1. Associate Executive Director, Consulting and SEM
Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) as a Transformation Agent: KCTCS Enrollment Symposium
May 18, 2015
Tom Green, Ph.D.
Associate Executive Director, Consulting and SEM

2. About AACRAO Non-profit - 100+ years old professional organization
Largest publisher of SEM content in the world
Our publications, webinars and conferences set the industry standard for approaches to long- term enrollment health
Access to the best practices and leading thoughts of our 11,000+ higher education admissions and registration professionals
Tom
Non-profit years old professional organization
2,600 institutions and agencies in the United States and in over 40 countries around the world.

3. About AACRAO Consulting
Developed in in response to member requests for unbiased assistance from experts:
No representation of specific products or services but recommendations on those methods, services and products in the market that best fit the needs of the institution.
Based the concept of “colleagues helping colleagues.”
Action orientation: practical solutions that produce results.
Roughly projects per year.

4. SEM History and Definitions

5. A brief history of Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM)
Earliest written references are in 1972 by Maguire and Campanella from Boston College to “enrollment management”.
Adopted by admissions and marketing professionals in the mid-1980’s in response to “baby bust” demographic shifts:
Large infrastructure development from 1960’s to 1980’s to accommodate “massification” and “baby boom”.
Sharp declines in 18-year-old population.
Most popular among private colleges and universities.

6. A brief history of SEM 1990: 1990’s:
Early versions featured enhanced marketing and financial discounting methods.
1990:
Hossler and Bean publish “Strategic Management of College Enrollments”.
AACRAO forms first SEM conference.
1990’s:
Expansion of tuition discounting practices among privates.
Enrollment management divisions start to form.
Emphasis on retention starts to emerge.

7. A brief history of SEM Early 2000’s: Mid-2000’s: 2010’s:
Public universities become engaged in SEM.
Tuition discounting expands to public sector.
Mid-2000’s:
Community colleges become engaged in SEM.
Disruption to marketing and communication methods by Internet:
New techniques and concepts begin to emerge.
2010’s:
SEM spreads worldwide.
Information-age marketing and communication becomes robust.

8. What is Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM)?
Enrollment management is an organizational concept and a systematic set of activities designed to enable educational institutions to exert more influence over their student enrollments.
Hossler, 1990

9. What is Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM)?
Strategic enrollment management is a concept and process that enables the fulfillment of institutional mission and students’ educational goals.
Bontrager

10. What is Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM)?
SEM is an organizational mindset that is focused on internal student success and experiences and the external environment as a means to more effectively relate its institutional mission and values to its key stakeholders and audiences.
Green, 2014

11. 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
Bontrager

12. 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
Bontrager

13. SEM planning is… Future and long-term focused: Data-informed:
Knowing what we want five to ten years from now, not just for next year’s budget.
Data-informed:
We seek evidence to support our goals and claims.
Challenging:
Focusing the institution’s resources on a few highly important items requires narrowing down choices and agreeing that not everyone’s ideas will make it into the plan.

14. SEM planning is not… Fixing operational issues:
Those are inherently not strategic and the SEM plan should not be used as a cover to address management concerns or problems.
Silver bullets or even silver buckshot:
There are strong practices and good models but no quick fixes or single solutions.
Isolated to one office or area:
To become a strong SEM organization, the campus has to link arms and build an infrastructure that is both formal and informal in nature

15. Why is SEM important today?
Accountability for our actions in higher education is greater than ever:
Demands for outcomes as prices rise.
Rankings and ratings.
We must be as effective and efficient as possible with limited resources:
Students and parents are less able and less willing to pay ever- increasing costs.
Technology changes rapidly and presents opportunities but also challenges and expectations.
Inefficient practices ultimately pass on costs to students, making it harder for them to access and complete degree programs.

16. Why is SEM important today?
Student success is the right thing to do:
While students must take responsibility for their own education, we must help them have every reasonable chance to do so.
We can no longer associate lack of academic achievement with lack of will.
Competition for the best students means offering the best possible services:
You are competing with very strong and well-organized institutions.
Seamless services can be a competitive advantage.
Institutions must effectively use their resources to attract, enroll and retain the right students for the institution.

17. A look at our SEM status

18. Purpose & Definition Strategic Tactical Structural Nominal Denial
Traditional SEM Model
Strategic
Tactical
Structural
Nominal
Denial
Adapted from Dolence

19. Purpose & Definition Strategic Denial Denial Traditional SEM Model
Enrollment Trend: Down
Messages:
“We are subject to forces beyond our control”
“It’s just demographics/competition/ economy (pick one)”
Action: Form a committee, discuss options
Denial
Adapted from Dolence

20. Purpose & Definition Strategic Nominal Denial Traditional SEM Model
Enrollment Trend: Down
Messages:
“We have to do something.”
“We need a silver bullet recruiting/marketing strategy”
Action: Ad hoc, short-term strategies
Denial
Adapted from Dolence

21. Purpose & Definition Strategic Structural Denial Traditional SEM Model
Enrollment Trend: Variable
Messages:
“This isn’t as easy as we thought.”
Action:
Limited restructuring
Continue with short-term strategies with minimal enrollment management expertise (or expertise isn’t listened to)
Denial
Adapted from Dolence

22. Purpose & Definition Strategic Tactical Denial Traditional SEM Model
Enrollment Trend: Building to Optimum Enrollment
Messages:
“Achieving optimum enrollment will require fundamental change and campus participation.”
Action:
Substantive restructuring
Strategic planning based on reliable data
Targeted funding
Strategic
Denial
Adapted from Dolence

23. Purpose & Definition Strategic Strategic Denial Traditional SEM Model
Enrollment Trend: Achieving Optimum Enrollment
Messages:
“We control our enrollment outcomes.”
Action:
Stable organizational structure and funding
Top-level EM support (and leadership?)
Consistent planning and assessment cycle
Denial
Adapted from Dolence

24. Purpose & Definition Strategic Tactical Structural
Traditional SEM Model
Strategic
Tactical
Structural
Discussion with participants
Where Is your institution?
Nominal
Denial
Adapted from Dolence

25. How can SEM transform your enrollment?

26. Transformational elements of SEM/SEP
Aligns expectations for long-term enrollment outcomes
Promotes the use of data in decision-making across the institution
Focuses efforts and resources on actions and initiatives:
This is a major emphasis of the SEP process.
Brings together institutional teams to discuss and act upon enrollment issues:
Initially for planning and ongoing for implementation and monitoring of the SEP.
Provides accountability for enrollment actions and their success.

27. Aligning expectations

28. SEM Planning Framework
Tactics
Strategies
Enrollment Infrastructure
Strategic Enrollment Goals
Data Collection and Analysis
Key Enrollment Indicators
Institutional Strategic Plan
Sustainable
Enrollment
Outcomes
Bontrager/Green

29. Use of Data

30. Benchmarking
What are appropriate retention/completion rates for my institution?
College Results Online
IPEDS/similar national data sources in Canada and other countries
Who are our enrollment peers and why?
Do we have enrollment aspirational institutions and how do these relate to our enrollment peers?
How do we achieve apples-to-apples comparisons?

31. Environmental scanning
How are demographic trends impacting my institution today and for the next five to ten years?
The “Echo Boom” has passed traditional learning ages and will cycle toward adult learning and graduate, then exit the prime HE years.
Draining of the Great Plains; declines in the Northeast.
Aging of the population, generally, in Canada and many US States.
If our region is declining and we all plan to grow, who will “win and lose” in this competition for students?
Can my institution compete in today’s adult learning market?
What is our long-range plan for online education?
How does that fit into our institutional mission and vision?

32. Hope for the future in Kentucky
Source: Brian T. Prescott and Peace Bransberger. Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates (eighth edition). Boulder, CO: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, 2012.

33. Hope for the future in Kentucky
Source: Brian T. Prescott and Peace Bransberger. Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates (eighth edition). Boulder, CO: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, 2012.

34. Challenges and opportunities in the future
Source: Brian T. Prescott and Peace Bransberger. Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates (eighth edition). Boulder, CO: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, 2012.

35. Measuring and assessing enrollment at your institution
Are you tracking KEI beyond one-year retention of freshmen, entering student numbers or gross graduation rate?
How do you know if your enrollment/student success initiatives are working?
Do they have clear and measurable goals?
Have you identified the barriers to student success at your institution?
Multi-year, multivariate data analysis
Why do students leave after earning 90+ credits but without a degree?

36. Focusing efforts and resources
Most SEM planning fails when institutions cannot limit their ambitions or focus their efforts to the most important initiatives:
Culture of inclusion and egalitarianism.
Long lists of great ideas, most of which cannot be funded.
How can you determine the best initiatives?
Impact the greatest number of students
Have the greatest potential to improve enrollment results

37. Building institutional infrastructure
Institution-wide teams to plan, implement and monitor enrollment, long-term.
Faculty/staff/administration all have roles in these teams.
Clear agenda for planning and monitoring:
What are the teams supposed to accomplish?
When?
Templates and examples to follow as guides.

38. Accountability and measurement
Another common failure point of SEP/SEM Plans is the absence of accountability in the plan:
Who will be responsible for each initiative?
Clearly-stated expectations/results
All initiatives have clearly-measurable results:
Do the data exist?
How, when and to whom are they reported?
Continuing call for results:
Executive-level expectations for interim and annual reports of progress toward long-term enrollment results.

39. Getting Ready for SEP

40. Next steps
CAVEAT: We are just in the planning phases of the project and details (timelines, specific personnel, etc.) are not yet known
With KCTCS and campus leadership, consider the right people to be on SEP teams
SEM planning kick-off
Review data and information to develop specific and focused enrollment goals
Work with AACRAO Consulting team to develop plans for your campus

41. Questions and Discussion

42. Thank you!
Tom Green, Ph.D.
consulting.aacrao.org