Enrollment Management Committee Report, 2004-2007
In late fall of 2004, Dr. Mary Lyons formed the Enrollment Management Committee and charged the members to review USD’s recruiting practices and develop a set of enrollment goals and strategies. As the committee began its work, the university was facing a serious financial challenge brought on by a significant financial aid deficit. One of the factors that contributed to the deficit was a lack of true enrollment planning – aligning the academic goals for entering classes with the budgeting realities of the university. While the structural changes to the way the financial aid budget was set and distributed did not fall under the purview of the committee, that group nevertheless began its planning activities under the shadow of this critical situation.
The committee represented a cross-section of the campus community, including faculty; representatives from Finance & Administration, Student Affairs, Academic Affairs; and a member of the Board of Trustees.The group met once in 2004, and began meeting approximately quarterly during the 2005 calendar year.
Original Enrollment Management Committee:| Chair | |
|---|---|
| Steve Pultz | Admissions |
| Members | |
| Andy Allen | School of Business Administration |
| Carl Eging | School of Law |
| Cheryl Getz | School of Leadership and Education Sciences |
| Tom Cosgrove | Student Affairs |
| Jim Gump | College of Arts and Sciences |
| Tom Herrinton | Associate Provost |
| Susan Instone | School of Nursing and Health Science |
| Cel Johnson | Institutional Research and Planning |
| Judy Lewis Logue | Financial Aid |
| Jim Mazzo | Board of Trustees |
| Cathy Mumper | School of Nursing and Health Science |
| Lee Ann Otto | College of Arts and Sciences |
| Jim Pehl | Budget and Treasury |
| Julie Sullivan | Vice President and Provost |
In its early stages, through much of the 2005 year, the committee engaged in activities that helped its members better understand the principles of enrollment management. These activities included reading articles from several professional publications, gathering data regarding current USD enrollment, and learning about the competitive higher education marketplace from which USD recruited its students. A listing of the articles reviewed by the committee may be found at the end of this report. USD's statements of mission, core values, vision, and strategic goals were important considerations for setting enrollment priorities.
During the early part of 2005, the committee distributed a survey to trustees, faculty, and staff, asking them to rate the importance of recruiting different groups of students. The results were published in an issue of USD Trends, which is available to faculty and staff on the Institutional Research & Planning web site. Also during this time, the Strategic Directions committees were formulating long-range plans, and many of those touched on enrollment issues – specifically, the committees for Inclusion and Diversity, Internationalization, and Integrated Learning (First Year Experience).
By 2006, the EM committee had begun the process of formally developing an undergraduate enrollment plan. The first phase of developing this plan was to identify a set of schools to be used for benchmarking purposes. These schools were selected after much research and discussion. The list included ten schools, some from existing comparator lists and others with specific relevance to our enrollment planning.
| California Schools | Out-of-State Schools |
|---|---|
| Loyola Marymount University | Fordham University |
| Pepperdine University | Seattle University |
| Santa Clara University | Seton Hall University |
| University of San Francisco | University of Dayton |
| University of Southern California | Villanova University |
We then gathered comparative data from these schools reflecting their size, composition, financial aid, and retention of students. By comparing USD's position relative to the comparator schools on various measures, we were able to advance a set of twelve measurable targets for USD’s enrollment profile for the year 2011 – the entering class five years from 2006. Overall, USD will endeavor to enroll 1090-1110 new freshman and 300-325 new transfer students every year to achieve a stable undergraduate enrollment between 4985-5000 students.
| Enrollment Targets for Entering Class | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Goal | Fall 2006 | Fall 2007 |
| Academic | 1. mean HS GPA=3.80; SAT=1200 | 3.74/1174 | 3.76/1175 |
| 2. middle 50% SAT=1100-1300 | 1080-1280 | 1080-1280 | |
| 3. admit rate below 50% | 46% | 48% | |
| 4. U.S. News rank in top 100 | 105 | 107 | |
| Composition | 5. 33% minority | 28% | 29% |
| 6. 5% African-American | 3.3% | 2.1% | |
| 7. all 50 states represented | 45 | 45 | |
| 8. 50% from outside California | 47% | 48% | |
| 9. >5% international | 2.0% | 2.4% | |
| 10. 58% Catholic | 53.3% | 54.2% | |
| Retention | 11. 90% retained in second year | 87% | 85% |
| 12. 4/5/6-year graduation rates within top half of comparator schools |
6th,8th,8th | no change | |
The EM committee recognized the importance of communicating the elements of the plan. This PowerPoint presentation has been used to share information about comparator schools, enrollment goals, and five-year targets with various audiences. This plan takes us through the entering class of 2011, but the enrollment management process is really an ongoing, ever-changing set of goals and priorities. As the institution continues to shape its identity – through the WASC self study and other planning processes – we must always continue to include enrollment management as part of those processes.
Since the initial days of the EM committee and the serious financial cloud that hovered over our work, the university has come a long way. Finance & Administration and Academic Affairs have worked together to develop annual financial aid budgets, the Board of Trustees has been positively involved in the challenges we face in enrolling our class, and the campus is committed to providing higher levels of service to our students as evidenced by the implementation of the student portal and One Stop. Much remains to be done, such as expanding the participation of faculty and others in setting subsequent enrollment goals, but it is the hope of the committee that a foundation has been established for incorporating effective enrollment planning into the planning culture of the campus.
Professional Literature Reviewed by Enrollment Management Committee
Whiteside, Richard, 2001. "Moving From Theory to Action" in Strategic Enrollment Management Revolution edited by Jim Black. American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
Bontrager, Bob, 2004. "Enrollment Management: An Introduction to Concepts and Structures" in Journal of College Admissions, AACRAO, Vol. 79 No. 3 (Winter 2004).
Henderson, Stanley, 2005. "Refocusing Enrollment Management; Losing Structure and Finding the Academic Context," presented at the Strategic Enrollment Management Conference, AACRAO, Orlando, FL.