‘Recruiting to graduate:’ Understanding TU’s first enrollment strategic plan

By Rebecca Kirkman on January 29, 2023

When Boyd Bradshaw joined Towson University as its first vice president of enrollment management last May, he received a 180-page document outlining the university’s newly completed strategic enrollment plan. 

“To be a new leader with that document in hand was a wonderful gift and showed the collaborative spirit of the campus,” Bradshaw says.

The already launched plan is a roadmap for attracting and enrolling a diverse community of learners that propels the university forward and supports achieving Carnegie Classification as a Research 2 institution.

Now, as leader of the new Division of Enrollment Management, Bradshaw and his team are focused on putting the strategic enrollment plan into action.

“When people think of enrollment management, they often think of recruitment, but it's so much more than that—we have just as much focus on retention and student success,” he says. “I like to say, ‘recruit to graduate,’ as it involves the entire lifecycle of a student and puts the outcome of what higher education is about front and center.”

Comprised of the Admissions Office, the Academic Advising, Retention & Completion Office, the Financial Aid Office, the Tutoring & Learning Center and the Registrar’s Office, the Division of Enrollment Management works strategically to support student success and create a sense of community that attracts an increasingly diverse student body and graduates students prepared to apply their knowledge for the public good.

We spoke with Bradshaw about his priorities in his role, highlights of the strategic enrollment plan and the role staff and faculty across campus play in student success.

What are your priorities as the inaugural vice president for enrollment management?

One thing that attracted me to Towson University is the opportunity to be part of something special. Not only is this the first vice president of enrollment management position, but TU was also creating a Division of Enrollment Management to build upon a history of enrollment success. 

The biggest goal for my first year is to work with the campus to prioritize the strategies that came out of the strategic enrollment planning process. We are doing this by creating a Strategic Enrollment Management Council, which is made up of campus senior leadership, faculty and staff. Within that council, there are two sub-councils, one that oversees student recruitment and one that oversees student success, which meet on a regular basis to prioritize what's already in the plan but also to bring new ideas and concepts to the table. 

What is an enrollment strategic plan, and why are we implementing one at TU?

Strategic enrollment management is a key concept in the administration of higher education institutions today. It provides a unique framework for improving student and institutional outcomes by jointly enabling student access to and success in higher education, best business practices and comprehensive institutional planning.

The strategic enrollment plan provides a framework for how we administer the work that we do in alignment with the institutional strategic plan. Strategic enrollment planning is assessing the past in helping us predict the future for sustainability regarding student success. It’s very data-driven, looking at prior enrollment trends, environmental factors and the competitive landscape to plan for the future.

Strategic enrollment planning is a recursive process. It's not a plan that sits on a shelf. It's continually evaluated. The campus did a great job assessing and strategizing, and what we needed to do next is create that framework on how to operationalize it.

What are some key elements of the plan?

We have been through so much change in higher education, particularly in college enrollment. Even before the pandemic, the value of higher education was being questioned in the United States, and the funding levels are not where they used to be. We're really trying to understand what impact that will have on us and then creating strategies to address that. 

One of our most important tools moving forward is being strategic around who we award dollars to through scholarships and financial aid to have the greatest impact on student success. Another is academic advising, retention and completion, focusing on intentional work with our students from the time that they enroll to the time they graduate. Additionally, integration of the plan with marketing and communication. And, finally, looking at our academic program mix is crucial, especially as we move toward our goal of becoming a Research 2 university. Which programs are showing high demand? How can we refresh programs that are not attracting students? What new programs do we bring on board? 

Where are we in the plan?

We are in year one of implementing the plan. Our first step was to create the framework over the summer, then in the fall we focused on identification and prioritization of top strategies. We're going to be talking about the strategies with key partners across campus at the inaugural Enrollment Management Summit on Feb. 17. 

Some strategies require more research or assessment, while some are ready for funding. We are forming work groups to vet year two strategies while also bringing new ideas to the plate. 

Your division recently announced the implementation of the automated digital platform Slate within admissions marketing. How does this relate to the plan?

Adopting Slate as part of the admissions process is an important step to modernizing enrollment at TU and will allow us to be more strategic in our work. 

Every student behaves in a different way. Slate will allow us to track how students become interested in Towson University and to create communication targeted specifically to that student. In addition, we will learn about the students through the recruitment process, from the time that they raised their hand to the time that they enroll. And it's so much more than just communication. Through this data we're going to learn about student behavior to make sure we properly align our resources. 

What role does the wider university community play in enrollment management?

Enrollment management is much more comprehensive than recruitment. It’s not only bringing the student here but also making sure you provide the right services for success. Within our division we do part of it, but there's so much critical work that happens across the entire campus. The strategic enrollment management plan coordinates this work, and everybody has a role.  As a result, we are working on an internal campaign to encourage campus participation that will be announced later this spring.