March 5, 2024
Dear Colleagues,
I write today to inform you of forthcoming changes regarding enrollment management, resulting from several months of analyses, consultation, and personal reflection.
In Fall 2023, I authorized a contract with Best Practice Solutions (BPS), an enrollment management consulting firm that has been working with our Enrollment Management (EM) team throughout this year to: (1) assess the organizational structure and efficacy of enrollment management functions; (2) make better use of data reporting and analysis in enrollment strategy and allocation of admissions resources; and (3) improve first year and transfer student yield rates for the Fall 2024 incoming cohort and develop a tactical plan for the full recruitment cycle for the 2025 cohort.
Concurrent work has progressed on all three fronts. Outcomes for items 2 and 3 require more time to be realized; we anticipate our enrollment trajectory to begin to stabilize in 2024-25 and move in a positive direction in 2025-26. More imminently, BPS-recommended changes to the organizational structure for EM; these are underway and will be effective April 1. In addition, the name of this area will shift back to Enrollment Management, emphasizing the primary focus of this team and the units within.
- I am appointing Toni DeBoni to the position of AVP for Enrollment Management. Her work with the EM team alongside BPS and our Institutional Research team to better utilize data in our enrollment planning, centering outreach as an important component of long-term enrollment management, and expanding recruitment, marketing, and communication efforts has been vitally important in an arena in which our campus has yet to mature. Our BPS consultants have provided the highest quality reviews of her work, her openness as a learner, and her capacity for proficient EM leadership, providing the continuity and care necessary for these ambitious changes.
- AVP DeBoni will report directly to me. Organizationally, EM will become a unit within the Office of the President for the immediate future, centralizing this team’s work and signifying its importance to institutional relevance and health. I will assess whether this will be a short- or long-term reporting and organizational structure, as data for 2024-25 and 2025-26 come in.
- BPS has recommended a new organizational structure for EM, requiring several additional positions to ensure sufficient depth in each essential area (e.g., Prospective Student Marketing, Admissions & Recruitment–Undergraduate Programs, Admissions & Recruitment–Graduate and International, Operations & Analytics, Financial Aid & Scholarships). We will be phasing in these recommendations for building out our EM team over the next two years in collaboration with campus partners, utilizing vacancies and restructuring efforts across divisions to enact this change.
- EM will continue to provide prospective student marketing; ongoing University marketing will remain part of our Integrated Marketing Communication efforts, led by our Communication & Public Relations team.
- I am accepting the BPS recommendation and feedback from the EM leadership team to include the Registrar’s office and Student Systems unit as part of the EM organizational structure as individual units reporting directly to AVP DeBoni. This is a natural transition for the teams as they are already fully integrated into leadership, planning, and daily operations of EM, alongside Admissions & Recruitment, and Financial Aid & Scholarships. Recognizing the critical relationship between these various programs and the work of Academic and Student Affairs, intentional strategies for strengthened collaboration and communication will be a high priority.
A full report from BPS is forthcoming that will provide an in-depth assessment of our state of affairs in Enrollment Management – addressing the past, current, and future outlook of this area including rationale for structural recommendations. I look forward to sharing and discussing that report with my leadership team, our Enrollment Management team, Academic Senate, Staff Council, Student Government, and other campus partners in this work.
Sincerely,
Richard Yao, Ph.D.
President