DeKALB — University Council discussed enrollment strategies with their Strategic Enrollment Management plan at the last meeting of the year on Wednesday afternoon in Altgeld Hall.
SEM 3.0
The Strategic Enrollment Management plan (SEM 3.0) focuses on brand identity, targeted enrollment efforts and improved access and affordability for NIU. The plan also aims to improve student retention and graduation.
Executive Vice President and Provost Laurie Elish-Piper and Vice President for Enrollment Management, Marketing and Communication Sol Jensen gave a joint presentation reiterating the Strategic Enrollment Management Plan (SEM) to the University Council as they did for the Faculty Senate last month.
Main goals include improving NIU’s brand identity and reputation with certain audiences, increasing enrollment, re-enrollment and student retention through better student support services and greater flexibility for degree completion, enhanced financial advising and improving programs that are responsive to the mental and physical health needs of students.
Jensen explained the need to improve NIU brand’s reputation by sharing testimonials throughout campus and to the public.
“We need those testimonials from faculty, from students, from alumni, really talking about their experiences in the academic but also how it helped them in their careers,” he said.
Jensen also explained the importance of communicating with different segments of students in distinct ways.
“How do we tell the different stories to different audiences?” he said.
Elish-Piper emphasized the importance of technology in SEM 3.0 in providing students with support and assistance, such as Navigate and Mission AI, an AI chatbot available to undergraduate students that connects them to campus services.
“Mission AI gave us an opportunity to reach out to students in an ongoing basis, more proactively,” she said. “While those tools are important, it’s the people who follow up who are more important.”
The next University Council meeting will take place at 3 p.m. on Jan. 28 in Altgeld Hall, Room 315.
