Faculty discuss ways to recruit more students to campus

Recruiting students and retention ideas were discussed at an all-faculty meeting on January 26 in the Jennifer Leavitt Boardroom. Chaired by Susan Polster and Todd Olsen, the meeting was attended by 25 faculty and members of ASCEU leadership.
Faculty felt the College of Eastern Utah needs to work on an identity. Olsen, director of admissions and scholarships, has been working on creating an identity through logos, colors, and insignias. He explained that colleges needed a specific branding or look to create an identity. He told those in attendance that we need the jump off point of an institutional look and then there can be variances in different department looks.
He hopes to have the final designs approved by the end of spring semester.
They also wanted to know how the college could advertise itself on the Wasatch Front and throughout Utah. Olsen reported that he has inquired about billboards in the past and reported that to run an effective campaign would initially cost $25,000 at the bare minimum.
They talked about all the weekend activities offered and the lack of an up-to-date calendar reflecting this information for students to take advantage of. The students complained about nothing to do on weekends.
Faculty thought that criminal justice, nursing and education were already successful programs and wanted each to grow in student enrollment. Russell Goodrich, dean of professional and applied technology education, said that the college was advertising for two nursing instructors to accommodate more nursing students. On the first round of job advertisements, he said no one applied. Because a nurse can earn more money working in the health industry, a lot of nurses will not apply to work at a college because of the lower salaries.
Faculty said the recreation, environmental and outdoor programs were an attraction to get prospective students to come to CEU in the past and could be again. They thought that these programs needed to be better advertised to students outside the area in an attempt to lure high school students to CEU for its outstanding outdoor programs.
Retaining students was a hot topic both by the faculty and students. Olsen said 80 students left the dorms after fall semester. Students in attendance complained about the price of the dorms and food service. They said customer service was not good and they were not going to recommend their friends to come to CEU unless some major changes were to take place.
Susan Polster asked for ideas from faculty about faculty positions that would bring FTE into CEU and not continue to take students away from the already shrinking pool of students. She felt that bringing back a debate program would not only help bring in FTE, but add to the communication department by adding quality and numbers. She also wanted the drill team brought back. “By having a drill team adviser recruit students, we could add 16 FTE fall semester. Every high school in the state has a drill team, it’s not a tough job to recruit if someone is willing to visit some high schools.”
Faculty suggested the college should look into establishing a culinary arts program, wood working, occupational therapy, an outdoor guide training program.
Elaine Youngberg thought that CEU should target specific areas in Utah and outside of Utah to recruit. She offered to bring in magazine articles about how other colleges have found success in this program to the next meeting.
She also thought bringing in programs in the health industry would attract students to CEU. UVSC, Weber and Dixie all have almost three-year waiting lists on their dental hygiene programs. Those programs require a strong science program and internships in dental offices. She asked if that would be a viable program at CEU?
Michelle Fleck, dean of arts and sciences, said there is still money in the wilderness budget available to bring back the environmental studies. In the past, many science faculty worked together to offer the program and it was successful. The program died when its last director moved.
The lack of a quality web page was another source of a poor image for CEU, said the faculty. Goodrich thought that a web page designer had been offered a job, but had not accepted yet.
Faculty gave ideas of how they recruit students into their program and exchanged successful and not so successful stories. Most felt that students played an integral roll in attracting new students to specific programs. Some faculty was going into schools teaching classes to let more students know about CEU. Others thought that visiting major areas and hosting a CEU high school night would be a good idea in February or March. They thought that more one-on-one contact with students to encourage them to come to CEU is a good idea.
Everyone needs to recruit students, Polster said. “If you have a son or daughter, a niece or nephew, or a neighbor down the street, we need to band together to get more students to attend CEU. We need to be organized in our image and endeavor and simply ask students to come to our college. We need to make an unified effort.”
Another idea she proposed is President Ryan Thomas sending a letter to all alumni asking for names of prospective students. Utah State does this every year as well as many out of state colleges, she said.
The faculty hopes to sponsor a CEU high school night within the next 45 days in Utah Valley to let them know about the college, its programs and recreational activities.