CENTRAL WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Board of Trustees May 15, 2020 Executive Summary - Strategic Enrollment Plan Update – “ Destination 2025” Destination 2025, CWU’s strategic enrollment management plan, sets three overarching goals: 1. Increase new student recruitment, The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all aspects of university operations is unprecedented. Accordingly, the project team has revised the year-one implementation plan for Destination 2025 . The team has altered seven of the 109 activities that support the three goals, and has paused 12 others. The project team has added seven initiatives and is considering an additional nine. Currently, 24 initiatives are complete and 64 are on track for completion. Stakeholders across divisions understand the importance of the recruitment and retention initiatives as they relate to the mission and sustainability of the university. 2. Increase enrollment of traditionally under-represented students, and; 3. Improve retention, persistence, and degree time-to-completion. Spring 2020 Enrollment Update: Enrollment Management anticipated that the transition of spring- quarter courses into online settings would result in a 10-percent reduction in enrollment over the prior year. CWU’s actual enrollment was 1 percent lower than last year, both in the number of individual students, or “headcount,” (10,668 vs 10,810), and in terms of student credit hours (145,906 vs 147,649). These enrollment figures do not include the nearly 3,500 students enrolled through our high school partnership programs, such as College in the High School and Running Start. Overall, fall-to-spring persistence rates were better than expected, in light of the projected impact of COVID-19 factors. Full-time, first-year students who enrolled in fall 2019 persisted at 83.56 percent (vs 85.5 percent prior year) and fall 2019 new transfer students persisted at 89.66 percent (vs 89.77 percent prior year). These steady enrollment figures amid the chaos and uncertainty reflect the grit and determination of our students, faculty, and staff. The university community worked collaboratively to overcome multiple barriers to move operations and courses online, while managing implications from the Kittitas County’s Public Health Order. Among other things, that order closed campus through June 30 and required CWU to instruct students not to return to campus. In addition, the university launched a unique project. The Spring 2020 Retention Outreach Initiative (ROI) is a cross-divisional, high-outreach, high- engagement initiative, using 120-plus volunteers across all divisions to reach out personally to students. ROI uses multiple channels (text, phone, email)and virtual outbound contact center staffed with volunteer callers and call leads. Call-list queries and established call scripting, training guides, resource documents, and provided training prepare volunteer callers. Some project highlights include developing a process that identifies students who may benefit from additional support and contacting these students during the first two weeks of the term. By the end of the project, all 10,000-plus students enrolled in spring will receive a personal phone call through the campaign.
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