Strategic Enrolment Management (SEM) is a comprehensive process, designed to help institutions achieve and maintain optimal enrolment, where optimum is defined within the academic context of the institution (Dolence, 1993). It supports the institution to meet enrolment goals by:
- Establishing clear goals for the number and types of students needed to fulfil the institutional mission;
- Promoting student academic success by supporting initiatives that improve access, transition, persistence and graduation;
- Promoting institutional success by enabling effective strategic and financial planning;
- Creating a data-rich environment to inform decisions, evaluate effectiveness of strategies and enable continuous improvement, strengthen communications and marketing efforts;
- Advocating for improved process, organizational and financial efficiency and outcomes;
- Supporting the establishment of top-quality student-centered services; and,
- Strengthening collaboration among departments, faculties and units across the campus to support institutional enrolment efforts (Hossler & Bontrager, 2014).
SEM is critical to the sustainable fulfilment of the University of Windsor’s mission to “enable people to make a better world through education, scholarship, research, and engagement” and of meeting students’ educational goals by actively engaging students from the time they are considering to when they graduate.
SEM helps supports the mission of the institution by enhancing our financial vitality, enabling opportunities to pursue institutional priorities, improve institutional and academic reputation, increase our ability to attract better students who can succeed and contribute positively while fostering a robust academic environment.
SEM requires being strategic, data driven, systems oriented, an institutional wide effort, and integrated.