Kickstart or Restart

Action Planning for Strategic Enrollment Management

Christine Kerlin

Senior Consultant, AACRAO

Retired: Vice President, University Center and Strategic Planning

Everett Community College, WA

WSSSC Workshop

Clover Park Technical College

Lakewood, Washington

October 10, 2014

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Does your institution need to get on the road to managing its enrollment? Have you started the engine but can't seem to get traction? Whether your institution is seeking to increase enrollment or manage shifting enrollments this session will provide an outline for a process that gets you on track. Concerned about outreach, retention, completion, student services program mix, curricular offerings, and new student demographics? Come prepared to learn, share and discuss.

If you are already on a productive SEM road, please share your tips for success.

Welcome

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Logistics

Who is here?

Ask questions, share experiences

Our goal – essential steps and an action plan

◦ History, concepts, structure, planning

Introductions and agenda

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As a concept, Enrollment Management was born in the early 1970s at Boston College.

The growing research & theories of student departure (retention).

The emerging sensitivity to marketing in student recruitment & in higher education generally.

A focus on the traditional full-time undergraduate students

The 1980s enrollment crisis in higher education.

Historically, over the last 35+ years…

Marketing

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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

The emergence of substantive literature and professional status.

EM in the 1990s was marked by…

Integration

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Enrollment Management evolves as a strategic component of institutional planning….

Instructional 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.

Today

Strategy6

See “Leading Up” at:

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/leading-up-the-art-of-managing-your-boss/

Industrial Age Teaching franchise Information infrastructure as a

support tool Separate learning systems Silos Bureaucratic systems Rigid pre-designed processes

Information Age Learning franchise Information infrastructure as

instrument of transformation Fused learning systems Big tent Self-informing, self-correcting

systems Families of transactions

customized to needs of learners, faculty, staff

Redefining Higher Education

Fusion7

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We Face Real Challenges

Increasing competition from other learning organizations that utilize e-tools more effectively than we do, and package their content to meet demand for non-traditional, online and global delivery.

These new learning organizations are emphasizing the high volume, low-cost options.

Our own public baccalaureates are moving into workforce training and the adult market – our bread and butter.

Our regional demographics are shifting away from – or adding to - our “known zone”. Fewer traditional-age students, aging adults, more traditionally under-represented populations.

EXTERNAL:

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More Challenges

Affordability. How will families and independent students assess

cost and value?

A complex funding environment for institutions AND students

The public, and students, have high expectations of service, of product, of performance, of affordability, of outcomes. Students and families are “consumers”.

EXTERNAL:

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More ChallengesINTERNAL:

Our budgets and our organizational structures are stretched.◦ High enrollment produced more staff/classes, low enrollment forces decisions.◦ Too many committees?

Fluctuating enrollments, stressed staff and systems.

Low level of flexibility with our own workforce structure.

Our enrollment targets and funding are driven within a political model. Our enrollment targets are getting sliced and diced.

Evolving into CTCLink. Our internal understanding of how our databases “really” work may be imperfect. Our uses of data to schedule courses, analyze viability or need or demand, may be imperfect.

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More ChallengesINTERNAL:

Achieving viable program mix to a) serve, b) meet goals, and c) respond to the realities of our own institution.

◦ Inability to rapidly adjust curriculum.◦ Accommodating various non-competitive rules in our systems.◦ To “bacc” or not to “bacc”, or how to “bacc”?

The pressure serving underprepared students and special populations.

The dynamics of Change Management.

And, here’s a big one: Does your Institutional Strategic Plan provide some direction to your enrollment planning?

You can name more….. Facilities, space availability, scheduling?

It is most helpful to express them as issues. An issue statement implies an impact and a need to respond. “Funding” vs “State funding has stabilized but

tuition income has decreased to the extent that we cannot meet our current costs.”

◦ “We need to attract more students” vs “Our enrollment declines are seen in recent high school graduates enrolling in Fall, and in low enrollments in our manufacturing tech programs, and in our criminal justice program.”

What are your challenges?

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A real example from one of your websites:

“Technology”

As the need for costly, up-to-date technology continues to grow, the college should:

• Provide professional development training in new technologies for faculty and staff.

• Maintain sufficient capacity and appropriate infrastructure to support e-learning and data collection activities.

• Develop new platforms that best serve the technology needs of students and staff.

Realigning the organization with its changing environment

Redesigning the organization, its structure and tools

Redefining individual roles and responsibilities

Reengineering processes in the transformational context

SEM can have a transformative role in your organization

…“Culture” is a big factor

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Elements of Campus Culture and the SEM Opportunity

Adapted from:

A Matter of Culture and Leadership: Student Success in State Colleges and Universities, AASCU, 2005

Attributes of Campus Culture SEM Opportunity

Pervasive attitude to not be content to rest on past success during an era of change, but lack of consensus on how to move forward.

Leadership, information

A strongly held sense of mission (whatever it is) that recognizes the campus as “distinctive” or “special.” “The people are special.”

Communication

Sense of – or wish for - inclusiveness on the part of all members of the campus community frequently characterized as a “family.”

Build on strengths

For some: Concern about financial support and viability.

Data, analysis, planning

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Enrollment Goals

Instructional Program Mix – type and mode

Quest for Quality

Increase Diversity

Ensuring Access and Affordability

Increasing Net Tuition Revenue

Increasing Retention & Graduation Rates

Improving Student Learning Outcomes

Expansion or contraction of mission

With all these cultural aspects, SEM is an institutional balancing act

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SEM is a comprehensive process designed to help an institution achieve and maintain optimum enrollment, where optimum is defined within the academic [instructional] context of the institution.

Adapted from SEM Primer

SEM enables the fulfillment of institutional mission and students’ educational goals.

Adapted from Bob Bontrager

Strategic enrollment management is a concept and process that enables the fulfillment of institutional mission and students’ educational goals.

Adapted from Stanley Henderson

Enrollment management is a comprehensive and coordinated process that enables a college to identify enrollment goals that are allied with its mission, its strategic plan, its environment, and its resources, and to reach those goals through the effective integration of administrative processes, student services, curriculum planning, and market analysis.

Christine Kerlin

So, what is SEM?

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SEM is a comprehensive process designed to help an institution achieve and maintain optimum enrollment, where optimum is defined within the academic [instructional] context of the institution.

Adapted from SEM Primer

SEM enables the fulfillment of institutional mission and students’ educational goals.

Adapted from Bob Bontrager

Strategic enrollment management is a concept and process that enables the fulfillment of institutional mission and students’ educational goals.

Adapted from Stanley Henderson

Enrollment management is a comprehensive and coordinated process that enables a college to identify enrollment goals that are allied with its mission, its strategic plan, its environment, and its resources, and to reach those goals through the effective integration of administrative processes, student services, curriculum planning, and market analysis.

Christine Kerlin

What is SEM?

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Myth Busters

SEM is not just a recruitment plan.

SEM is not just a marketing plan.

SEM is not separate from the academic mission of the institution.

SEM is not always about growth.

“SEM is effective integration of administrative processes, student services, curriculum planning, and market analysis.”

Myth Busters

What does SEM look like on a campus?

A SEM Tree

Welcome to SEM Hall

Professor SEM

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Or……

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Like this???

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Creating a Structure

Create a structure for leadership, planning and decision-making with regard to five concerns:

Institutional cultureGovernance structureEnabling the institution to review issues, goals and strategies

through these lenses:curriculum planningadministrative processesstudent servicesmarket analysis

Budget decision cycle and involvement of budget decision-makers

The dynamics of Change Management.

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Selecting the Right Organizational Structure for Your Institution

Committee Coordinator/Matrix Division

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Committee or “Task

Force”

Working Group (continuous) – ◦ VP Instruction, Deans, Student Services leadership team, Director of Public

Information, Publications Director, Director of Institutional Research, Director of Enrollment, International Programs, …other…..

Advisory Group (periodic) – ◦ Running Start, International, Information Technology, Enrollment Services,

Financial Aid, Advising, Diversity Services, Publications, Research and Planning, Workforce, Outreach, Career Services, Branch Campuses, TRIO, e-Learning, Faculty representatives…other

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Committee The SEM Committee is best supported through an effective

partnership with Instructional Council.

The SEM Committee often spins out a variety of other committees or links to other existing committees. Examples:

◦ Student Success and Retention Committee◦ Information Technology Planning Group◦ Research

Needs a presidential charge.

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Coordinator

Instructional DivisionStudent Services

Information ServicesAdministrative Services

Coordinator

To whom does the Coordinator report?

Needs a strong Presidential charge.

Division

Recruitment/Admissions Retention

Registrar/Registration Financial Aid

Career Center

Vice Presidentfor Enrollm ent M anagem ent

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Let me tell you about the challenges of this model…

Committee ??? Coordinator ??? Division ???

Some assert that structure may be related to your institution’s current perspective on enrollment management, and/or the perceived urgency of your situation……

How is your institution approaching enrollment management?

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SEM Transition Model

Denial

Structural

Nominal

Tactical

Strategic

Adapted from Dolence28

Let’s put this into perspective…

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Does Structure Matter?

Some would argue that an over-emphasis on structure misses the point. (We’ll talk about institutional ethos in a minute….)

Too much emphasis on structure delays the initial action.

For many of us, SEM is an organic, incremental process.

HOWEVER, organizational structure issues tend to come to the fore as you continue to work and re-work your Plan.

A Key Factor in Structure: SEM through the Academic Lens

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“An institution’s academic program is inexorably

co-dependent on enrollment management. The

quality of the academic program can only be

developed and maintained in a stable

environment, and stable enrollments are only

possible through sound [academic] planning…”

Dolence

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Ethos: the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution.

Merriam-Webster

Institutional Ethos is largely described by and through the academic enterprise.

Locating SEM in the academic enterprise enables SEM to draw from that ethos and to have the validity it needs to work.

Structure needs to be the servant of effective SEM implementation, not the master of it.

SEM INFORMED BY THE ACADEMIC MINDSET

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GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR THE SEM ETHOS

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If SEM reflects institutional identity and 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. Everyone has responsibility for institutional and student success.

Each member of community takes responsibility for nurturing SEM Ethos, implementation, outcomes.

SEM Ethos:Shared responsibility

Comprehensive35

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 and strategy.

If SEM isn’t part of strategic planning, not much can be accomplished.

SEM Ethos:Integrated Institutional Planning

Integrated36

In SEM Ethos, processes and procedures are more important than structure.

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.

SEM Ethos:Focus On Service

Student Success37

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

SEM Ethos:Students’ Seamless View

Integration38

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.

SEM Ethos:Intuitive Service

Student Success39

Enrollment managers struggle with notion of KPIs as indices of institutional health.

In reality, KPIs are placeholders for institutional values and indices of health.

The “Bodies” approach is out of sync with the academic values of the institution. (“Student fit” is in sync.)

If the enrollment manager has an academic understanding of the place, KPIs set themselves.

SEM Ethos:Key Performance Indicators

Mission40

With SEM Ethos, SEM has to have research and evaluation plan.

More and more industry standard is data and research—tools of the academy.

EM units cannot continue to do “feel good” programs that can’t show support for academic goals.

SEM Ethos:Research And Evaluation

Evaluation41

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.

SEM FOR THE LONG HAUL

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Factors, and the Plan

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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,” SEM fails.

All must understand that academic well-being is linked to enrollment health.

Essential Factor: Academic Leadership

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enrollment management (lower case) is just managing enrollments.

STRATEGIC Enrollment Management (upper case) happens when enrollment strategies are integrated with the institution’s strategic plan, academic master plan, and its fundamental (academic) mission.

Essential Factor: Integrated Planning

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Top-down communication is necessary to set the tone, but successful implementation of EM requires lateral communication across campus.

EM needs lateral communication to ensure adherence to the institution’s academic ethos.

Communication has to become a part of the culture; it has to express the ethos of the place.

Essential Factor: Lateral Communication

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The institutional academic ethos will set the structure to provide a means for faculty, staff, and students to contribute to SEM.

EM 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.

Essential Factor: Structure For Participation

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A community college may have a campus-wide structure.

The research extensive university may have multiple structures in academic units.

The wise enrollment manager(s) will seek to know the academic grounding of the institution and then seek a structure based on that foundation.

Essential Factor: Matching Structure To Mission

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Academic Leadership

Integrated Planning

Lateral Communication

Structure for Participation

◦ Match Structure to the Mission…and it is an academic mission!

Recap

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SEM as a structural/managerial focus.

SEM as a planning process.

SEM as a leadership effort.

Recognizing the Three Faces of SEM

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SEM PlanningIntegrating Leadership, Structure, and Planning,

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No matter what sort of structure you create, the most important factor is executive and Board leadership.

• Presidential charge

• Leadership buy-in

• College-wide summit

• Regular communication at leadership meetings

Leadership

“The more people involved in decision making, the greater the commitment

to implementing the decision.”

-Hossler, Bean & Associates, 1990

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Moving from the traditional enrollment management perspective….

Recruitment / Marketing

Admission

OrientationCo-curricular

supportDegree/goal attainment

Academic support

RetentionFinancial support

Student’s Experiences

Classroom experience

Traditional Enrollment Perspective

Alumni

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…to a fully integrated Strategic Enrollment Management perspective.

Recruitment / Marketing

Admission

OrientationCo-curricular

supportDegree/goal attainment

Academic support Retention

Financial support

Student’s Experiences

Classroom experience

The SEM Perspective

Alumni

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“An institution’s academic program is inexorably co-dependent on enrollment management. The quality of the academic program can only be developed and maintained in a stable environment, and stable enrollments are only possible through sound planning…”

Dolence

Academic Mission SEM

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The SEM Plan- Components

2. Produce an Environmental Scan – internal and external.

SEM requires a

data-rich environment

1. Define relationship to the College’s Strategic Plan.

• How vibrant is your college’s Strategic Plan? • Does it provide some direction for enrollment?

Why conduct environmental scanning?Environmental Scanning:

Detects scientific, technical, economic, social, and political trends and events important to our institution.

Defines the potential threats, opportunities, or changes for our institution implied by those trends and events.

Promotes a future orientation in the thinking of management and staff.

Alerts leaders and staff to trends that are converging, diverging, speeding up, slowing down, or interacting.

Enables decision-makers to understand current and potential changes taking place in our institutions' internal and external environments.

http://horizon.unc.edu/courses/papers/enviroscan/default.html

Why conduct environmental scanning?Environmental Scanning:

◦ Provides information everyone can see. It levels the playing field.

◦ Verifies/contradicts/expands anecdotes and fables.

◦ Tests assumptions about future enrollment growth, improvement, etc., against trends in your particular market or area and benchmarks retention/progression/completion data against other institutions of your type:

This helps institutions set reasonable goals that challenge enrollment potential but based upon metrics.

◦ Sets a standard that SEM decision-making will be informed by data and information.

◦ Provides benchmarks.

What type of information is gathered?External

Income and Expense (tuition, program costs) benchmarks:Where do your costs fit within the costs in your market/area?

Peers and Competitors:Application, National Student Clearinghouse, ACT/College Board data

Trends:Demographics

Employment trends by programs or areas, demand for labor

Technology

International

Higher Ed trends:Changes in high school graduation rates, populations in grades K-12

Changes in delivery systems and preferences

Regulations and compliance

Enrollment trend data for the past five years:Overall size of the institution

Demographic trend data (age, ethnicity, geography)

Student preparation characteristics

Remediation

Retention

Program profiles:Enrollment, retention, completion, cost, by program

Trends in student transfer:In and out

What type of information is gathered?Internal

What type of information is gathered?Internal

Business/industry connections

Alumni:Placement, licensure rates

Overall satisfaction with the experience

Rate of alumni participation (giving, volunteerism)

Financial Aid and Scholarship programs: practices, awards

Campus and student surveys

Facilities plans

More. The list is long and is determined by your context

Where is all of this data? Some is quantitative, some is qualitative.

Your ERP or SIS

Surveys, focus groups

Hidden in individual offices of the institution

Census

Government sources: NCES, DOE, state or province coordinating agencies,

warehouses

Independent agencies: NCHEMS, WICHE

Local, regional and national economic and workforce agencies

Higher Ed data: Clearinghouse, Inside Higher Ed, University Business,

professional associations, consulting agencies (white papers)

K-12 school districts

Web searches

Education literature

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The SEM Plan- Components

3. Analyze the data, transform it into information.

4. Identify vital issues

◦ This is done in the context of your strategic plan, your mission, and the data analyses that inform your understanding of your position.

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5. Respond to those issues: Key leverage initiatives Very important initiatives Relatively simple initiatives

….The possibility of low-hanging fruit…..

The SEM Plan- Components

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6. Set Goals: enrollment targets program mix program delivery income targets expenditure limits services ?

The SEM Plan- Components

Include Measurements/ Key Performance IndicatorsMost goals should be measurableKnow your baseline data, and measure against it

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7. Develop Strategies

Instructional Program Mix

Recruitment

Marketing

Policies and Procedures

Retention

Financial modeling

Aid and scholarships

Etc.

It is so easy to go straight to “strategies”. But you should do your homework first and start with step one.

The SEM Plan- Components

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8. Establish accountability

Who does what and when?

How is progress measured and documented?

The SEM Plan- Components

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SEM – Follow-up

9. Follow-up and assess.Establish a monitoring and report process

10. Update often – this is not a long range plan...it is a strategic plan. Be strategic!

11. Assure continuous communication with appropriate and interested parties. Check out the Change Management dynamics.

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The SEM Plan- Components

2. Produce an Environmental Scan

3. Analyze data, transform it into information

4. Identify vital issues

5. Respond to those issues

6. Set goals, measurements

7. Develop strategies

8. Establish accountabilities, timeline, etc.9. Follow-up and assess

10. Update often, especially Environmental Scan

11. Assure continuous communication

1. Define relationship to the College’s Strategic Plan

Revising Your Plan

A Plan is not forever……

The environment changes. Your issues change. Your Strategic Plan is tweaked. You have new leadership. Your metrics are not working. You have learned how to do it better.

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Review, Revision, Renewal How can your structure help the institution stay strategic?

◦ Annual environmental scan◦ Regular data tracking◦ Regular consultation◦ Continuously engage knowledgeable stakeholders or ongoing

committee members◦ Built in accountability process

Who does this????

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Do you have buy-in? (Brief sermon on incremental SEM)

What about structure?

How will you approach identifying the issues?

How will you link to the Institutional Strategic Plan?

What are your next steps?

Your Turn

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Doing It Better the Second Time Adjust your issues.

Clean up your data collection and analysis.

Shorten the Plan.

Re-think (or strengthen) your structure: are you really integrated with Instruction?

Re-write and gain buy-in.

and keep on going…..

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Organize around a compelling purpose

Be careful to build trust and secure by-in

Be consistent with your institutional mission

Carefully assess the environment

Keep your goals and objectives manageable and to the point

Constantly evaluate your progress

A Final Word…A Few Tips

Success of the SEM plan = the measured outcomes + the process itself

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Take the lessons of this workshop and season them with the salt of your institutional environment.

Look for low-hanging fruit as you practice the theory and apply the template of SEM.

Develop SEM through the process of collaboration.

Understand that culture does not change easily, but progress comes to those who dare to begin.

Incrementalism in the pursuit of progress is no vice.

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Thank you!

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