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Portfolio Assignment - Week 8 Robin Rockey Management of Organizational Behavior Colorado State University-Global Campus Dr. Linda Klonsky March 4, 2012

2 Portfolio Assignment - Week 8 Introduction The concept of enrollment management emerged in the 1970s and has developed into a strategic way of recruiting, retaining and graduating students. Rather than taking a “shotgun” approach with “get as many as you can” results, enrollment management strives to proactively plan for long-term enrollment and retention. It is a data-informed process that aligns an institutions’s fiscal and academic resources within its ever-changing environment to accomplish the institution’s mission and ensure long-term enrollment success and fiscal health. “‘Numbers,’ say the finance staff, ‘Quality,’ cry the faculty. And the admissions officers find themselves trying to do their job faced with variables over which they have no control.” (Swann, Henderson & AACRAO, p.71). Data must be the key. Says Kurz (2003, p. 39), “Without data, it is easy to try to do too much in too many places, resulting in a diluted effort that produces little by way of significant results”. An enrollment management structure consistently includes the core offices of admissions, registration and financial aid but in some situations, it may also include retention, orientation, counseling, first year experience and other offices that directly relate to student success. The combination of these offices under the umbrella of enrollment management allows nonacademic offices to work together to present strategies and tactics that will shape incoming classes and have a positive affect on attrition and graduation. Proposed Solution For the fifteen years that I have been employed at Lock Haven University, we have been a reactive institution. When problems developed, we found solutions (many of which were

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