Strategic Enrollment Management

Stone Child College

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“Every member of the college community plays a role in our students’ experience at Stone Child College…everyone’s interactions should contribute to the success that our students have from initial enrollment through to graduation.”

STONE CHILD COLLEGE
Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) Plan

In March of 2020, Stone Child College (SCC) was one of five TCUs (Tribal Colleges and Universities) to be chosen for the Cultivating Native Student Success (CNSS) grant funded by the College Fund. As part of this 30-month program, SCC was tasked to create a Student Enrollment Management (SEM) Plan in our continued efforts to help increase the institution’s capacity to better recruit, retain, and graduate students, while also increasing sustainability as a higher education institution. The program began in April 2020, and it was completed in June 2023.

“The SEM plan includes strategies that align with the mission and vision of our college, making dreams happen with academic excellence, culture, and commitment.”

When we look at the strategies and goals of our plan, we want to make sure that the ones we chose for our plan are reflective of that vision. The processes that are included in our plan reflect the family aspect we feel our college represents in our community. We have always been the place for our community to grow and we feel that in our plan, our strategies will reflect how we continue to be the heart of our community. Our plan has helped us to increase our knowledge of the importance of marketing and the strategies we use to recruit students to Stone Child College.

The plan has helped us to really look at what strategies we are using at the college and determine if they are meeting our goals. We noticed that while most schools have seen an enrollment decline during the covid-19 pandemic, we did not at SCC. The challenges we are facing are student engagement. We are really trying to figure out how we work with students post pandemic to be engaged in their education and participate in all that SCC has to offer. This also has us really looking at what retention is and how do we develop our retention strategies. One of our biggest goals for these next few years is to get more of the student voice to determine new strategies. Also, to do a better job of collecting data and using the data to drive our decisions.

The Medicine Wheel

Recruitment

Enrollment Growth

Student Success

Engagement and Positive Outcomes

Completion

Heightened Graduation

Retention

Implementing Strategies, Persistence

“It is important to remember that one underlying teaching behind most medicine wheels is to show the interconnectedness and interrelatedness of all things. We realize that these areas of focus are all connected and integral to student success at Stone Child College.”

Stone Child College SEM Committee Members

  • President
  • Personnel Officer
  • Dean of Student Services
  • Retention Officer
  • Financial Aid Officer
  • Recruitment Consultant
  • IR Analyst
  • Admissions Specialist
  • Dean of Academics

STONE CHILD COLLEGE BENCHMARKING SUMMARY AIMS/AKIS REPORTS [DASHBOARD SECTION]

Enrollment Trend

(Without Summer)

400 300 200 100 0 268 STUDENTS FALL 2020 SPRING 2021 FALL 2019 SPRING 2020 341 STUDENTS 308 STUDENTS 250 STUDENTS
Total Student Enrollment

Retention Trends
(Fall to Fall)

5-year Average
Fall 2015 – Fall 2019

70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% RETENTION AVERAGE SCC All TCUs 55% 47%

Persistence Trends
(Fall to Spring)

3-year Average
Fall 2016 – Fall 2019

70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% PERSISTENCE AVERAGE SCC All TCUs 67% 47%

“Since SEM planning is new to us, this project has really helped us look at strategies and the importance of data. The funds from this project has been extremely helpful with recruiting, retention, and further professional development.”

Best Practices

1

Dual Enrollment

Learnings

  • Stone Child College has an agreement with local high schools to offer more than ten courses within General Education. High school instructors teach college courses to juniors and seniors that are on track with their high school coursework. The teachers are provided with our course syllabus to teach the students in the classes for the students to earn the credit. Students that take dual enrollment courses do well when they come to SCC, and some have most of their General Education courses completed.
  • High school instructors teach college courses to juniors and seniors that are on track with their high school coursework. The teachers are provided with our course syllabus to teach the students in the classes for the students to earn the credit. 
  • The majority of the courses focus on student teaching, clinical, mentoring, and practicum. Along with the courses, the dual enrollment initiative also provides funding mechanisms that remove financial barriers for students.

Dual enrollment is one of our core student-centered pillars in our program pathway initiative.

Data/Evidence

Dual Enrollment Fall 2020 – Spring 2022

FALL2020 54 FALL2021 63 FALL2022 57 SPRING2020 42 SPRING2021 34 SPRING2022 48

2

Student Outreach

Learnings

  • We developed a recruiter position. We are evaluating what recruiting strategies are effective in bringing students to Stone Child College.
  • Currently, the financial aid officer visits high school graduating seniors three times per academic year regarding the FAFSA application process and the Scholarship Officer visits high school graduating seniors three times per academic year regarding Tribal Higher Education grants and scholarships.
  • Outreach methods include:
    • School Facebook and Instagram accounts
    • Local radio ads
    • Local newspaper press releases
    • Direct mailings sent out each semester

SCC will continue to increase social media presence and continue to implement new marketing, branding, and communications initiatives for campus highlights.

“Having a clear and organized plan that contains a step-by-step approach to tackling enrollment, retention, and graduation issues faced by SCC is likely to ensure success when there is buy-in from faculty, staff, and other members of the college community.”

Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic

When we first developed our plan, we wanted to incorporate mentors to help first-year students, provide in-person training for our staff and faculty, develop a space for students, and improve advising strategies. During the pandemic all these things were pushed to the side and the focus became how to provide online education and serve our staff and students in a remote learning environment. 

“During the pandemic all these things were pushed to the side and the focus became how to provide online education and serve our staff and students in a remote learning environment.”

The pandemic pushed back project goals a few years. Then as we transitioned back to on-campus learning, our focus was on how to keep our staff and students safe. In general, the pandemic has really impacted how our students interact, their ability to socialize, and how they want to be engaged. Now we are trying to learn how to teach and engage our students post pandemic. Our project plan has changed as we have moved into the pandemic and post-pandemic years from what we envisioned when we first developed this plan. The Covid-19 pandemic has really shown us how quickly things can change. A challenge with that is determining how we respond to those changes.