and identify the proper level of resources needed to exe-cute them effectively. Increasingly, these approaches ask decision-makers to believe in rational decision-making informed by data. Practitioners familiar with campuses, perhaps especially in matters related to graduate educa-tion, know that data are rarely current enough, accurate enough, or robust enough to convince everyone of the proper rational decision to a given problem. They also know that campus leaders frequently make decisions that seem rational from their perspective but not nec-



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essarily to those who are actually tasked with carrying out the decision.

The existing financial pressures on institutions are likely to persist for the foreseeable future. Woodard and von Destinon (2000) suggest that “no one budgeting model is sufficient to meet the changing financial land-scape and shifting needs of higher education” (p. 336). Even if an institution perfects and fully integrates its GEM model and budgeting system, managing graduate enrollments presents challenges. For example, if cam-pus leaders had forewarning of COVID-19, there are lim-

ited and constrained actions that could have reasonably been taken to ensure adequate graduate enrollments.

Overall, GEM professionals should remain prepared to make the case for the support of graduate education and the potential it could have in addressing declining undergraduate student enrollments. Understanding the opportunities and challenges presented by the type of budget model an institution maintains allows GEM and related professionals to develop strategies designed to generate new resources necessary to support the stra-tegic needs of the organization.

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About the AuthorsJoseph H. Paris

Joseph H. Paris, Ed.D., is an Assistant Profes-sor of Higher Educa-tion in the Department

of Policy, Organizational, and Leader-

ship Studies at Temple University. His research and professional interests include test optional admissions, insti-tutional finance, and college access and student success. He holds a Doc-

tor of Education in Higher Education Leadership from Temple University and a Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Matthew Birnbaum

Matthew Birnbaum, Ph.D., is a Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs Leadership in the

Department of Leadership, Policy, and

Development at the University of North-ern Colorado. His research and profes-sional interests include student affairs and higher education leadership. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Higher Educa-

tion from the University of Arizona and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Colorado College.

Nicholas Dix

Nicholas Dix is a Ph.D. student in the Higher Edu-cation and Student Affairs Leadership program,

and a graduate enrollment professional

at the University of Northern Colorado. His research and professional interests include college student success and the analysis of current trends in higher edu-cation. He holds a Master of Science in

Management from Colorado State Univer-sity and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and Government from Illinois State University.

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