The Strategic Enrollment Management Committee held a town hall meeting on Nov. 27 to discuss the goals of the group and hear feedback from the MU community.
The SEM committee presented its draft goals with a five-year plan that it hopes to accomplish by 2023 as well as the proposals the committee plans to set in place to increase and maintain enrollment rates and improve student success at MU.
Two of its major goals were to increase the overall number of new incoming undergraduates to 6,000, an increase from the approximately 4,000 in 2017, as well as the number of undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs and graduate credential completions from the university to 10,000 in 2023.
The presentation lays out past goals and approaches. For example, in past years the university has focused on tuition revenue and increasing racial and ethnic diversity. MU also had a primary goal of growing the university’s first year class, which is still a goal this year. To address this, the university focused on increasing MU’s applicant base by reaching out to more out-of-state students.
In the presentation, the committee outlined its plan to offer more out-of-state scholarships, such as the new Border State Scholarship, as well as showcase the university’s broad range of majors and academic success.
In addition, the SEM committee wants 95 percent of graduates to be employed or enrolled in graduate school within six months of graduation by 2023. The group had no specific approaches for how to address this goal but plans on using future meetings as well as student data to inform and evaluate those strategies.
The committee also wants to increase first-year undergraduate student retention to 93 percent and improve four-year undergraduate student graduate rates by 20 percent by 2023.
To address these goals, the group plans to take a “holistic approach” to undergraduate, graduate and professional enrollment and look at the overall size and quality of the programs provided for students.
Pelema Morrice, vice provost of enrollment management and strategic development, said in an email that the next step for the SEM committee is to identify and determine specific strategies to support accomplishing the five goals.
The feedback from the town hall meeting will be used to adjust the goals and to provide potential ideas for strategy development, Morrice said in the email.
MU spokeswoman Liz McCune said the committee was first formed earlier this year to provide a “comprehensive, holistic approach to strategic enrollment management.” The SEM committee plans to promote academic programs to increase student recruitment to the university and student success within MU, McCune said.
The group’s main priority is to advance collective enrollment efforts at the university by using “institutional strategic efforts and policy initiatives,” according to its website.
“The overarching goal is to ensure a thriving postsecondary ecosystem for future and current Tigers, as well as alumni,” also according to the website.
McCune said the committee’s next major plan is to begin work on strategy development. After it finalizes enrollment goals, it plans to assign work to student recruitment and student success sub-committees within the SEM committee.
_Edited by Olivia Garrett | ogarrett@themaneater.com_