Kansas State University

From Provost Mason and Vice President Bosco: Charting a student-centered approach to strategic enrollment management

Submitted by April Mason and Pat Bosco

Dear Colleagues,

In December, we announced our university partnership with the Huron Consulting Group to rethink our enrollment strategies and develop an effective foundation to grow enrollment while promoting student success now and in the future. This exciting initiative is now underway, with the participation of many stakeholders across the university. We are providing an overview of the project today and will provide periodic updates as we work together to craft actionable, prioritized strategies to enhance enrollment management operations, marketing and communications, recruitment, admissions, financial aid, capacity, and student success and retention.

As K-Staters, we take pride in our history of providing an exceptional student experience that prepares students for their professional, community, social and personal lives. K-State 2025 lays the groundwork for developing a more comprehensive student success strategy as reflected in our aspirational themes and goals. Working with the Huron team, we will build on our commitment to enhance enrollment, recruit and retain a talented, diverse student body, and improve overall student success at Kansas State University.

Consistent with our vision as a student-centered research university, our Huron partners are using a student-centered lifecycle approach for enrollment management planning. Through this framework, we will focus on the entire student journey and engagement with K-State, from recruitment and admissions, through the educational experience, through post-graduation.

This initiative will focus primarily on the undergraduate student population on the Manhattan campus — including first-time/full-time, transfer, international, resident/non-resident — with supplementary reviews involving the graduate and global campus student populations to support development of a comprehensive Strategic Enrollment Management Plan. The project, scheduled to be completed by early May, will occur in four phases, each building off one another. View the project overview with a comprehensive timeline and details of the work in each of the four phases on the Strategic Enrollment Management website. 

Work began over winter break, then accelerated by the beginning of the semester. The month of January saw the creation of an engagement steering committee and an intensive and broad institutional data collection effort involving many of you in the Office of Student Life, the Office of the Provost, Office of International Programs, Global Campus, the Graduate School, and the colleges. The Huron team officially launched the project with the steering committee on Jan. 10. You may have seen them around campus as they visited with individuals and groups to gather stakeholder perspectives. By the end of this week, 60 meetings involving more than 300 K-Staters in conversations about enrollment and student success will have been completed!

It has been incredibly inspiring to see the way the K-State community has come together to support this important work over the past six weeks. We want to particularly thank the data and information team, many of whom worked over winter break to meet data submission deadlines. The steering committee members readily agreed to serve, adding to already busy spring semester schedules. The Deans, Cabinet members, and their staffs responded quickly to assist in scheduling the many meetings and respond to specific information requests. A special shout out to Dean Tim de Noble and Lisa Shubert, who provided work and conference space for the Huron team in Seaton Hall. Trenton Kennedy and Madai Rivera with assistance from Sandra Brase, Sara Thurston, Shalin Hai-Jew, Scott Finkeldei, and Rebecca Gould organized the first student focus groups. And a special thanks to Lynn Carlin, Ethan Erickson, and Craig Bourne, who together are providing project coordination and support.

We look forward to continuing the conversations as we chart our path to student-centered enrollment management!

April Mason                                                      
Provost and senior vice president

Pat Bosco
Vice president for student life and dean of students