Below you'll find brief summaries of four recent Q-and-As with links to the full interviews.
The Game Changers
Only half of the students who start four-year schools graduate, and only one-third of students at two-year schools do, according to Stan Jones, President of Complete College America (CCA) and the opening plenary presenter at the 2013 AACRAO SEM Conference. We're setting record enrollment”even though it's the middle of a recession”but we're still having difficulty graduating students,┬" he says.
By investigating the practices of campuses across the country, CCA has identified and elaborated on the five best practices at colleges that have broken out of that pattern and helped more of their students attain degrees. These practices can have a significant impact on graduation rates”so significant, in fact, that CCA has labeled them game changers.┬"
Read AACRAO's conversation with Jones here.
SEM planning: the role of the Data Team
Indiana State University implemented a SEM planning process in support of student retention and completion. Integral to that process was the SEM Data Team, an experienced and diverse team of faculty, institutional research, registrar, admissions, information technology and financial aid staff. With the help of AACRAO Consultant Tom Green, the SEM Data Team delivered comprehensive internal and external environmental scans to describe student trends in and around the university and is providing ongoing analysis as the plan is implemented.
Read AACRAO's conversation with Indiana State's data team here.
Extending SEM Into Integrated Planning and Advising Services: Helping Students Get On -- and Stay On -- Track
What is the student's experience of higher education? Often, it's fragmented and idiosyncratic, says Josh Jarrett, former Deputy Director for Postsecondary Success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Over the past two years, the Gates Foundation has invested in efforts to discover how the analytics, targeting, and engagement of strategic enrollment management can be extended from matriculation through transfer or graduation.
In the Closing Plenary at the 2013 SEM Conference, Jarrett will share what integrated planning and advising┬" solutions work from a student's perspective, why they work, and offer examples of how to implement them on campus.
Read AACRAO's conversation with Jarrett here.
The Alpha and Omega of SEM: Supporting Student Success
There is one foundational goal of strategic enrollment management, according to Tricia Seifert, Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. The beginning and end of SEM, Seifert says, is student success.
Seifert's research explores the structures and cultures that have been proven support student success, and she'll be sharing some of her insights in her plenary session The Alpha and Omega of Strategic Enrollment Management: Student Success┬" at AACRAO's 2013 SEM Conference.
Read AACRAO's conversation with Seifert here.