As we grow both personally and professionally, we develop expertise. We learn skills -- for example: how to manage time, plan and execute projects, and conduct meetings -- with the craft and certainty borne of experience.
Strategic enrollment management is a specific and highly-sought-after set of such skills. However, many enrollment managers, admissions officers and registrars didn’t come by these skills through targeted training or academic programs. Rather, they learned through experience, research, mentorship, meetings, and other informal paths.
That’s why AACRAO developed the SEM Endorsement Program.
Recognition and requirements
Higher education professionals understand the importance of not only testing and refining skills over time--but also of validating them in a recognizable and shareable format.
Developing professional knowledge is critical, but you also must be able to represent what you know and how you know it.
“SEM-EP is a formal recognition that you have gone through series of structured training modules to become more aware about enrollment management best practices,” said Christopher Tremblay, Ed.D., Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management at University of Wisconsin-Superior, and Assistant Director, SEM-EP.
It’s a self-paced program that includes the following curriculum:
- Online SEM essentials course.
- Three on-demand webinars.
- Field visits/SEM Conference attendance.
- Capstone experience.
Graduates of the program earn designation on a National Registry.
Applied knowledge
In addition to formal recognition that can be put on a resume, one of the core components of SEM-EP--the Capstone--gives participants an opportunity to apply their learning to a real-world challenge in a systematic and mentored environment.
“The Capstone is evidence of the education you’ve received--part of enacting what you’ve learned,” said Tremblay. “It’s a very applied program designed to be integrated into your work.”
Examples of integrated Capstone research includes:
- Pathway matriculation rates of students engaged in non-degree online programs in the state.
- Examination of current trends related to retention on community college campuses, with a specific focus on first-generation students in the region.
- Study of email messaging strategies for stop-out students at the university, which achieved an 11% return-to-degree work.
- See more examples here.
“The discussions in the class and discussions we had outside of the SEM-EP process were extremely helpful,” said Rob Garrett, Managing Director of Enrollment Services, Brigham Young University, a SEM-EP graduate.
“For my final project, one of my goals was to champion SEM ideas on my campus and I have been able to do so through opportunities that involved policy decisions, structural decisions, and presentations to the university at various all-employee meetings,” he said. “I did not use the words ‘strategic enrollment management,’ but relayed the various principles I learned from SEM-EP. Frameworks and models really related to the issues I was dealing with on my campus.”
Learn more
Talk with Tremblay at the SEM-EP session at the 2016 AACRAO SEM Conference. (Register now for SEM 2016, Nov. 6-9, San Antonio, Texas.) Tremblay will share information regarding program admission, learning outcomes, educational components, and benefits, as well as recent national research on enrollment management credentialing programs.
If you’re unable to attend the conference, learn more at the SEM-EP website.