In "Integrating Evolving Perspectives: The Roots and Wings of Strategic Enrollment Management,” Stanley Henderson covers SEM--from its humble beginnings 40 years ago to the current crossroads for enrollment managers: deliver success in the face of numerous challenges, including performance funding, dwindling enrollment in certain populations of students, public pressure for accountability, and lower state investment in higher education.
These challenges and responsibilities have placed upon SEM administrators greater demands to demonstrate management competencies. SEM leaders are no longer just responsible for bringing in the class.
In “Enrollment Leadership for a Campus Transformation,” which appeared in Strategic Enrollment Management Quarterly, Scott Lingrell pays tribute to Henderson's work. According to Lingrell, "Although it is still true that enrollment managers must bring in the class to fulfill their obligations to the institution, now the breadth and depth of their practice is well beyond the strategies and tactics necessary to enroll students. Executive-level enrollment managers must have a much broader understanding of institutional organizational structure and how to bring the institution’s resources to bear on the issues of enrollment, retention, and graduation.”
Furthermore, they must understand how the various functions operate interdependently: “Now, the stakes are too high, and the functional requirements too complex. Today's enrollment managers must evolve into an enrollment leader.”
AACRAO's Strategic Enrollment Management Endorsement Program (SEM-EP) aims to prepare enrollment leaders. SEM-EP provides a well-defined, self-paced leadership development program and career advancement track for in-service enrollment service professionals. The association offers formal recognition by AACRAO that the leader possesses professional readiness to meet future challenges in the field of enrollment management. It allows institutional leaders a valid way to evaluate the preparedness of prospective employees for executive SEM positions.
The SEM-EP is designed to promote industry competency and readiness, to develop expertise in the field of strategic enrollment management and to provide a respected vehicle to officially deliver an approved curriculum from leading enrollment professionals. The curriculum includes online courses, webinars, a research report and field visits to approved institutions.
For more information regarding the program and registration, please visit our AACRAO SEM-EP site.