How to Speak SEM-ese
The Challenge of Getting Everyone on the
Same Enrollment Page
Stanley E. Henderson
University of Michigan-Dearborn
MACRAO 2014 Annual Conference
November 5, 2014
Introducing Stanley Henderson
•
Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management and Student Life, University of
Michigan-Dearborn since 2005
•
Began in Admissions at Michigan State in 1970, went on to Wichita State, Western
Michigan, University of Cincinnati, University of Illinois
•
AACRAO’s first VP for Enrollment Management (1990); President (1995-96);
Distinguished Service Award (2007), Founders Award for Leadership (2008)
•
Co-founder of SEM conference in 1991 (one of only three people to have attended
every SEM); wrote first history of SEM; most quoted on the “Academic Context” of
SEM; SEM Lifetime Achievement Award (2014)
•
BA from Michigan State, MA from Cornell, doctoral course work at Illinois
•
Once called “Dad to 9000 students.” Ask anything about US Presidents!
SEM“SEM-ese”
Planning Model
How to Speak
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Participant Interests
1. Understand SEM, learn strategies, how to communicate SEM, how
my office fits in, best practices, building buy-in, new ideas for
enrollment planning (20 individuals)
2. Professional development, networking (3)
3. Learn more about MACRAO (1)
4. Specific topics: Veterans, equity, demographics, data, research
sources (3)
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SEM-ese is like Chinese: 4 Definitions for Each
Character, Depending on the Inflection
1. While those of us in Enrollment Management are speaking from
the SEM text, which brings insight to enrollment issues and offers
significant assistance, including leveraging existing staff...
2. It would be the rare enrollment manager who had never thought
about how there always seems to be an academic solution to
every problem on campus
3. Provosts, deans, and the faculty all see issues through an
academic lens and formulate resolutions on their terms without
regard for—or even inclusion of—others’ perspectives
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The Result: The Academic Tower of
Enrollment Babel
1. Academic departments hire new advisors or staff that will
continue to do what hasn’t worked
2. Faculty design new programs that will attract the few while
ignoring SEM’s sure winners and insisting that “Admissions should
visit high schools!”
3. Academic policies seek maximum penalties instead of teachable
moments for offenses students don’t understand
4. Deans and chairs ignore the role their actions have played in
enrollment shortfalls and expect SEM practitioners to fix things
they were excluded from in the first place
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Listen and Forget; Do and Understand
1. I long ago gave up trying to translate SEM-ese word for word for
academic units and the Faculty Senate
2. Now I look for how to facilitate the practice of SEM:
– When the Provost supports a new college for health programs
because of the enrollments they will bring
– When the deans see themselves able to effect their
enrollments in collaboration with Enrollment Management,
not just on their own
– When the campus changes policies students tell us are
barriers to enrollment rather than academic standards
– When the campus believes everyone is responsible for
enrollment and student success…
3. …That’s when I know the campus is starting to live SEM
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But First, We Need the Tools
1. We need to know SEM-ese
1. The history
2. The context
3. The theory
4. The template
5. The Plan
6. The Practice
2. We also need to infuse some concepts into “our” language
1. Service
2. Collaboration
3. Culture
4. Partnerships
5. Community
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The History
Historically, over the last 40 years…
As a concept, Enrollment
Management was born in the
early 1970s at Boston College
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EM in the 1980s was marked by…
•
The growing research & theories of student departure (retention)
•
The 1980s enrollment crisis in higher education
•
The emerging sensitivity to marketing in student recruitment & in higher
education generally
•
A focus on the traditional full-time undergraduate students
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EM in the 1990s was marked by…
•
An emphasis on integrating financial aid, pricing, and net revenue
planning
•
Inclusion of adult, part-time, & graduate enrollments
•
The explosion of information technology
•
Increasing and changing competition
•
A mushrooming consulting industry
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Merging Theory (1980s) and Practice (1990s)…
•
As a professional literature, Enrollment Management emerged in the
1980s
•
As a professional practice, Enrollment Management evolved in the mid1990s
•
In the new millennium, Enrollment Management is evolving as a strategic
component of institutional planning….
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Enrollment Management is just now coming of
age….
•
Over the first decade + of the new millennium, what is the new emphasis
in Enrollment Management?
• Programs and services designed with intentionality, purpose,
integration of effort, service efficiency, and positive interventions with
students
• Integrated cross-campus collaborations and partnerships between
faculty, administrators, and staff
• Use of assessment and information-driven decision making
• Understanding how campus cultures impact enrollment management
efforts
• Importance of shared leadership at multiple levels
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The Context
Redefining Higher Ed
Industrial Age
1. Teaching franchise
2. Information infrastructure as a
support tool
3. Separate learning systems
4. Silos
5. Bureaucratic systems
6. Rigid pre-designed processes
Information Age
1. Learning franchise
2. Information infrastructure as
instrument of transformation
3. Fused learning systems
4. Big tent
5. Self-informing, self-correcting
systems
6. Families of transactions
customized to needs of
learners, faculty, staff
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Consider Elements of Campus Culture
•
Pervasive attitude to not be content to
rest on past success
•
Sense of inclusiveness on the part of all
members of the campus community as
opposed to just an institution
•
A strongly held sense of mission that
recognizes the campus as “distinctive” or
“special.” “The people are special.”
SEM Planning Model
A Matter of Culture and Leadership: Student Success in State Colleges and Universities, AASCU, 2005
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Unpacking Culture – Setting High Expectations
A culture of high expectations is a culture of mutual expectations.
– Student success is up to students. Set high expectations for students.
“People don’t rise to low expectations.”
– We cannot just hold students to high standards. We must also do everything
in our power to provide them with the support they need to succeed and to
build students’ sense of personal responsibility for their achievement.
– Leaders need to set high targets for faculty and staff performance. They
need to set targets that actually can be met, provide support and example
to meet them, then raise the bar another notch.
A culture that succeeds like this is always in dynamic balance.
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A Matter of Culture and Leadership: Student Success in State Colleges and Universities, AASCU, 2005
Enrollment Management is an Institutional
Balancing Act
•
Meeting Enrollment Goals
•
Improving Quality
•
Increasing Diversity
•
Ensuring Access and Affordability
•
Increasing Net Tuition Revenue
•
Increasing Retention & Graduation Rates
•
Improving Student Learning Outcomes
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What Impacts the EM Environment?
•
Demographic shifts
•
Changing economics of higher education
•
The public policy and the legal environment
•
The changing competition
•
The “Information Age”
•
The “Communication Age”
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The Theory
The Academic Context of Enrollment
Management
What is SEM?
Strategic enrollment management
is a concept and process that enables the fulfillment of
institutional mission and students’ educational goals.
Bob Bontrager
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CONCEPTS AND GOALS
What’s Behind SEM?
Concept: Determining, achieving, maintaining optimum enrollment
•
Goal: Stabilize enrollment
Concept: Better student access, transition, and persistence
•
Goal: Reduce vulnerability to environment
Concept: Supporting the delivery of effective academic programs
•
Goal: Link academic programs and SEM
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CONCEPTS and GOALS
The SEM Foundation
Concept: Generating additional net revenue
•
Goal: Stabilize finances
Concept: Enabling effective financial planning
•
Goal: Optimize resources
Concept: Increasing process and organizational efficiency
•
Goal: Improve quality
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CONCEPTS and GOALS
SEM at Work
Concept: Improving service levels to all stakeholders
•
Goal: Improve services
Concept: Creating data-rich environment
•
Goal: Evaluate strategies and tactics
Concept: Building linkages with functions across campus
•
Goal: Improve access to information
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What SEM is Not
•
Not a quick fix
•
Not all about structure
•
Not glorified admissions and marketing
•
Not function that operates separately from academic mission of the
institution
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Concentration on Structure
•
Bringing offices together to accomplish a more purposeful approach to
enrollment
•
Maguire’s “Grand design” to bring independent offices into common
purpose
•
“I had them report to you because I didn’t want them reporting to me”
•
Building a structure for structure in Cincinnati
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Structure as Development
•
The “marching millions” committee
•
The “let’s-give-the-director-of-admissions-something-more-to-do”
coordinator
•
The “conflict avoidance” matrix
•
The “now-we’re-serious” division
•
Structure based on difficulty of campus change
• Kemerer, Baldridge, and Green, 1982
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Change Models
•
EM organizations develop according to the urgency of the need for
change
• Stable enrollments yield incremental change, probably through a
committee
• A crisis with plummeting enrollments might bring a new division
Hossler, 1986
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Taking the Easy Road
•
Structure gives a sense of false reality
•
Steering committees, planning groups, working groups become
the embodiment of SEM
•
Easier to concentrate on structure than to deal with the really
hard work of staying in touch with the academic context
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STRATEGIC Enrollment Management
•
Comprehensive process
•
Achieving and maintaining optimal recruitment, retention, and
graduation rates
•
Optimum defined in academic context
•
Institution-wide process that touches every aspect of
institutional function and culture
•
Academics are an umbrella concept
• M. Dolence, 1993
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Theory: Through the Academic Lens
Enrollment Informed by the Academic
Mindset
•
When structure gets in the way, an academically centered institution will
look for other paths besides structural change
•
Faculty view is consensus building and collaboration
•
Why change structure if another way is found?
•
Reaching the goal is the key, not the structure
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The Ideal Structure Grows From Academic
Context
•
DePaul model of cradle to endowment, literally, with pre-college
programs leading to traditional enrollment units, to career services, and
alumni/development affairs under an umbrella of marketing and branding
•
Faculty view: Grew out of the academic needs and context of the
institution
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Looking at SEM From the Academic
Perspective
•
West Shore Community College sought faculty buy-in by identifying
faculty needs and ideas. Result: From an institution that provides
instruction to one that exists to produce learning
•
University of Missouri at Kansas City went after all the right people and
used them to develop an incentive plan for growing colleges to enhance
enrollment while supporting capped enrollment units
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When in the Academy…
•
University of North Carolina at Greensboro deans voted a financial
tax on themselves to support EM after they came to believe they
could not otherwise achieve their academic goals
•
Dickinson College identified EM needs through understanding its
roots, identity, purpose and mission so it could seek students who
were the right fit, meet their expectations, and send them out
sharing the college’s vision as alumni
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Through the Academic Lens Emerges a SEM
Ethos
•
The SEM Ethos is the underlying character and spirit of an institution’s
academic culture
•
The Ethos puts the SEM emphasis back on the academic culture
•
Makes structure the servant, not the master, of enrollment policy and
strategy
•
The academic lens touches every aspect of institutional culture and
function
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Theory: Guiding Principles for the
SEM Ethos
Shared Responsibility
•
If SEM reflects institutional identity, culture, it becomes an
institution-wide strategy owned by each member of the
community
•
No individual or office is responsible for enrollment strategy or
outcomes
•
Each member of community takes responsibility for nurturing SEM
Ethos
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Integrated Institutional Planning
•
As an academic enterprise, SEM can be easily integrated into institutional
planning
•
If it’s academically centered, SEM will be a defining part of institutional
positioning
•
If SEM isn’t part of strategic planning, not much can be accomplished
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Focus on Service
•
In SEM Ethos processes and procedures are more important than
structure
•
Academic foundation dictates business practices
•
Business practices need to be aligned with academic mission
•
Institutions want to test students’ talents in the classroom, not
their patience in navigating institutional business practices
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Students’ Seamless View
•
Students see enrollment as a seamless process, not as a railroad
track with multiple station stops
•
Enrollment is non-stop rather than stop and go (or even one-stop)
•
SEM is a big tent view of student expectations: everything is there,
but they don’t want to touch what they don’t need
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Intuitive Service
•
It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to us: does it make sense to the
students?
•
Why is the student in the institution?
•
The only way he/she stays in school is for an academic reason
•
Retention is academic success
•
Processes and procedures should enhance academic success
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Key Performance Indicators
•
Enrollment managers struggle with notion of KPIs as indices of
institutional health
•
In reality, KPIs are placeholders for institutional values
•
Bodies, not student fit, approach is out of synch with the academic values
of the institution
•
If the enrollment manager has an academic understanding of the place,
KPIs set themselves
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Research and Evaluation
•
With SEM Ethos SEM has to have research and evaluation plan
•
SEM staff are “people people”
•
More and more industry standard is data and research—tools of
the academy
•
SEM units cannot continue to do “feel good” programs that can’t
show support for academic goals
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SEM for the Long Haul
•
SEM is long-term and never finished
•
Academic foundation is fluid; so must SEM be
•
Academic disciplines change with new research, new paradigms,
new interests
•
Changes cannot be instantaneous
•
There needs to be a run up to the take-off point
•
SEM must follow the deliberate path of the long-term academic,
not the quick fix of the repairman
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The SEM Blueprint:
A Refocusing of SEM
The Elusive SEM Template
•
Every enrollment manager wants one
•
We all say it doesn’t exist, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach
•
It’s not very helpful to tell the young enrollment manager that she
has to get to know her institution
•
In fact, the SEM Ethos does provide a template
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Template: Academic Leadership
•
Leadership articulates the strategic academic aspirations, goals, needs,
and strategies of faculty and students
•
If the CEO says, “Enrollment is paramount,” and fails to say, “to the
academic mission,” EM fails
•
All must understand that academic well-being is linked to enrollment
health
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Template: Integrated Planning
•
enrollment management (lower case) is just managing enrollments
•
STRATEGIC Enrollment Management (upper case) happens when SEM unit
planning and strategies are integrated with the institution’s strategic plan,
academic master plan, and its fundamental (academic) mission
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Template: Lateral Communication
•
Top-down communication is necessary to set the tone, but successful
implementation of SEM requires lateral communication across campus
•
SEM needs lateral communication to ensure adherence to the institution’s
academic ethos
•
Colleges to enrollment units and enrollment units to colleges: the
tentacles of an octopus
•
Communication has to become a part of the culture; it has to express the
ethos of the place
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Template: Structure for Participation
•
The institutional academic ethos will set the structure to provide a means
for faculty, staff, and students to contribute to SEM
•
SEM structure grows out of the core of an individual institution; it cannot
be transplanted from institution X or Y
•
The structure cannot be more important than the cultural foundation
itself
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Template: Matching Structure to Mission
•
A community college may have a campus-wide structure
•
The research extensive university may have multiple structures in
academic units
•
The wise enrollment manager will seek to know the academic grounding
of the institution and then seek a structure based on that foundation
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Applying the SEM TEMPLATE
The Faces of SEM
Integrating Structure, Planning,
Leadership, and Community
Structural/Managerial Face of SEM
•
Focuses on the structure and management of those departments and
functions formally charged with achieving the institution’s enrollment
goals
•
SEM decisions focus on optimal resource allocation to achieve enrollment
goals
• Marketing and recruitment priorities
• Need-based versus merit-based FA packaging
• Course offerings and scheduling
• Service efficiency – One-Stop
• Processing of academic policy
• Student intervention initiatives
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Planning Face of SEM
•
Focuses on the outward- and forward-looking at activities that guide the
institution’s pursuit of its preferred future in a constantly changing and
competitive environment
•
Focuses on long-range planning and institution-wide strategy
development
• New curricula & academic programs
• Facilities development and renovation
• Marketing and image campaigns
• Investments in technology
• Pricing decisions
• Retention planning programs (early alert interventions, first year
seminar, learning communities, support services, academic advising,
etc.)
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Leadership Face of SEM
Focuses on leadership as a shared responsibility—occurring at all
levels and deeply embedded in the way the institution works as on
organization on a day-to-day basis
– No silos
– Enabling leadership at multiple levels
– Servant leadership
– Engender trust
– Communicate purpose
– Motivate people
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The Human Face of SEM
1. In an institution, there is always a policy, a rule, a faculty culture,
or an answer
2. In a community, we must look beyond the policies and the history
to find what benefits individual students and the community itself
3. The Community of SEM is about building relationships;
understanding how to create, nurture, and appreciate
relationships will help the enrollment manager to structure, plan,
and lead SEM
4. This is the Human Face of SEM, integrating the other faces into
the Community of SEM that emphasizes Student Success through
services and inclusion in a culture of participation and
contribution
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The Community of SEM…
•
Requires an understanding of the complex dynamics that shape the
university’s culture as well as its enrollment profile
•
Requires a focus not on individual functional and departmental silos but
on the entire enrollment process as service for success
•
Requires keeping the emphasis on student success through the
enrollment continuum
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General
Prospects
Inquiries
Applicants
Depositors
Enrollees
ACTIONS
Specific
Continuing
Students
Graduates
Alumni
Continued Cultivation
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SEM Planning
Recruitment /
Marketing Orientation
Classroom
experience
Co-curricular
support
Degree/goal
attainment
Student’s college career
Admission
Financial
support
Academic
support
Retention
Alumni
Turning the enrollment funnel on its side…..to express progression
forward….and emphasize the multi-dimensional processes that exist.
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Moving from the traditional enrollment
management perspective….
Traditional Enrollment Perspective
Recruitment /
Marketing
Orientation
Classroom
experience
Co-curricular
support
Degree/goal
attainment
Student’s Experiences
Admission
Financial
support
Academic
support
Retention
SEM Planning Model
Alumni
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…to a fully integrated Strategic Enrollment
Management perspective.
The SEM Perspective
Recruitment /
Marketing
Orientation
Classroom
experience
Co-curricular
support
Degree/goal
attainment
Student’s Experiences
Admission
Financial
support
Academic
support
Retention
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Alumni
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Setting Enrollment Goals: The Classic Conundrum
•
All may want better students
•
Administration may want more students
•
Faculty usually want fewer students
•
Departments may be reducing capacity
•
Access vs. Quality
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Important Reminders
• SEM is…
– Mission and niche based
– Subject to organizational history
– Dependent on expertise of available staff
– About collaboration, not org charts
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SEM is a Journey
•
SEM requires systems thinking
•
SEM requires strategic thinking
•
SEM is resource hungry and it is all about ROI
•
SEM is growth by substitution (can’t do it unless you take something
away)
•
SEM Math (2 + 3 = 7)
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The Plan
To Repeat: What is SEM?
Strategic enrollment management is a
concept and process that enables the
fulfillment of institutional mission and
students’ educational goals
Bob Bontrager
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The Purposes of SEM are Achieved by…
•
Establishing clear goals for the number and types of students
needed to fulfill the institutional mission
•
Promoting students’ academic success by improving access,
transition, persistence, and graduation
•
Promoting institutional success by enabling effective strategic and
financial planning
•
Creating a data-rich environment to inform decisions and evaluate
strategies
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The Purposes of SEM are Achieved by…
•
Improving process, organizational and financial efficiency and
outcomes
•
Strengthening communications and marketing with internal and
external stakeholders
•
Increasing collaboration among departments across the campus
to support the enrollment program
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SEM Process Framework
Performed by
Process steps
Align institutional strategic plan with
broad enrollment targets and desired mix of students
Develop action steps, accountability, and metrics
Implement action steps
Monitor progress,
Report results to campus and executive leadership
Mid-course adjustments
New or revised goals
Approve strategic goals and enrollment projection
models
Changes
to goals
Use data and information results to establish
focused goals each for recruitment, retention,
service, etc., and enrollment projection models
Additional requests,
clarifying questions
Data and information gathering and assessment:
Internal culture/ environment, student enrollment
behaviors and scan of external environment
Executive leadership,
SEM Steering Committee
Smaller group of staff and faculty
adept at economics and data use
Goals recommended by SEM Recruitment
and Retention Councils; models developed
by Data Team
Executive leadership,
SEM Steering Committee
SEM councils and sub-committees
Appropriate staff and
faculty departments
SEM Steering Committee,
Chief Enrollment Officer
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SEM Organizational Framework
SEM Steering Committee
Long-term enrollment goals, securing the approval of strategies through appropriate
institutional channels, communication with Executive Cabinet
Recruitment Council
Retention Council
Develop 3-4 strategic goals for new student
recruitment; review and approve sub-committee action
plans; recommend to SEM Steering Committee
Develop 3-4 strategic goals for retention and
graduation; review and approve sub-committee action
plans; recommend to SEM Steering Committee
3-4 Sub-Committees
3-4 Sub-Committees
Action plans, time lines and metrics for
each strategic goal
Action plans, time lines and metrics for
each strategic goal
Data Team
Environment scanning, student enrollment behavior research,
enrollment models, provide data to councils as needed
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SEM Planning Framework
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
Tactics
Strategies
Campus Infrastructure
Strategic Enrollment Goals
Data Collection and Analysis
Key Enrollment Indicators
Institutional Strategic Plan
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SEM Planning Framework
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
Tactics
Strategies
Campus Infrastructure
Strategic Enrollment Goals
Data Collection and Analysis
Key Enrollment Indicators
 Clarity of institutional
mission, vision, goals
 Core competencies
 Strategic direction
 Aggregate enrollment goals
Institutional Strategic Plan
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SEM Planning Framework
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
Tactics
Strategies
Campus Infrastructure
Strategic Enrollment Goals
Data Collection and Analysis
Key Enrollment Indicators
Institutional Strategic Plan
 Student categories: first
year, transfer, graduate,
certificate, continuing ed,
face-to-face/online, etc.
 Desired student groups:
racial/ethnic diversity,
academic ability, special
skills, family income
 Geographic origin: local,
regional, national,
international
 Recruitment, retention,
completion rates
 Institutional capacity
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SEM Planning Framework
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
Tactics
Strategies
Campus Infrastructure
Strategic Enrollment Goals
Data Collection and Analysis
Key Enrollment Indicators
 Internal benchmarks: KEI
numbers over the past 3-5
years
 Environmental scan
− Demographics
− Economics
− Market opportunities
− Competition
 Institutional research plan:
designated reports and
production schedule
Institutional Strategic Plan
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SEM Model: Data
“Count everything that moves!”
--Old SEM Proverb
“Track relentlessly what works and what doesn’t.”
--Slippery Rock University
“Data is not the plural of anecdote.”
--Scannell & Kurz
“Without Data you’re just another person with an opinion.”
--Unknown
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SEM Model: Data
Where to start?
1. What issues are key to our institution NOW?
2. What issues are on the horizon?
3. Environmental Scan/SWOT Analysis
4. Data points to consider:
• Enrollment basics: Headcount, FTE, demographics, enrollment status
• Course offerings (capacity, trends, wait lists)
• Retention data (and defining retention!)
• Financial aid
5. Budget planning
6. Program cost analysis
. . . or whatever best fits our institution!
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SEM Model: Data
1. Accessibility of data
It is so easy to go
straight to “strategies.”
But you should do your
homework first and
start at the beginning
with data. . .
2. Getting everyone on the same page
3. Confirms or disproves campus “urban legends”
4. Confirms or disproves anecdotal “facts”
5. Information gathered to make decisions will be used for actually making
decisions
6. Define a stopping point or “phase II” questions
7. Avoid the strategy discussion: Create a “parking lot”
8. Relevant vs. interesting data
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SEM Planning Framework
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
Tactics
 5-10 year SEI targets
Strategies
 Focus: the institution’s
desired future
Campus Infrastructure
Strategic Enrollment Goals
 Based on: mission, data,
and environmental scanning
Data Collection and Analysis
Key Enrollment Indicators
Institutional Strategic Plan
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SEM Planning Framework
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
Tactics
Strategies
Campus Infrastructure
Strategic Enrollment Goals
 Staffing: skill sets, strategic
deployment
 Systems: policies,
procedures, technology
 Capacity for making
effective enrollment
decisions : positions,
reporting lines, committees
Data Collection and Analysis
Key Enrollment Indicators
Institutional Strategic Plan
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SEM Planning Framework
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
Tactics
Strategies
Campus Infrastructure
 Increase new students of
specified types
 Increase retention rates,
specifically by student
types
 Expand into new markets
 Utilize emerging
technologies
Strategic Enrollment Goals
 Financial aid/scholarships
Data Collection and Analysis
 Academic programs: mix
and delivery systems
Key Enrollment Indicators
Institutional Strategic Plan
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SEM Planning Framework
 Marketing/branding
initiatives
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
Tactics
Strategies
 Academic program review
 Multilingual recruitment
materials
 Targeted interventions for
students in high risk
courses
Campus Infrastructure
Strategic Enrollment Goals
Data Collection and Analysis
Key Enrollment Indicators
Institutional Strategic Plan
 Enhanced academic
advising
 Streamlined admission
procedures
 Purchase a new CRM
system
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SEM Planning Framework
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
 Consistently meeting
goals over the long term
− Enabling more effective
campus-wide planning
Tactics
− Revisions to the
institutional strategic plan
Strategies
− Academic planning:
curriculum, faculty needs
Campus Infrastructure
Strategic Enrollment Goals
Data Collection and Analysis
− Facility planning
− Financial planning
 Achieving the institution’s
desired future
Key Enrollment Indicators
Institutional Strategic Plan
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SEM“SEM-ese”
Planning Model
How to Speak
84
The Practice
Strategic Enrollment Management at
Work in an Academic World
Our Every Day Reality in Student Success
1. There is abundant evidence that students are not as engaged as we
would like
2. There is also evidence that students are not as engaged during the first
year of college as they thought they would be!
3. Levels of performance in high DWFI rate courses should be a cause for
embarrassment and action, especially in mathematics
4. There is still too much unacceptable attrition
5. There is much instability in the viability and leadership of retention of
Student Success “programs”
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Our Every Day Reality in Student Success
6. The response of the academy to the challenges of Student Success has
been primarily to design “programs” rather than a more comprehensive
institutional response
7. We are competing for ever scarcer resources in a larger society that does
not currently share our values
8. And we are competing for students’ most precious of resources: their
time, energies, attention, priorities, discretionary monies—Success in
college vis a vis their jobs, families, pursuits of pleasures, busy
demanding lives
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What Will It Take to Build Success?
1. Core values that support a set of assumptions about a comprehensive,
integrated, and coordinated approach
2. Programs and services designed with intentionality, purpose,
integration of effort, service efficiency, and positive interventions with
students
3. Integrated cross-campus collaborations and partnerships between
faculty, staff, and administration
4. Use of assessment and data for informed decision making
5. Understanding of how campus cultures impact enrollment
management efforts
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But Remember…
1. There are NO SILVER BULLETS! There is no template, one-size-fits-all
model that ensures student success
2. Campuses have to move from “enrollment by chance” to “enrollment by
design”
3. To do that, strategic enrollment planning has to first understand and
then become part of the culture of the entire campus
4. Only then can there be clear goals and efforts for optimal enrollment to
fulfill institutional mission and services and programs to improve student
learning and success
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First Generation Students
• 34% of 5-17 year olds in the US are considered first generation
students
• 41% of those are African-American
• 61% are Latino
• 23% are white
•
NCES, 2012
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First Generation Students
• 82% of non-first generation students enrolled in US colleges
immediately after high school
• 54% of first generation students whose parents finished high
school enrolled immediately
• 36% of those whose parents had less than a high school education
enrolled immediately
•
Choy, NCES, 2001
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First Generation Students
• 50% of students in US higher education are first generation
• 30% (5.6 million) of US college freshmen are first generation
• 24% (4.5 million) are first generation and low income
• More than 25% of those will leave after their first years
• Only 11% will eventually graduate
• Whereas 55% of higher income, first generation students will
• And 78% of higher income, second generation student will
•
US Department of Education, 2010
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First Generation Students
• The average age of enrollment for first-generation college students is
22, compared to 20 for students who are not first generation
• 54% of first-generation students were financially on their own, while
only 27% of students who were not first generation had full financial
responsibility for themselves
• 30% of first generation students had dependents with 11 percent being
single parents, while only 14% of non-first generation students had
dependents and only 4% were single parents.
• Concordia University-Online, 2009
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Who’s Job Is It Anyway?
•
Retention officer, yes, but where does he/she reside?
•
Academic Affairs? The faculty have the most contact with the
student
•
Student Affairs? Over 50% of what you learn in college is learned
outside of class
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It’s a Partnership
•
The faculty need to take responsibility for engaging the student,
whether in the co-curriculum, the academic realm of the
classroom, or experiential learning
•
The student life professional needs to take responsibility for the
academic success of students—every student activity or
organization is an enrollment unit
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The Blended Outlook
•
Enrollment Management is a quintessentially academic enterprise
•
Still, at the end of the day, it is about individual student academic
success
•
And it is supported by administrative changes to policies and
procedures that make it difficult for students to navigate the
campus
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The Sex Appeal of Recruitment
•
Campuses obsess over freshmen numbers
•
The glitz and glamour of recruitment lives in the fast lane
•
Retention is the gray lady of enrollment management
•
Enrollment Management as the tortoise and the hare—steady
wins the race
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The Value of Value
•
Autopsy studies always show students leave for academic,
financial, or personal reasons.
•
These may be placeholders for students’ perceptions that they are
not getting enough value for the time, money, effort they are
putting in
•
Price elasticity studies show cost is not as important in decision as
perceived value
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Build Value and They Will Stay
•
The enrollment management agenda should be directed at what
leads students to perceive value in their education
•
Value provides a new definition of retention built around what
motivates students
•
Perhaps the high ability, third generation student can more readily
see value in school; hence more go, and more stay
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Service as Retention
•
Retention improvement comes from improved business practices
• B. Bontrager
•
Seamless enrollment processes provide perception of value
•
Let students’ talents be challenged in the classroom rather than
have their patience tested in navigating the institutional
bureaucracy
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Engagement as Retention
•
Involvement redefined
•
What keeps the student going to class, doing the assignments,
passing the tests?
•
For some, extracurricular activities
•
For others, internships and co-op
•
For still others, undergraduate research
•
For a few, study abroad
•
Don’t forget what they do in their community—how can that be
harnessed to the campus?
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Linking Recruitment and Retention
•
Market student engagement through individualized opportunities
to capture student interest
•
Guarantee student engagement
•
Study retention rates by individual high schools: where they fall
below the class average, gear recruitment to retention services
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Building Buy-in to Value
•
Parents want to be reassured they sent their student to the right
place—tell them that regularly, at least during the freshman year
•
If the student is unhappy or unfocussed, the parents who have
been told repeatedly they did the right thing may be more likely to
support the student in staying the course
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Retention for More Than a Day
•
Data identifies and tracks the at-risk groups
•
Research identifies the services that can keep students successful
•
Recruiting for retention identifies and admits the students most
likely to match the institutional Ethos and to succeed
•
Service helps retention
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MERGERS AND PARTNERS Through the SEM Lens
•
Improving service as a template for partnership development.
•
Reviewing processes and procedures on an annual basis.
•
Building a culture of education, not regulation.
•
Cross-training and blending.
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STRATEGY ISSUES
•
Academic offerings and support services
•
Marketing
•
Security
•
Buildings and grounds—the Million Dollar Walk
•
Student services and activities
•
Recruitment/admissions/enrollment
•
Information technology
•
KPIs/data/research/evaluation
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Student Success, not Retention
1. Retention is clinical rather than aspirational
2. Retention is merely a measurement, a benchmark of educational
attainment
3. And often, as John Gardner would argue, a minimum one at that:
Retention is a C- and a pulse, the ability to fog a mirror
4. Retention restrains us, limits our vision and our capacity for creativity
and excellence
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High Impact Practices (HIPS)
George Kuh’s research into retention led him to conclude that there
were a number of High Impact Practices or HIPs that an institution
can focus on to improve student success.
When asked one one thing can an institution do to enhance student
engagement and increase student success, he responded by saying
make it possible for every student to participate in at least two high
impact activities during their undergraduate program, one in their
first year and one in the capstone year.
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High Impact Practices (HIPs)
1. Community-based learning
– Students are more likely to engage with one-off service projects than
join Student Government
– Create a Culture of Service before moving to Service Learning
embedded in the curriculum
2. Capstone courses and projects
– At the end of college, they enrich but don’t contribute to success
– Consider capstone experiences in gateway courses in the majors
3. Diversity, globalization
– The root of “diversity” is “divide”
– Think Inclusion as an umbrella concept that embraces diversity
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High Impact Practices (HIPs)
4. First-year seminars and experiences
5. Learning Communities
6. Internships
7. Undergraduate Research
8. Collaborative assignments and projects
9. Common intellectual experiences (Gen Ed)
10.Writing-intensive courses
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Recent trends in Student Success Best Practices
1. Use of technology to track and monitor student engagement,
utilization of services
– Starfish Early Alert and Connect
– MapWorks
– Degree audits and maps
– Swiping
2. Use of data to identify risk characteristics, apply predictive
modeling
– Matching GPA’s to graduation rates to determine where to put
resources
– Identifying key courses for graduation
– Attendance
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Recent trends in Student Success Best Practices
3. Structures
– Retention Office
– Retention Committee
– Student Success Alliance
– Executive officers or Boots-on-the-ground Staff?
4. Policies
– Requiring students to take certain courses and earn certain GPAs
semester by semester
– Reassigning majors
– Advising plans requiring use of career planning
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Recent trends in Student Success Best Practices
5. State accountabilities
– Funding based on graduation rates
– Loss of state aid for repeated classes (students pay)
– Federal policies
• Lifetime limits on federal financial aid (Pell Grants, loans)
• Future: Loss of aid for poor graduation rates?
6. Membership Organization services
– Education Advisory Board
• Research publications, general and customized
• Interest Forums: Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Business Affairs, etc.
• Data and analytics for end-to-end solutions
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SEM: A Cautionary Tale
An End Note
Guess Who’s NOT Going to College?
•
Among high achievers from low-income families, 75% went to
college but only 29% graduated
•
Among high achievers from high-income families, 99% went to
college and 74% graduated
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Hopes Delayed
•
Among the best-prepared American high school students: 20% of
those from low-income families don’t go directly on to college
•
Among high achievers from high-income families, only 3% don’t
enter college right away
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Guess Who’s Coming to College?
•
Hispanic students have increased in 10 years from a 9.3% share of
public high school graduates in 1994 to nearly 20% in 2014.
•
White students have declined as a percentage of the high school
graduating class, going from 72.4% to 58% in the same time period
• WICHE, 2003
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The Faces of the New Students
•
Minority share of high school grads has grown from about 7
percent in 1960 to 31 percent by 2002 and
•
Will grow further to 45 percent by 2018.
• Mortenson
•
With the Boomer Echo peak at 3.2 million high school grads in
2009, 80% of the growth from the beginning of the 21st century
was from students of color.
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SEM in the Future
• SEM operates where there is a blending of
responsibilities between traditional EM, the Faculty,
Information Technology, and Student Services.
Traditional offices find their walls receding and
disappearing as functions merge and all faculty and
staff become accountable for recruitment and
retention.
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SEM Critical Success Factors in the Future
•
Strategic planning goes beyond senior institutional officers
•
Research and evaluation drive all activity
•
Academic foundation ceases to be purview only of faculty and academic
administrators
•
Academic context becomes student-service centered
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SEM and Service in the Future
•
Information technology is the engine and servant of service
•
Comprehensiveness means merger of functions
•
Leadership is team- and service-centered rather than office- and
function-centered
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SEM: The Sum of Its Parts
•
SEM is theory, practice, and environment. Each shapes and drives
the others.
•
The SEM theoretician will be a slave to the rigidity of theory.
•
The SEM practitioner will lose sight of the strategic.
•
The SEM environmentalist will be the perpetual victim of events.
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Incremental Progress
•
The SEM professional will merge the three and thereby find the
means to manage the politics and achieve progress
•
The result many times will be incremental change and growth, so
often a whipping post for both the true believer and the finger
pointer
•
But incrementalism in the pursuit of progress is no vice
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Acknowledgements
With thanks to my fellow AACRAO Senior Consultants…
Bob Bontrager
Jody Gordon
Tom Green
Wendy Kilgore
Clayton Smith
Amanda Yale
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Questions & Comments
Stanley E. Henderson
sehender@umich.edu
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