A draft of Syracuse University’s strategic enrollment plan, which will put a heavier focus on recruiting students from the southern and western regions of the United States, is expected to be finished near the end of the spring 2018 semester.

Dolan Evanovich, senior vice president for enrollment and the student experience, said a steering committee working on the plan will submit a draft to the Board of Trustees by May. The committee is expected to implement the plan in fall 2019. Evanovich is co-chairing the committee that’s developing the plan.

Chancellor Kent Syverud announced the strategic enrollment plan in an address last January. Syverud said the enrollment plan would increase diversity of people with disabilities, international origin, socioeconomic status and veterans, especially across racial and ethnic lines.

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“We want to continue to attract the most talented, diverse group of students that are going to be successful here, have a great experience here, graduate and go become wildly successful alumni,” Evanovich said on Wednesday. “That’s the model that we’re working on.”

Syverud, in an interview with The Daily Orange in December, said university leaders need to look “really closely” at how the demographics of the country are changing and how to get ahead of other schools.

The college recruiting marketplace is competitive, Evanovich said. He said he wants SU to compete with schools such as the University of Texas; University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Southern California.

“We really want to improve our graduation and retention rate,” Evanovich said. “That’s part of the enrollment planning process, not only bringing students here, but making sure the students that we enroll have a retention rate that’s incredibly high, a graduation rate that’s incredibly high and have a great experience.”

SU’s four-year graduation rate was 69 percent, according to U.S. News & World Report’s data profile of the university.

In fall 2016, total enrollment at SU was 22,484 students — a 3,800 increase based off the university’s enrollment in Fiscal Year 2003.

Evanovich said creating the strategic enrollment plan was a priority for the university when he was hired about a year ago. And the steering committee of about 25 members has been working for the past seven months to draft the strategic enrollment plan, Evanovich added.

The committee is made up of all of the university’s deans, undergraduate students and graduate students, Evanovich said Wednesday. Syverud in December said members of the Board of Trustees are also serving on the committee.

Some specific details of SU’s enrollment plan have not been released by the university.

Syverud said he assumes that SU will have “unique Syracuse strategies” that will “probably not want to be shared too broadly with our competitors, before we execute them.”

Evanovich said that, currently, the university has a “sophisticated” recruiting system. SU reaches out to students about two years before graduation, when they’re sophomores or juniors in high school, he said.

SU also sends recruiters across the country and world to speak with high school students, he said.

Chad Howard, vice president of business development at a consulting firm, Sanger & Eby, said he has noticed a national trend of out-of-state recruitment. Sanger & Eby frequently advises colleges and other businesses on issues related to marketing, “talent engagement” and corporate communications, according to its website.

“We’ve actually recently done some research from some community colleges we’ve been working with and out-of-state recruiting is definitely on the rise,” Howard said.

He added that, recently, many students have been exiting high school to go straight into the workforce for economic reasons.

Kathleen Jenkins, vice president of strategic planning for Sanger & Eby, said recruitment has increased across the country.

SU’s peer institutions, such as Boston College, Boston University and the University of Rochester, have similar strategic plans, but do not detail specific out-of-state recruitment strategies.

George Washington University has a strategic plan called Vision 2021, which outlines increasing international enrollment and recruitment of underrepresented groups by making the university more affordable for students outside of the Capitol. 

Published on March 6, 2018 at 1:19 am

Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu | @ccleffert