Running head: FIELD OBSERVATION: ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE

Field Observation: Enrollment Management Committee

EDLD 7431: Higher Education Administration
Dr. Don Stumpf
Jeff Patty
Georgia Southern University

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Field Observation: Enrollment Management Committee
The purpose of this field observation is to attend a committee meeting that one would not
normally participate in, observe the meeting, the participants, the content of the meeting, and
analyze the topics as they related to the principals and challenges faced in higher education
administration. For this observation, a meeting of the Enrollment Management Committee was
selected. The board purpose of this committee is for representatives from around the institution
to come together to discuss common issues surrounding effective enrollment management. I am
certain these meetings often generate highly debated subject matter. In this instance, there was
some discussion around several topics, but a good bit of the exchange centered on various dates
that different offices needed to take into consideration as they planned the next academic term.
Overview
The Enrollment Management Committee is an ad hoc committee of the college. There is
no formal description as to what role this committee is supposed to play or a specific charge.
The group represented at this meeting consisted of key personnel from around the various offices
of the college that come together in order to make sure everyone is on the same page with
various planning aspects and for the purpose of making sure all dates for important events
around the academic calendar are properly taken into consideration. These members have
participated in such groups for years, with the group having various names at different times and
under different administrations. This group was originally made up of key departments to
discuss, review, and recommend policies and procedures associated with the enrollment process.
Since Georgia Highlands College (GHC) underwent administrative decentralization several years
ago, the membership of the committee grew to accommodate decentralization and the success of
this committee was impacted according to Dr. Todd Jones, Vice President of Student Affairs.

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With recent changes to our administration and the decentralization model being slowly removed,
a new committee is being created that will be made up of only directors of departments, that will
have more of an impact on enrollment. This committee is called the Student Affairs Council
(SAC). The intention is to align student affairs with academic affairs in regard to policy and
procedure review. Enrollment items will now filter through the Enrollment Management
Committee, made up of enrollment personnel at each campus and the Banner Committee will
then send items up through the SAC group.
Scheduling mistakes have huge consequences with regard to costs, on-time graduation
rates, student satisfaction, and overall student success. There is no better way to lose
future alumni support than by delaying a students graduation because the student could
not get into a course that was full (Schoss & Cragg, Chapter 9, 2013).
The Enrollment Management Committee meeting that I attended will remain a vital
component to the planning process, but the membership and direction will change slightly to
better accommodate the needs of the institution and hopefully produce better enrollment
management efforts.
Synopsis
The meeting of the Enrollment Management Committee that I attended took place on
June 12, 2014 in the Video Conferencing Room, which takes advantage of allowing people to
participate from other campuses remotely. This meeting usually takes place once a month.
Representatives from many departments across the institution usually attend to discuss important
dates, changes to procedures or polices, and any issues that have arisen since the last meeting.
The items are generally centered on enrollment processing types of issues. The idea is for
everyone to be on the same page when it comes to processing students as effectively as possible.
In attendance at this particular meeting were the following personnel: Sherri Beideck (Chair),

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Maria Lauro, Lisa Garrett, Phyllis Chunn, Cathy Ledbetter, Lillian Long, Dale Kelly, Stephanie
Loveless, Ricky Terry, Fred Coble, Jillian Fleming, Jasmine Conant, Clifton Puckett, Chris
Wheelus, Tammy Green, Eileen Walker, Jeanette Eckles, Megan Younblood, Cheryl Kiser, Kristi
Birdsong, Amy Wise, Haley Henderson, Charlotte Hall, Yoshi Owens, Janet Doster, and Melinda
Ewers.
After everyone offered the typical pleasantries that precede most meetings, everyone got
down to business. Different parties began discussing the topics they each brought to the meeting.
There wasnt a pre-determined agenda for the group to cover. Much of the first part of the
meeting consisted of one of the tedious chores of such a group as this, updating and scheduling
of important calendar items. Many offices had upcoming dates for everyone to remember and
schedule on their calendars. It was clear synchronization of some of these items was very
important to keeping the semester flowing. Some of the dates centered around: fall graduation,
Compass testing, fee deadlines, financial aid, the bookstore, budget training, Banner upgrades,
and orientations. In addition to the many dates being passed around, there were also
introductions of new employees and also the departure of at least one. There was discussion
centered on how D2L would be handled with this employee leaving; the position would remain
unfilled and another employee would now handle the duties. There were also several other
discussion on various topics: student appeals, orientation changes, fall graduation, Banner
upgrades, eLearning, Early Bird Advising, Marietta construction, and summer aid updates.
Some of these items seemed to be more of an announcement with little discussion, while other
items garnered significant banter between members. On some of the items I was less familiar
with, I was simply unable to deduce what was being discussed. In some instances this really

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would not impact me or my staff in my area of Information Technology, but a few I thought
might need additional research as the topic might have some impact directly in our area.
Student Appeals
If a student is currently enrolled at another institution, the preliminary transcript must be
received. The final can come after grades are in for that institution. A copy of his or her schedule
will be needed as well. All of the students information should be in and the package complete;
Admissions Status should be complete. If the student is denied admission and has all of his or
her documentation in by the deadline, he or she can appeal the decision at a certain date and
time. This item was one of those that absolutely made no sense to me. This was presented as
more of an information item. It seemed extremely complicated to me and my thought was that
this had to also be confusing to students. How were they even supposed to know any of this?
Orientation Changes
New changes to the orientation methodology will be made starting in the fall. This item
has seen several format changes over the years. In recent years the format has been made
shorter, in order for more participants to flow through the process. It has now been determined
that students need more time going through this process, as long as that time is spent in
meaningful pursuits. The longer sessions are cumbersome for parents waiting, but there was
consensus among the group that advisors needed longer to adequately walk students through
their options one on one and map out courses for their first year.
Fall Graduation
The next discussion item involved the creation of a new fall graduation. This would be a
first for GHC in its history. There is the feeling that the time has come to offer the additional
graduation for the many students that finish at the end of the year and do not come back later for

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the typical spring graduation ceremony. One of the themes here is to generate more interest in
graduation on the part of the student. This obviously aligns with the Complete College Georgia
Initiative of the University System of Georgia as well (Complete College Georgia, 2011).
Banner Upgrades
This item is one that my Information Technology Services (ITS) division plays a major
role in. The Enterprise Application Services (EAS) unit of ITS is responsible for maintaining the
institutions major enterprise systems. Maintaining effective Banner upgrades is a major part of
EASs responsibility. In order to perform these upgrades, the system has to be inaccessible for
the upgrades to be complete. These upgrades are sometimes small in scale and other times affect
many systems and processes. Having the user community understand these upgrades and how
systems will be affected is crucial. Users of these systems are expected to conduct thorough
testing to ensure everything remains functional. Systems owners of the data, such as the
Registrar, must sign off on all changes. This provides some measure of accountability for both
the EAS unit and the institution as a whole. A description of the various items designated in each
upgrade is detailed for users to review on the GeorgiaBest site of the University System of
Georgia, however the site does require credentials to access the content (University System of
Georgia, 2014).
eLearning
Several adjustments are planned around the theme of eLearning. Much of the discussion
was in regards to increasing testing sections, proctors, timers, the move to eCompass, and
coming soon. All of these activities support our eLearning efforts. Another big decision the
college recently made after much study and debate is the move back into eCore.
eCoreshort for electronic core-curriculumallows University System of Georgia

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(USG) students the opportunity to complete their first two years of their collegiate careers
in an online environment. eCore courses are taught entirely online, except for the
occasional proctored exam. eCore courses are designed, developed, taught and supported
by faculty and staff from the USG. (Board of Regents, University System of Georgia,
2014)
This was not an easy decision for the institution, as GHC had abandoned the eCore
system after being one of the early adopters of the original system. GHC had pulled out and
designed their own online system, which most believe has been a great success overall. The
eLearning program at GHC, however, is situated at a point where the program needs to expand
rapidly to attract additional students. This obviously comes with a substantial investment cost.
Our online program has not attracted as many new students as originally anticipated, rather we
have just had students switch from the traditional classroom setting to the online format. With
recent improvements to the eCore program and the need to attract additional students outside of
our own student base, the decision to switch back to eCore was decidedly our best option at this
juncture. This change will occur in the spring of 2015.
Early Bird Advising
The Early Bird Advising program is an advising system put in place by GHC in order to
help students map out their schedules ahead of time. So many of our students wait until the last
moment to even being their paperwork. This system is intended to get advisors in the mix earlier
in the process and reward students for making the early start. This is one of GHCs goals to meet
the Complete College Georgia initiatives.
Marietta Construction

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One of GHCs campuses is located on the campus of Southern Polytechnic State
University (SPSU), now about to be a part of Kennesaw State. One of the main buildings we use
on the SPSU campus is being closed for about a year for renovations. We were given little time
and not very favorable choices to relocate into. This has caused much consternation and
scrambling on the part of several offices in order to accommodate this quick move. The ITS
division, for instance, has had to rewire a GHC network in makeshift fashion in order to make
one of the two computer equipped classrooms functional for summer. SPSU did not provide us
with a second location for our second computer equipped classroom until the fall semester.
Summer Aid Updates
One of the most crucial operations of the college and most important to students, revolves
around financial aid. Many statistics were provided in terms of the Summer semester. So far
numbers looked good to everyone and staff were staying on top of processing requirements. The
challenge is getting student through the process in time for all the paperwork to be processed and
the federal government to respond. Additionally, students are struggling to come up with funds,
since changes to financial aid now do not provide enough funds for all semesters as in the past.
Students are spending all of their aid in Fall and Winter semesters and on incidental living
expenses. They then find themselves short for Summer semester.
Conclusion
This meeting was an interesting mix of perspectives, and members provided an overall
commitment to information sharing. During my observance of the Enrollment Management
Committee meeting, I was able to witness members coming together to address issues that
impact the institution and students. A variety of issues were reported on and many opinions were
shared. This demonstrated how the college community truly has a climate of inclusion and

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values input from all.
The intention of faculty and staff at Georgia Highlands College is to provide an efficient,
effective, and reliable environment that promotes growth and embraces the strategic vision of the
institution. Good communication is vital to the executing of these goals that are set for the
college. The members of the Enrollment Management Committee seek to maintain these
principals and as a result the college community is strengthened due to committee meetings and
work. This service on committees, advisory groups, or task forces such as this, requires
members to balance individual needs with collective needs of the institution (Schoss & Cragg,
Chapter 3, 2013).

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References
Complete College Georgia. (2011, November). Retrieved November 26, 2012, from University
System of Georgia:
http://www.usg.edu/educational_access/documents/GaHigherEducationCompletionPlan2
012.pdf.
eCore: This is where your future begins.... (2014, June 27). Retrieved July 4, 2014, from
https://ecore.usg.edu/.
GeorgiaBest. (2014, March 1). Retrieved July 3, 2014, from http://www.usg.edu/georgia_best/.
Schloss, P. J., & Cragg, K. M. (2013). ECONOMIC AND TACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS.
Organization and administration in higher education (Taylor and Francis. Kindle iPad
version). Retrieved from Amazon.com.
Schloss, P. J., & Cragg, K. M. (2013). THE ROLE OF GOVERNANCE, COMMITTEES, AND
ADVISORY GROUPS. Organization and administration in higher education (Taylor and
Francis. Kindle iPad version). Retrieved from Amazon.com.