Enrollment Edge by enrollmentFUEL

On today’s Enrollment Edge Jay has a conversation with Wendy Keough, Executive Director of Undergraduate Recruitment & Admissions at Andrews University in Michigan. The episode is dedicated to the new reality of hiring, motivating, and retaining an admission staff. In the past two years, hiring and retaining staff has become a drastically bigger challenge. Remote work expectations, salary constraints, thin loyalties among applicants, and a lack of vision where jobs in admissions and enrollment can lead, have driven decisions to change admission roles. While the hiring climate in higher education is shifting, this episode provides some helpful tools for hiring managers to find, hire and retain talent on their teams.

About our Guest
Wendy Keough serves as the Executive Director of Undergraduate Recruitment & Admissions at Andrews University. Born and raised in rural Michigan, she received a Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture and a Master of Arts in Educational Leadership from Andrews University, a private Seventh-day Adventist university near the shores of Lake Michigan.

Wendy’s professional accomplishments have included automotive engineering, educational marketing, entrepreneurship, and educational administration both in the US and abroad. She enjoys academic research, systems efficiency, and empowering others to be their very best. While serving in Thailand, Keough served as the Program Director for the English Language program at Asia-Pacific International University, started an industry offering English language courses to local professionals in software and chemical engineering, and co-presented international research in the area of Computer Aided Language Learning (CALL) in both Thailand and the Philippines. Wendy has been working in higher education for over 8 years.

Outside of work, she is inspired by her husband Ryan, and their three sons, their pets, being outdoors, domestic and international travel, and cooking.

On today’s Enrollment Edge, Jay has a conversation with Dr. John Downey, President of Blue Ridge Community College in Virginia. As the President of a community college, Dr. Downey has a deep interest in the evolution of higher education to meet the growing needs of today’s workforce. As you will hear in the episode, there are stark realities facing all of all of us in the coming decades. Much of our conversation connects with a recent article by Emsi called the Demographic Drought – the coming sans-demic. We’ll talk about the immediate labor force needs and how higher education must find a response to the widening gap between those needs and traditional degrees, in order to avoid a "Hunger Games" recruitment environment.

About Our Guest
Dr. John A. Downey became the fifth President of Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, Virginia, in 2009. Prior to being named president, he served as the Vice President for Instruction and Student Services and in various other roles at the College since 1992. Before arriving at Blue Ridge, Dr. Downey worked in student services offices at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Downey received his Bachelor of Arts degree from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York, and a Master of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology from Boston College. He completed his doctoral program in Higher Education Administration at the University of Virginia, where he was awarded the Annette Gibbs Research Publication Award. 

Downey served on three of the most recent Virginia Community College System (VCCS) strategic planning development committees and chaired the 2021 Strategic Initiatives Task Force. He has served as the chairperson, or as a member, of numerous community boards, including the Shenandoah Valley Partnership for Economic Development, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, the Shenandoah Valley Workforce Development Board, the Harrisonburg City Rotary Club, On The Road Collaborative, and the GenEdge Alliance Board of Trustees (formerly the A.L. Philpott Manufacturing Extension Partnership).

Under his leadership, BRCC has garnered recognition from around the state for its progressive workforce initiatives and partnerships. In 2010, he was recognized as the most supportive president of the year at the Enactus (formerly SIFE) National Exposition. Blue Ridge Community College has consistently been recognized throughout the past decade by the Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Great Colleges to Work For” program. 

John lives with his wife, Sandy in Harrisonburg, VA. Together they raised three daughters who all currently work in public service professions. 

Today on the Enrollment Edge we revisit the test-optional discussion. Pre-Pandemic, only a handful of colleges had adopted an admissions policy that didn’t consider standardized tests like the ACT or SAT. Today there are nearly 2000 colleges that have moved in this direction, many of them in response to canceled test dates, and the complications of requiring something from an applicant that they could no longer reasonably provide the college. In this Edge episode Jay talks to Joe Montgomery, Vice President of Enrollment and Student Success at Tuskegee University, about Tuskegee’s decision to no longer require standardized tests from applicants, as well as the ongoing decision to maintain that policy even after testing options have normalized. Jay and Joe talk through the purpose of standardized tests and what could replace them if the college's goal is successful placement and college success.

About Our Guest
For over 20-years, Mr. Joseph Montgomery has been a noteworthy leader in the college admissions/enrollment space. He has experience with admission work at HBCUs and Private Selective Colleges throughout the United States' southeastern region. Before joining Tuskegee University, he spent 6-years at the College Board as Director, Higher Education Services advising chief enrollment officers at universities throughout the south on matters relating to admissions, financial aid, registration, and student success indicators. Beyond servicing as the Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Success at Tuskegee University, he serves on the Education Finance Institute Advisory Board that focuses on strengthen mission-focused colleges and universities that primarily serve low-income, first-generation, and minority students. Lastly, he was selected to serve on the National Association College Admissions Counseling – Commission on Redesigning the College Admission and Financial Aid Through a Racial Equity Lens. The panel will examine the college entrance pipeline, postsecondary financial aid requirements, and the role of racial equity in postsecondary enrollment. He holds Bachelor's Degree from Voorhees College (HBCU) and a Master's Degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (HBCU) and currently resides in Blacksburg, VA and Tuskegee, AL.   

In episode 27, Jay talks with Andy Woodall, Executive Director of Recruitment and Admissions at Shenandoah University about successfully bringing faculty into the recruitment process. None of us doubt the high impact of members of a college community engaging prospective students. Most enrollment leaders will build relationships with coaches, staff, and faculty in order to fully connect with prospects, and set their college ahead of other options a student may be considering. Yet, getting faculty to commit to recruiting isn't as simple as it might sound. We talk about the importance of drawing faculty into the recruiting business, the key to bringing university leadership into the conversation, showing results and appreciation to faculty at the end of the recruitment cycle, and how to help the faculty to see that they are, in fact, caring for and shaping their future classrooms. As the old saying goes, if it takes a whole village to raise a child, it takes a whole university to recruit a one. 

About our Guest
Andy Woodall is the Assistant Vice-President for Recruitment and Admissions and Shenandoah University where he manages the coordination of all the University's recruitment efforts for First-Year, Transfer, and Graduate students. Andy stresses the importance of authenticity in how University's represent themselves to prospective students so that prospective students and their families can make the most informed college choice. This philosophy, along with centering the recruitment work around putting the needs of the student first has resulted in several record-breaking incoming classes at Shenandoah University. Outside of his work with students, you can usually find Andy close to or on a soccer field (either watching or coaching his two daughters) or in his kitchen at home, likely making too big of a mess (much to his wife's chagrin), but having a lot of fun doing it.

For many colleges transfer enrollment is desirable but elusive. For other colleges, transfers are expensive, complicated, and offered the leftover resources. However, the impending demographic cliff will force the hand of many enrollment leaders to make some priority decisions. Among those decisions will be, being intentional about attracting non-traditional students to the college, how does my college actually serve the needs of transfers, and what can be done to retain those students enrolled through graduation. In this Enrollment Edge episode, Jay will talk to David Cook, Founder of DegreeSight, a company dedicated to providing transfer focused support that helps colleges and universities provide services to enroll, retain, and graduate more transfer students. Jay will dive into current transfer strategies with David and look into future trends that enrollment leaders will have to embrace if they want be dedicated to this underserved and often overlooked student group.  Want to discuss this episode or have questions? You can email us at [email protected] and you can contact David at [email protected].

About our Guest
David is a general innovation-centric product and data geek with a passion for efficiency and improving people's lives.  As a graduate of Baylor University, he went on to become a lead engineer overseeing Hewlett Packard's billing and credit systems by 23, became a product lead and patent author by 25, and for the past 10 years has been creating solutions for governmental agencies and fortune 50 businesses while focused on ease of use, high adoption, and genuinely improved business KPIs. However, David always saw a desperate need in higher education for this same level of support and investment around student success, and so he took the plunge 7 years ago to start building what has now become DegreeSight - the world's first affordable SAAS solution that gives institutions the ability to support their non-traditional students with smart workflows, automation, analytics, and live chat.

 Enrollment Edge is digging into yet another digital strategy that Enrollment Leaders must be paying attention to—E.A.T. or Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. In this episode, Jay will unpack the E.A.T. concept and why it's so important to SEO development. The concept comes from Google’s search quality rater guidelines, and it became well known after the infamous Medic Update in August 2018. E.A.T. is an important, and often overlooked, evaluation that Google uses to evaluate the overall quality of a web page. While enrollment marketing and enrollment professionals are focusing on the mechanics of SEO, what they should be developing is broader and significantly more important.

Our Guest today is a lead and web development specialist and consultant, Rory Green. Rory has more than 20 years of design and strategic web development experience. Along the way he has seen the rules of effective web site  development and search engine optimization change dramatically and without notice to the public. We will talk through quality raters, black and white hatters, Google algorithms, and provide listeners with six key takeaways that will make an immediate impact on their web site effectiveness. 

The topic of test-optional admissions brings a wide variety of responses from enrollment leaders. On today's episode of Enrollment Edge, Jay will talk to Martin Aucoin, Vice Provost & Dean of Admissions at Belmont Abbey College. Belmont Abbey was one of the very first test-optional policy adopters in the country. Just two years ago, there were a few hundred colleges and universities that were considered test-optional. As many testing dates were canceled or delayed in the name of public health during the pandemic, thousands of colleges have adopted, both temporarily and permanently, a test-optional policy to help admit students even without available test scores. 

Jay will discuss with Martin the benefits and challenges of a test-optional admissions policy from the perspective of an early adopter and what lessons he has learned after more than a decade of practicing this controversial policy.

About Our Guest
Martin, a native of River Ridge, Louisiana, holds a Master’s in Higher Education from Appalachian State University and a Bachelor’s in Government & Political Philosophy from Belmont Abbey College. Similar to many students, he was not the first in his family to attend the Abbey and followed in the footsteps of his oldest brother. He began his career in college admissions his freshman year as an Abbey Ambassador and has since served the Admissions Office as an Admissions Counselor, Operations Manager, and Director of Admissions. Martin lives near campus with his wife and children and is passionate about welcoming new students to share in this unique tradition of Catholic higher education. Martin has over 10 years of progressive enrollment management experience at both 2-year public and 4-year private institutions. His expertise in unleashing the potential of systems and processes to make informed decisions, empower staff, and meet students' needs.

Enrollment Edge is celebrating our first anniversary! In December 2020, we recorded our first  episode. And for the past year, we’ve been given the opportunity and responsibility to produce our podcast for you—enrollment leaders. Our goal has been to engage in meaningful higher education topics with thought leaders in order to help our listeners be better informed, more productive, and on the cutting edge of "next practices".

enrollmentFUEL’s CEO, Mike Wesner, joins me to review what we saw and learned this past strange and unfamiliar year. Mike is a big thinker, always looking to uncover the next practice and the next big technology that will help colleges recruit and enroll students. In this year-in-review episode, we’ll examine our most listened to and shared episodes and begin to look ahead at 2022.

About Our Guest
Mike is the company’s founder and the creator of the big ideas that FUEL our company. He brings his entrepreneurial energy to every project and has led growth in fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and more than 100 higher education campuses. He has crafted the solutions strategy for more than 1,000 Student Search campaigns and has reengineered the communications ecosystem on several college campuses.

“Coach Mike” as he’s affectionately called by many is a retired United States Navy Commander whose last Navy tour was at the Center for Naval Leadership. He spent his undergraduate days at UNC Chapel Hill and later received a M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration from the University of New Orleans.

Enrollment leaders have choices and decisions to make that will impact not only their college or university, but also the future lives of students. Today, on the Enrollment Edge, I dig into the topic of financial aid and college access with Megan Hartless, Coordinator of Financial Aid and Scholarships at Blue Ridge Community College. Megan is a veteran of building unique and effective financial aid policies that target providing access to higher education. As the landscape of college enrollment changes in the coming years, it is estimated that access to financial resources for first generation and high-need students will increase. College financial aid and enrollment leaders will have to be intentional about providing the limited available financial resources if they hope to enroll and graduate those students. Bottom line? Many colleges will have to shift their aid model from providing what students want, to providing what they need.

About our Guest
Megan Hartless accidentally began her career in financial aid in 2003 as a graduate assistant doing Federal Work Study at Virginia Commonwealth University while pursuing her MFA in Theatre Pedagogy. After graduating in 2006, she continued her gluttony for punishment and decided to pursue a long-term career in financial aid. She worked in the financial aid office at Mary Baldwin College (now University) for eight years, ending her tenure there as Associate Director in 2014. She has also taught Public Speaking and Communications courses at VCU, John Tyler Community College, and Blue Ridge Community College. She presently serves as the Coordinator of Financial Aid at Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, Virginia. 

Enrollment leaders have choices and decisions to make that will impact not only their college or university, but also the future lives of students. Today, on the Enrollment Edge, I dig into the topic of financial aid and college access with Megan Hartless, Coordinator of Financial Aid and Scholarships at Blue Ridge Community College. Megan is a veteran of building unique and effective financial aid policies that target providing access to higher education. As the landscape of college enrollment changes in the coming years, it is estimated that access to financial resources for first generation and high-need students will increase. College financial aid and enrollment leaders will have to be intentional about providing the limited available financial resources if they hope to enroll and graduate those students. Bottom line? Many colleges will have to shift their aid model from providing what students want, to providing what they need.

About our Guest
Megan Hartless accidentally began her career in financial aid in 2003 as a graduate assistant doing Federal Work Study at Virginia Commonwealth University while pursuing her MFA in Theatre Pedagogy. After graduating in 2006, she continued her gluttony for punishment and decided to pursue a long-term career in financial aid. She worked in the financial aid office at Mary Baldwin College (now University) for eight years, ending her tenure there as Associate Director in 2014. She has also taught Public Speaking and Communications courses at VCU, John Tyler Community College, and Blue Ridge Community College. She presently serves as the Coordinator of Financial Aid at Blue Ridge Community College in Weyers Cave, Virginia.