The October Board of Trustees meeting was held Saturday, Oct. 26 at 8:30 a.m. in the Susquehanna Room of Myer Residence Hall. As always, the meeting opened with the Mission Moment, which was presented by first-year Eric Schubert. Schubert runs a genealogy business that allows people to trace their ancestry. In his presentation, Schubert began by saying why he picked Elizabethtown College to attend, saying that he wanted a “robust educational experience.” His brother also went to Etown, and Schubert said that in his college search, he had been looking for a school like Etown all along. Now that he is a student here, he serves as an intern for the Office of the President with President Cecilia McCormick.
After the Mission Moment, the meeting quickly moved into Vice President for Enrollment Management John Champoli’s update to the Board, with clarifications and questions from McCormick interspersed throughout.
Champoli began by addressing the demographic shift in Pennsylvania’s high school graduating classes, citing roughly a 15 percent decline. Coming from an institution in Maine, he said he has seen this shift before, and he explained some of his plans to remedy this.
Firstly, he noted the importance of college fairs and recruiters in the recruitment process.
“We simply have not had enough recruiters [in the past],” Champoli said. To address this, Champoli shared how the Office of Admissions now has two new part-time recruiters as well as its first alumni recruiter to spread the word of Etown at college fairs. Additionally, McCormick said both in the day prior’s Leadership Council address, which was brought up again in the Board meeting, that her husband has also been attending college fairs to promote Etown.
Champoli then broke down the “Gen Z Student” to the Board, analyzing how to market to this demographic. He explained that Gen Z students are generally seen to have shorter attention spans, though he clarified that this is not a bad thing; because of this age of technology, Gen Z kids are much more used to processing information quickly, so any advertising must be “crisp and clear” in communicating its message. Gen Z kids better process short and sweet soundbites that succinctly address their concerns than they are in digesting large amounts of information that might be irrelevant.
As such, Champoli said that their marketing must fit this shifting demographic in terms of length and timing of correspondence, since students understandably do not want to be repeatedly messaged by a single college. Otherwise, they will unsubscribe from any email lists and scratch a college off their list.
Because of a new policy that allows students to still be targeted by colleges after an enrollment deposit by the May 1 registration date, Champoli said that their strategies must adapt to this. When asked later if this change makes him anxious, Champoli responded that it is his job “to make others anxious” in the poaching process.
Most notably, however, is the change in timeline that Champoli spoke of. Previously, the College targeted high school students in the May or summer months before their senior year. However, Champoli said Etown is making a shift to start the recruitment cycle in January instead.
Champoli also said how Etown is realigning the way its faculty will be involved in the recruitment process. Faculty-prospective student interactions is where Etown excels in appealing to high school students, so faculty have been heavily involved in the recruitment process; however, they were often bombarded with recruitment work as some of the first outreach Etown has with prospective students.
“You want to have enrollment, finance and academics on the same page,” Champoli said. This influenced the need to reorganize faculty involvement in the admissions process.
“The key to admissions is waking up every day and tweaking,” Champoli said. The process must constantly undergo improvements.
Trustee questions following this presentation concerned athletics and how the College is trying to appeal to athletes. McCormick said that the College has probably over-enrolled in athletics in 2018, and Vice President for Student Life Dr. Celestino Limas reported how a lack of field space makes it difficult for there to be many club sports and intramural programs, since fields are being used from 6 a.m. to 11:20 p.m. each day.
McCormick soon followed Champoli with an “Innovation and Effectiveness” presentation, sharing some new ideas for programs and revenue building. In the question and answer session after her presentation, a trustee asked about the efficiency of the faculty on-campus and if it is being tracked.
“Our faculty is incredible at being busy all the time,” McCormick said.
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty Dr. Betty Rider also contributed to answering this question, saying how highly engaged and hardworking the faculty is. She also attributed the high retention and graduation rates at Etown to “the great credit” of the faculty.
“They’re in it,” McCormick said about faculty engagement. She said that the faculty has worked hard to submit proposals for the improvement of the College this year.
After this, the meeting took a brief break before moving into executive session.
