April 28, 2003

Wayland tackles enrollment management
___PLAINVIEW--The newest vice president at Wayland Baptist University not only has a new job to learn, he's got a new job to create.
___Claude Lusk is the university's vice president for enrollment management, a newly created position that follows a current trend in higher education.
___At Wayland, enrollment management encompasses admissions, student s

TONY FREEMAN (right), vice president of sales at Trafton Printing in Amarillo, gives Wayland Baptist University students April Gunter and James Jenkins a tour of Trafton's production facility. They are accompanied by Wayland Vice President Claude Lusk. Lusk has involved Wayland's marketing promotions class in producing a new slogan and marketing campaign the university will implement during the summer. "This joint project will benefit our students as well as give our university faculty and staff a sense of ownership of the campaign once it is unveiled," Lusk explained.

ervices and athletics.
___In his first semester in the new role, Lusk built a framework to unite these three areas. And he's been focusing on the primary goal of creating the new division--student retention.
___"There's never really been a structure to examine retention," he explained.
___But the change "isn't just about increasing enrollment," he added. "We want Wayland to be the size it needs to be. One of the biggest issues is to improve retention, and that is very much at the heart of everything we're doing. In many ways, retention can be a measurement of the quality we're providing."
___Joining Lusk in this newly integrated approach to student retention are Shawn Thomas, director of admissions; Emmitt Tipton, dean of students; and Greg Feris, athletic director and chairman of the division of physical education and recreation.
___"Retention is never a single problem," Lusk explained. "It's a case of looking at the big picture and working to improve what we already have."
___As a starting effort, Lusk and his assistant, Robin Terrell, studied a decade's worth of retention data for the university, looking for trends and building a profile of students at risk for not returning.
___Based on this profile, they identified students in the current freshman class who might be at risk for dropping out or transferring. They connected these students with students and administrators on campus who could monitor their progress while building relationships.
___Freshmen also were paired with upperclassmen who could provide peer support and help guide them to necessary resources. Lusk's staff also sent notes of encouragement and held focus groups with freshmen to get their feedback.
___Those notes and encouraging contacts have proved to be essential in helping new students link into the campus more deeply than just attending classes, Lusk reported.
___"Students can get hooked-in academically in classes or with a particular professor, with a division they really enjoy or with organizations where they can get socially intertwined and feel like they have a responsibility," he said. "It's a whole lot tougher to leave people than to leave a school."
___Another component involves early identification of students having academic struggles and linking them with resources already available on campus.
___Combined with advances in technology, strategic planning, a new marketing campaign and revision of the university's mission statement, the move toward an enrollment management model will benefit Wayland, Lusk predicted.
___"It's like a confluence of several rivers. If all these things are in place, then next fall we'll be hitting on all cylinders. We'll have more tools in place to really be able to impact enrollment."
___

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