Maine Perspective Front Page
Enrollment Plan Establishes Strategies for Student Recruitment and Retention
A BearWorks Initiative
In BearWorks, better service to students begins with enrollment. In the past year, aggressive recruitment efforts yielded 1,381 (21 percent) more first-year undergraduate students as of the official count than last year at the same time, including 81 additional Top Scholars (65 last year).
This academic year, those successful recruitment efforts will continue, in concert with a series of new recruitment and retention strategies, all in an effort to increase the size of the student body without sacrificing quality.
"What will drive our recruitment and enrollment plans is what we (as an institution) can comfortably accommodate," says John Beacon, dean of Enrollment Management. "We can't increase enrollment without the courses and programs students need to graduate within a reasonable timeframe or without adequate residence hall space. The student number of 12,000 has been suggested as a goal, but we have to monitor our growth and make it happen predictably - not growth simply for the sake of growth but with a plan in mind as to how we can accommodate students once they get here."
Increasing enrollment has a direct effect on the size of the University's budget. Enrollment growth makes possible UMaine's responsibility to address areas such as much-needed attention to deferred maintenance and, in the long term, to strengthen the institution's ability to address the needs of students and the state. Since increasing enrollment involves not only gaining new students but retaining those who are already enrolled, the University must have the fiscal resources to operate and provide quality academic programs and support services.
"We need to work together cooperatively," Beacon says. "Faculty involvement - the day-to-day interaction with students - is so critical to our success. Faculty who care, post and maintain office hours, and make themselves available as mentors are critical to students wanting to stay at the University. It's amazing what a difference a friendly hello can make to the students we pass each day on the way to classes."
Preliminary indications are that the University is doing a better job keeping students. Approximately 81 percent of the last freshman class returned as sophomores (compared nationally with an average of 75 percent at public land-grant universities and up by 3 percent over last year at UMaine).
"But we must not let the increased enrollments and better retention figures lull us into a false sense of comfort about future enrollment," says Beacon. "I think we have turned the corner and I am encouraged by the early interest thus far by high school seniors. Nevertheless, student recruitment efforts are being stepped up in southern Maine. And more than ever before, prospective students from outside the state are being targeted through new market strategies.
"Enrollment can't rely on students in the state," says Beacon. "People have a false sense of security in news that suggests that we are experiencing a second baby boom. While nationally in the next decade there will be increases in the number of traditional-age students going to college, that is not true for states like Maine. We have to start now to foster future growth from out-of-state students, even those beyond New England. Right now, New England states are as worried as we are and they are working hard to retain their own students.
"We have to look at what value-added benefits we have to offer at UMaine that will be attractive to students from across the country - a safe campus environment, quality of life and outdoor recreational opportunities - a combination of benefits not readily found on other campuses."
In addition to enrollment publications, recruitment and retention strategies for the coming year include:
- A four-color recruitment brochure, underwritten by Fleet Bank, is being mailed this week to 67,000 high school seniors outside New England and as far away as Missouri. This new publication with a very different look than the traditional college viewbook is focused on the value-added "good life in Maine"; if a similar mailing is done next year, greater emphasis will be placed on UMaine's competitive cost of attendance and generous financial aid packages.
- A pilot telemarketing campaign is under way this year. Two thousand prospective students - 80 percent of whom are from Maine - have been randomly selected. Half of the students will be called monthly through next spring by University students, while the other 1,000 students will receive more traditional contacts via mail. The goal is to determine if more personalized attention has a positive impact on the yield rate of students.
- A 12-minute recruitment video targeted to traditional-age prospective students has been produced by the Department of Public Affairs in conjunction with Enrollment Management. It is being mailed to high school guidance officers in Maine and to some outside the state.
- Spring receptions for admitted students, introduced last year at six locations around the state, will be held again in April. Based on last year's success, receptions will be added in Boston and the Camden/Rockport area.
- The toll-free number for Admissions has been reinstated: 1-877-4UM-ADMIT.
- The University of Maine Portland Office, now at 100 Foden Road, South Portland, is headed by Matt Isham. In partnership with the Alumni Association, the Portland Office will serve as an outreach arm of the Admissions office for the University's southern Maine recruitment efforts. Isham's responsibilities include visiting area high schools, planning and coordinating programs for the University in the Cumberland County, and meeting individually with prospective students.
- The Admissions staff will travel less this recruitment season, focusing more on quality visits to feeder schools proven to be the most productive schools in the state. The office will also rely more on alumni to represent UMaine at college fairs outside the state.
- Funding has been provided to the Career Center to work with some of the colleges in developing employment and salary surveys of recent graduates. Accurate career information about recent grads is critical to recruitment and retention.