Whitepaper - Managing Your Enrollment Destiny: Investing for Holistic Change in Enrollment, Revenue and Retention

AASCU’s 2015 Presidential Symposium on Enrollment Management   

Student enrollment is a linchpin of a university’s health. Today, however, ongoing institutional financial pressures, shifting student demographics, increasing competition, and other manifestations of disruptive change in higher education make it imperative that institutions be particularly diligent in managing for success in enrollment. At the same time, continued economic difficulties for families, reduced funding by state governments, and the reduced number of high school graduates in many areas are among the many macro trends that also have a significant impact on enrollment success. Perhaps as never before, the practice of enrollment management in public universities today needs to be active, aggressive, sophisticated and strategic.

To help college leaders better understand some of the practices that are helping successful institutions achieve critical success in enrollment, AASCU held a symposium for university presidents and chancellors. Conved in Minneapolis, Minnesota in September 2015, the symposium was sponsored by Royall & Company, a leading consulting firm in higher education enrollment management, financial aid optimization, and alumni fundraising.  This paper captures insights from the symposium and offers presidential guidance on how to strategically approach enrollment management. The paper is available for download here

Operationalizing Stewards of Place: Implementing Regional Engagement and Economic Development Strategies

By Richard Dunfee and Ashish K. Vaidya, Editors  

Operationalizing Stewards of Place: Implementing Regional Engagement and Economic Development Strategies, the third monograph in AASCU’s Stewardship of Place series, highlights real-world case studies and best practices drawn from regional comprehensive universities. Beginning with a president’s perspective about regional engagement, this monograph addresses themes such as integrating faculty and student research activity and academic curricula with community priorities and workforce needs, and creating successful public-private partnerships. Also included is an international perspective on regional engagement and advice for developing metrics to capture an institution’s contributions to regional economic prosperity.

Becoming a Steward of Place

Lessons from AASCU Carnegie Community Engagement Applications 
By John Saltmarsh (and colleagues)
© Copyright 2014  

Over the past decade, as AASCU has worked to operationalize its concept of “stewards of place,” others were working to build a more coherent intellectual grounding for the work of campuses interacting with their communities. One of the more notable efforts in building a concrete concept of civic and community engagement came out of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which in 2006 created a new voluntary classification scheme that highlights the work of campuses committed to partnerships with their communities. The 2006 Community Engagement Classification application and selection process was followed by subsequent rounds in 2008 and 2010. Download PDF

Teacher Scholar – The Journal of the State Comprehensive University

© Copyright 2013 Fort Hays State University  

Produced at Fort Hays State University, the new journal Teacher-Scholar will explore the history, present circumstances, and possible future of America's hardest working but least studied institutions of higher learning—Regional State Universities or, to use a more recent and revealing title, State Comprehensive Universities (SCUs). Read more

Electoral Voices – Engaging College Students in Elections

An American Democracy Project
Best Practices Guide
© Copyright 2006  

In 2006, AASCU’s American Democracy Project published Electoral Voices – Engaging College Students in Elections, a best practices guide. Until recently, this monograph has been for sale in the AASCU online bookstore. Now, in time for planning for the 2012 national election, we’re re-releasing the guide free in PDF format. Download PDF.

Tools and Insights for Universities Called to Regional Stewardship

Alliance for Regional Stewardship
American Association of State Colleges and Universities
National Center for Higher Education Management Systems
© Copyright 2006  

In recent years, much attention has been focused on the emergence of the knowledge economy and the nation’s aging, migrating population, but our communities and public institutions—including higher education—are just coming to terms with these trends. The combination of an economy and a population in transition promises significant, even dramatic, changes in how we think about questions of local and regional planning and development. Download PDF

Stepping Forward As Stewards of Place

A Guide for Leading Public Engagement at State Colleges and Universities
© Copyright 2002  

How do presidents and chancellors “walk the walk” as well as “talk the talk” in leading engaged institutions?
Every day, the nation’s state colleges and universities demonstrate, in ways large and small, the inextricable linkages with their communities and with the world at large. These linkages, collectively referred to as “public engagement,” are an essential part of the heritage of AASCU institutions and embrace a wide variety of activities—including outreach, applied research, service learning, and more. Moreover, these linkages reflect a constant challenge to institutions to serve as “stewards of place,” to function as learners as well as teachers in tackling the myriad of opportunities and issues facing our communities and regions. Download PDF