Innovative recruiting strategies and a deep-rooted commitment to students are the successful tools used by the College of Applied Sciences and Arts and the College of Education in attracting students to SIUC. These strategies should be mirrored and implemented in colleges campuswide.

A combination of departmental and overall college recruitment and retention policies were the catalysts for enrollment increases at both colleges.

CASA’s enrollment rose from 1,982 to 2,041 this semester. This increase was prompted by the aggressive recruiting done largely by departments within the college as an attempt to halt previously falling enrollment.

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What is so amazing about this enrollment increase? Although the departments relied on a field representative for assistance, faculty members from those different departments took it upon themselves to personally visit Illinois high schools and community colleges. These instructors scheduled visits with student groups in between preparing for their own classes and responsibilities. And once these faculty pulled off the difficult feat of prompting students to choose SIUC over an astounding number of other colleges and universities, they refused to consider their jobs done. Candy Evans, CASA’s associate dean of academic services, said faculty members of the college also are greatly involved with retaining those students. Faculty act as mentors and tutors to CASA students and maintain one-on-one relationships with students in other various ways.

Again, some may ask why is this so important? This is significant because past recruiting strategies placed the most emphasis on luring students to institutions. Instead of strengthening the necessary methods to keep newly acquired students at institutions, we seem to get caught up in the numbers. We forget that each new student is not a statistic. Students are individuals in need of continued academic guidance from the college that wooed them to enroll in the first place. For CASA faculty members, those observations are kept in mind, and the entire college should be commended.

A look at the recruiting strategies of the College of Education merits approval as well, as enrollment there also increased from 2,495 to 2,531. Enrollment in the college has enjoyed a nearly steady increase since 1993, but the college’s heavy recruiting largely done by the college as a whole has not lessened as a result.

In fact, the College of Education’s new Education 100 course for struggling students is a good model for John Jackson, vice chancellor of Academic Affairs and provost, to use for his planned University 101 course. Education 100 students learn how to manage their time, study, take notes and read textbooks. The students also discuss the conditions that lead them to need those services. Jacquelyn Bailey, the College of Education’s student services director, said one student who enrolled in Education 100 went from suspension to the dean’s list. That is the kind of success story we need to recognize and applaud more often, and that undoubtedly is the intent behind Jackson’s mandatory course for similar students throughout the campus planned for next school year.

Although CASA and the College of Education have realized enrollment increases, other colleges on campus are not faring as well. Jack Parker, dean of the College of Science, has seen his college’s enrollment decrease by 20 students. Parker said the decrease is related to the whims of students considering careers in fields other than those provided by his college. But Parker is confident that retaining the 1,454 students enrolled in his college is a significant key for building future stability. Once again, this shows that a focus on retaining the students that we do attract will be SIUC’s strongest trump card in rebuilding the high enrollment statistics we once took for granted.

Seymour Bryson, convener of the Student Success Task Force comprised of faculty and staff members, recently highlighted a statement he said summed up the task force’s basic findings during the past year. One part of the statement read, The student is not a cold enrollment statistic but a flesh-and-blood human being with feelings and emotions like our own. This observation and the success of various colleges are to be modeled by the administration as well as individual colleges if overall SIUC enrollment is to receive its long-needed upswing.