Reaching Out to Students

We’ve tabulate the results from the ticket out from Fall 2007 Convocation on Monday. The following list groups the various "Reaching Out to Students" ideas into trends that Naomi Story & Shelley Rodrigo identified. Please read through and consider responding to this post. Things to consider:

• Which of these suggestions will you do? when? where? how?
• Which of these suggestions have you done in the past? How did they play out?
• What other categories do you see emerging in this list of suggestions?

K-12 Outreach

• Give presentations/visit local High School. Smooth on-line registration.
• Mentor students at K-8 now. They will develop a bond with MCC. We need to be in our community deeply and directly. Brochures and radio spots are not enough.
• Increased program specific visibility at high school and even K-8, new ways to target non-traditional students (workforce, retired learners)
• Be available to K-12 for guest speaker and invite students to consider MCC, be helpful to student needs
• More attention with local high schools starting with freshman
• Adjudicate HS music festivals. Go into HS classrooms and conduct workshops
• Talk to my friends high school kids about MCC
• Adopt a HS
• Advertise and make effort to attend career day, HS counselor workshops, jazz up our marketing approach
• As faculty we go give short lectures and presentations to HS students to raise interest level in our disciplines. Focus on the smaller class size to recruit students
• Bring HS students to campus for an information seminar and hands on workshop
• Collaborate with HS to offer more courses on their campus
• Contact local districts for regular class visits: astronomy, geology planetarium in future
• Encourage HS students to take MCC classes while in HS. This will invest HS students in MCC
• Get in contact with local HS teacher to share with the students life at MCC
• Go and talk to classes in HS and communicate more about honors
• Go into the HS and presents what MCC offers
• Go out to HS career day
• Honors, HS recruitment
• HS visits
• More partnered outreach with K-12 schools,
• Outreach to HS for remediation
• Partnerships w/ K-12,
• Promote MCC in HS. At my daughters senior HS year college seminar, MCC was not present. Other CC’s were present
  recruiting with HS students
• Schedule faculty and staff to speak at schools, clubs, businesses
• Visit HS
• Visit HS
• Visit HS seniors
• visit middle schools and HS to recruit students. Advise students individually and help them with their next step
• Volunteer “pool” faculty to go to HS
• Work something in with adjuncts who teach in the HS
• Work with K-12 in area
• Be a personal ambassador for the college adopt a K-12 school, visit and get to know students and staff
• Involve library with current outreach activities to local high schools
• Junior High, Go to HS,
• Outreach to HS by faculty
• Recruit – go out to HS campuses

Classroom & Curriculum

• For the first two days of each new semester and for two days when the next semester’s classes are offered I will go over my programs major requirements and
• general education requirements to help demystify our programs and offer continual advisement to reach, challenge, and retain our students.
• By providing more flexible courses to attract more of the working students
• Offer innovative platforms – including hybrid – and be able to not that on line in catalog
• On-site courses
• set up learning communities

Faculty-Student relations

• Help find out what the student’s goals and dreams are
• Find out about students, who they are and what they are looking for educationally.
• Being available as much as possible and being approachable to students
• Learn names, come back to class, take a walk across campus and engage students out of the classroom
• Request email addresses for students in classes
• Connect course content to students world
• Encourage online students to come in for help when needed
• Collaborate with faculty who advise Service-Learning students. Outreach to new ones
• Have individual conversations with students about their goals and concerns. Dedicate a class period or two to a little time or appointment
• Encourage every students who says they cant
• Use more channels of communications – but students must meet mine
• Reach students
• Appointment with each 092 student individually
• Arrange schedule to stay after class
• Be available outside office hours
• call each student the first week of class
• Create a classroom environment/climate and open so students feel valued
• Freshman class with first year/first semester experience to mentor our students
• Get to their level of thinking.
• I always answer students e-mail and phone calls
• Make sure they have time at the beginning of the semester to connect with on another,
• On-line office hours
• Open office house
• Require students to meet with me during the first two weeks to discuss their goals (for students I already have) to reach new students, we should visit and provide info to local high schools
• Talk to students one on one
• Understand their needs, their expectations and goals, offering classes that fit students needs
• Welcome letter to each online student
• Each student, what are you personal restraints holding you back from yourself
• In class, acknowledge 1st semester students and others. Celebrate them, and all others
• Utilize more students to recruit and outreach (ie: club officers, honors)

Public Relations

• Be available to students and continue with ad campaigns – radio, newspaper, tv commercials
• Refer successful students to IA for press stories, volunteer pool of faculty to outreach to high schools
• Improve Department of Communications
• Talk positive about MCC
• Advertise class sizes and experienced faculty to encourage students to attend at least one of my office hours this semester
• Appropriate advertisement,
• Advertise by department/discipline rather than just by college
• Advertising! Including Dept Brochures
• Advisement need to work with departments on new programs and resources
• Contact campuses who are downsizing and come into the workplace and give a presentations and hand out catalogues
• Flyers advertising courses pushed at ASU
• Get an audience and dazzle them
• IA – Relationship using newsprint and radio video production on DVD promo
• Must seek non-traditional venues for potential students.
• Reach more students with better info
• Translate college documents and ads into several often-used languages
• TV, newspaper, theater, radio, magazines, more opportunities for funding that students are not aware of
• Aggressively advertise our advantages – class sizes etc.
• Current web pages, send ESL support service staff out to community: malls, movie theatres. Advertise where potential students are, decent food, friendly, helpful, knowledgeable people in all student services, Spanish language radio/newspaper
• Rio runs ads at our Mesa silver springs cinema – why doesn’t mesa?
• target out of state students who can take online

Faculty/Staff-Faculty/Staff relations

• Reach out to adjunct faculty more – we are not 2nd class citizens but valued and dedicated employees. Treat us as such
• Talk to other departments to see what their students need

Improving Current Processes

• No Purge – automatic payment plan
• Have more time to prepare for week one during week of accountability – in place of 100 meetings
• Streamline advisement/registration process
• Avenue for Recruitment, focus on customer service
• Address financial need/scholarship opportunities to campus-wide students
• Customer service internal and external, promote new programs, kiosks for registration
• Full-time recruiting on the reservation,
• Get in touch with parents
• Have evening dept office hours and a receptionist
• Initiate system to make the first contact
• More focus on recruitment and outreach that targets families vs. young “traditional” age students as individuals.
• Post campus maps everywhere and put big, nice, accurate signs around campus buildings
• Provide excellent customer service upon initial contact with student. Ensure they feel I’ve helped them – one person at a time
• Re-entry students in the library, clear, friendly direct assistance. Welcoming environment
• Speak Spanish
• Take time to listen, make connections with individual student, simplify the registrations process – we send students all over, they get frustrated and give up
• Greater collaboration outside the library – the library is not a castle with an enormous moat surrounding it. We could go to where our students go and tell them how we can serve them and meet their needs
• Hire some professional marketing people, reduce printed schedule to just a list of classes and programs offered with where to go for more information. Present schedule is horribly inaccurate and confusing

Systemically Revising Processes

• Advisement has trouble keeping up better linkage between academic advising and departments consider involving faculty in advisement (volunteer during week of accountability)
• Legislation to allow HS students to complete final 2 years and first 2 years of college at the CC
• Mentor programs (assign faculty mentor to meet with student once a week)
• One stop shop – welcome/registration center
• proper course placement is a big issue
• Volunteer at the Tutor center for 1hour each week

Technology

• Enhanced web, have kiosks presented in grocery stores to enroll at mcc, target market, increase recruiters, hire more
• Interaction videos
• MCC MySpace podcasting
• Online classes – specific population
• On-line office hours
• Remove the bottleneck that is web development. We need a competitive web site like CGCC
• WebCT access for all vital infor. One hour online office hr. weekly
• Make website up-to-date with information about programs

Target Older Students/Boomers

• Partnerships w/ Senior centers
• Public outreach by sponsoring seminars that reach Boomers
• Partnered outreach with senior centers
• Boomers – what can we provide so that they feel included
• Go to senior citizens groups.
• Senior nursing home/village
• Specific healthcare programs. Market to second career “boomer” adults – specifically to increase numbers of men in nursing programs. Increase number of partnerships to improve scholarships available and to keep a steady stream of motivated applicants

Community/Business Outreach

• Recruiters in schools and businesses
• Become an advocate for community college education out in the community, in other works “talk it up” (benefits).
• Have MCC info at HR departments in all hospitals, large companies, and all libraries and internet browsers.
• Partnered outreach with volunteer programs
• Partnerships w/ industry
• Present to companies to show how our technical programs can benefit their employees and the company EG high tech manufacturing
• Schedule faculty and staff to speak at schools, clubs, businesses
• Visit technical companies
• Be visible in the community; expos, fairs, conventions (booths)
• Call on businesses to recruit their support
• Reach out to students looking for changing careers – in DIT
• Talk to neighbors/friends
• Visit companies ad industries to find out their education needs

Special Activities

• Run day activities and day workshops to introduce classes and programs.
• More activities such as Science Day – get kids of all ages on campus
• Have our students “bring a friend” to campus
• Try to get involved with public events, sponsorship, “guest of honor” etc. Cultivate a reputation for being superior as far as class size goes, and track successes of former students
• Appropriate orientations
• More future students come to campus – Music festivities, theatre workshops, short institutes, summer programs
• MCC math contest. Maybe IA can help
• Science day recruitment opps
• To organize mother-daughter day to show and tell.

Attitude Change

• When I see someone lost, I ask them if they need help
• First year students who only see themselves as future ASU students rather than MCC Students
• Talk positive about MCC
• Offer help to individuals who need help, even if in a hurry to go somewhere
• We need to focus on students
• Always take time to discuss more with parents, students and community people the changes at MCC
• Approach my kids friends at their volleyball/sports facilities
• Be an advocate for MCC at all time both professionally and personally. Take the extra time to spend with students
• Be an MCC advocate in your social life
• Be proud of where we work and talk to people (potential students) of the outstanding curriculum and academic excellence
• Proactively promote MCC in our daily intersection with the community
• Advocate for MCC and MCCCD. As a CC graduate, I can sincerely and passionately recommend community colleges. I can also network with other departments to increase the visibility of what we do
• Answer questions that visitors, students and others have about campus locations
• Be a positive spokesperson for MCC to all
• Emotion sells, enthusiasm is infectious, passion engages. How emotional and passionate are we?
• Quality and caring
• Talk to everybody. I am always recruiting…the 24 year old who sold me my car at the Mazda dealer, the 21 year old who “signed me” at my new gym, I send them to our website, encourage them to start with an online class

Other

• More community internally and externally who are willing to financially assist students
• Recruitment: until we step letting ASU kick our butts to the curb, we’ll lose enrollment