E-mail Notice
The notice below was originally shared with the university community via e-mail.
December 2, 2004
Strategic Enrollment Effort
Dear Colleagues:
As I emphasized at Convocation, it is vital that HSU tell its success story loud and clear to prospective students and their parents, especially in light of the sustained dip in our enrollment. We must increase enrollment to gain a larger share of highly constrained state support. We have to make our story better known.
In the midst of California's fiscal crisis, history confronts us with the most competitive education market our nation has ever seen. We face mounting student and parent demands to equip our young people to compete for jobs and personal well-being in a demanding global economy. This double-barreled competition, in the education sector and the world-at-large, means we can no longer take HSU's survival for granted.
I have commissioned a Strategic Enrollment Effort to find out how best to communicate HSU's unique merits to the next generations of college-bound youth. Their needs and expectations -- whether for careers, scholarships, coursework, or financial aid -- differ a lot from those of previous generations.
Today's parents and students are intent, very intent, on outcomes. "Will my child have a career and a salary to rely on the day after graduation?" In addition to providing the liberal education for which we are justly proud, we have to prove from the time teens start high school that we have the curriculum and resources to allow them entrée into the fiercely competitive world economy. From now on, we have to build relationships with them over a lifetime, from high school to adult involvement in the Alumni Association. Otherwise, HSU is at risk of becoming indistinguishable from scores of other institutions.
To get our success story across in new and convincing ways, we have to have hard intelligence and professional research, which I've commissioned from Noel-Levitz, a respected company that has helped 1,500 educational institutions. It will assist HSU in communicating strategically with prospective students and their families, as well as alumni, donors, civic leaders, and government. By "strategically," I mean equipping HSU to speak with one voice, so it is heard above the competitive din.
Noel-Levitz's experts will talk with many of you in coming weeks. Please share your wisdom freely about the best ways to tell HSU's wonderful story, and plan to attend a presentation and discussion with Noel-Levitz on Thursday, December 9th in the KBR, from 8:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. For details, click on http://www.humboldt.edu/~hsupres/.
Thanks for making the Strategic Enrollment Effort a success and helping to secure HSU's bright future.
Sincerely,
Rollin C. Richmond
President