Develop and implement strategic initiatives with respect to recruitment, admissions, retention, and graduation rates of undergraduate and graduate students at Governors State University.
- Implement a comprehensive and collaborative Strategic Enrollment Management plan that focuses on student success and institutional growth.
- Implement a comprehensive undergraduate enrollment management strategy that focuses on increasing the enrollment of a diverse freshmen, transfer, and international student body.
- Implement a comprehensive graduate enrollment strategy that focuses on increasing the enrollment of a diverse and well-prepared graduate student body.
- Increase global awareness among the GSU community through strategic initiatives of International Student Services and academic programming.
Chicago Southland? Really marekting department? Just put South Suburbs because its a 50 minute drive to the city.
Why not market GSU to specific communities? We should have directed marketing to the Polish community and to the Latino community.
There is very little follow-up on potential students enquires. Colleges are ill-informed regarding enquires. Marketing of our programs is a joke.
I believe that the current Enrollment Management team is doing great work in modernizing GSU’s approach to recruiting and admitting students. This has been very positive, especially in light of the national and regional enrollment trends that show declines across the board.
While pursuing international students is a wonderful way to make GSU known and because this type of initiative adds to the overall diversification of GSU student body, it should be funded proportionally. We should not be pursuing international students as ‘high revenue’ students, and our investment in their recruitment should be more modest.
Retention is a subject of much debate. How do we retain students? What causes students to want/have to leave GSU? What can we do as an institution to help students stay? Retention should be everyone’s job, not just enrollment management, faculty, and advisors.
I think we should create training and information programs or workshops for all staff and faculty about what retention is, how we can identify the risk signs in our students, and what we can do to help. From the police officer who sees a student in emotional distress to the librarian who hears a student’s frustrations about assignments, to the faculty member who observes troubling behavior in the classroom. What are the early warning signs of students at risk of dropping out?
Graduation is equally important. We should have special programs for students that are short of the finish line, to fast track them to degree completion while accommodating their needs and helping them overcome their obstacles.
None of the above imply that we should relax our standards, inflate grades, or reduce the rigor of our programs. That would be doing students a disservice. We should seek to eliminate the obstacles that keep them from realizing their fullest potential.
If the University does not yet have a freshman interest group seminar, I would suggest implementing one for each major. It could be as simple as an online forum that students check into and post comments on a particular topic.
Please correct International Student Services to (Office of) International Services.