ïThe SEM Conference Silver Anniversary
This year marks the 25th anniversary of AACRAO’s Strategic Enrollment Management Conference (SEM). More than 700 higher education professionals convened in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to celebrate this milestone event and learn how SEM has evolved and become integral to enhancing student success at colleges and universities around the world.
Congratulations and thank you to Stan Henderson, Angé Peterson, and Dick Whiteside for supporting and attending the SEM Conference for 25 years!
Now THIS is what a great conference kick-off looks like SEM 25! @AACRAO #AACRAO pic.twitter.com/wTCMheaNsP
— Tom Green (@TheSEMDoctor) November 1, 2015
Workshops
Team Programming
With the growing presence of institutional teams at the SEM Conference—this year we have 34 teams in attendance—new programming on Sunday morning was designed to help SEM teams understand the core concepts of SEM and facilitate and implement SEM planning on their campuses. For those schools with one to three team members, Jay Goff of Saint Louis University and Michele Sandlin of AACRAO Consulting led the discussion on the foundations of SEM, the methods to organize planning teams, and the process for creating a SEM plan on campus.
Larger teams were assigned a faculty mentor and had the opportunity to attend wrap-up sessions daily during the conference. Workshop presenters Susan Gottheil of University of Manitoba and William Serrata of El Paso Community College helped participants develop a common understanding of SEM and its terminology.
“Three R's" of SEM: Research, Recruitment, and Retention
The Sunday afternoon workshops covered the “Three R’s of SEM." Presenters Reid Kisling of AACRAO Consulting, Brian Williams of John Carroll University, and Chris Shaffer of Shawnee State University focused on how and when to create reports to help campus leaders solve problems and make more data-informed decisions during their “Developing the SEM Analytics Agenda: Incorporating Big Data and Business Intelligence Principles into Your SEM Portfolio” workshop.
During “The Art & Science of Student Recruitment” workshop, Dick Whiteside, a retired SEM professional, helped attendees examine the critical elements of student recruitment and learn how use the techniques to optimize enrollment and greatly increase the likelihood of achieving desired net revenue goals.
The “Retention and Student Success: Removing Barriers and Identifying Best Practices to Increase Student Persistence” workshop, by Jody Gordon, University of the Fraser Valley and Stan Henderson of AACRAO Consulting, examined key student success data, and also examined strategies that support first-generation, transfer, mature/non-traditional, LGBTTQ, and underrepresented populations.
Making the Most of Your SEM Conference Experience
AACRAO Executive Director Mike Reilly, AACRAO Associate Executive Director of Consulting and SEM Tom Green, and SEM Conference Director William Serrata led a free workshop on how to approach the SEM Conference and take advantage of new additions to the SEM Conference agenda.
Opening Plenary: Emerging Issues: Becoming as Diverse as Our Students
The opening plenary featuring Peace Bransberger, Senior Research Analyst for WICHE, and Luke Schultheis, AACRAO Board Member and Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management at Virginia Commonwealth University, discussed existing data on trends in the high school graduate population in the US and new data on mobility trends of the college-going population.
WICHE research paints a sobering picture for US enrollment managers. Continued decline in the high school graduate population through 2025 coupled with a striking change in the overall demographics of those graduates should give those engaged in enrollment management pause. The data shows a need for institutions to examine their recruitment and student success plans to ensure that they continue to meet the needs of students who will be eligible for enrollment at their institutions in the next decade and beyond. Any growth in the next ten years is driven by growth in currently under-represented minority populations. Those populations are less likely to travel out of state for higher education, and more likely to enroll in two-year or four-year public institutions. Institutions need to understand their local demographic trends in order to capitalize on the opportunities to serve their local communities.
Luke Schultheis distilled the message for institutions: “There are many examples of large business which ignored impending market changes, resulting in closure. Colleges have not been immune to this. We have the data. We need to plan and make changes now to serve our students of the future and to ensure our institutions continue to contribute to positive social growth.”
