As we turn the corner into 2022, we look ahead to the post-pandemic enrollment environment. Many of the issues that confronted us before 2020 have accelerated or still demand our attention today. This issue of SEM Quarterly is filled with great resources to help us strategically consider how we will help our students and our institutions rebound, thrive, and position themselves for success well into the future.

The issues facing armed services veterans are just as important today as they were two years ago. Like many student groups, their needs and influences go beyond picking a major or submitting an official transcript. These learners typically have many educational experiences and life needs. Dr. Tara Horner provides a focused study of recent military veterans, enhanced by interviews with military education officers who often have a good deal of contact with active duty soldiers just before they separate from service. She offers insights across four important factors in their decision set. While some are familiar or could likely be assumed about any adult learners, the ways in which veterans have both common and unique needs, especially in trying to navigate educational benefits, make for an important read for all enrollment leaders who are working to better serve those who have served us.

The path forward from the pandemic can be overwhelming, as there has been such widespread disruption to what has worked before and the methods and preferences of our students. Shaimaa Hassanein offers a framework for understanding the possible options and language to help vocalize and discuss our options. Her lens is global, and the principles and framework could be applied in a wide variety of institutional sizes, types, controls, and locations. It is “just in time” for post-pandemic planning.

Graduate enrollment management has been rising as an area of practice and research for several years. Balayan, Connor, and LaFave offer a “grounding” in how the graduate level of SEM practice is both similar to and different from the undergraduate lens through which so much of SEM is viewed. The comparative chart of elements of both undergraduate and graduate areas, while one may debate the extent to which all undergraduate elements are in practice in that way at a given institution, provides an especially helpful way to understand how this emerging practice area is unique. We have seen this before, as Canadian, community college, professional, and other institutional types have come to adapt SEM to their unique needs.

Canadian institutions were some of the first to embrace and adapt SEM to their needs. The groundbreaking book SEM in Canada (AACRAO 2011) helped enrollment managers understand the roots of SEM as an American practice and its necessary adaptations for Canadian institutions. Gottheil and Smith have updated their work in this article, joined by scholar Aliyah King, to provide a refreshed view of the now mature SEM practice in that country. The authors are outstanding writers, and this article does not disappoint readers. It deftly weaves many concepts and topics into a single work. Certainly, this is the preface of their next book, as there is much here to digest and unpack.

May the New Year be especially bright and prosperous for you, your students, and your institutions!

Happy reading.