By 1999, Slippery Rock University had logged nine consecutive years of declining enrollment and lost nearly 1,000 students. Enter Dr. Robert Smith with a strategic enrollment management plan in tow. Headcount has consistently risen. Enrollment has grown 17 percent, reaching 7,928 in September 2004. Retention is up 11 percent.
"We are performance-driven by data. We celebrate success as proven by data. And we budget by data," Smith says. "That allows everyone to know where we are and where we need to be, and to see how we got there."
Now president of "The Rock," Smith's position upon arrival was provost and vice president for academic affairs. He served as interim president from December 2002 until he was appointed the school's 15th president in April 2004.
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Robert Smith
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"We've seen his leadership in action, and it has been exemplary," said Robert Marcus, chair of Slippery Rock's trustees. He also cited Smith's "communication skills, academic background and genuine friendly nature." Turns out Smith needed all of that and more to make a difference at Slippery Rock.
What to do
Smith describes his style as a change agent, "I respect tradition, but the last thing I am is a caretaker. And we had to move forward. The greatest risk was to stand still." But there was no plan in place to move ahead when he got there. There is now, and strategic enrollment management (SEM) is a centerpiece.
Smith's plan includes raising academic standards and providing a vibrant curriculum, attracting and retaining the best faculty, and providing top-notch facilities. Then attract students and compete effectively for them with institutions who are not Slippery Rock's traditional competitors.
Smith defines SEM as "a student-centric success strategy. We've been successful in our marketing efforts. We've become a more attractive choice to a more attractive, higher-quality student." He's not embarrassed about the importance of marketing. Smith says the school has a great story to tell.
How to do it
"I think if you're a best kept secret, it's actually a problem. So don't be shy about selling," Smith says. Included among the marketing awards Slippery Rock has won is the International Association of Business Communicators award for web marketing.
In a new effort Slippery Rock personalizes business cards for high school seniors as soon as they enroll. The cards include the student's new campus e-mail and residence hall addresses, and some are sent out as early as March, when students can register early for fall classes.
That's just one of the "one-to-one marketing" tactics that Smith and staff employ. Many such tactics enhance what Smith says is the best marketing tool a school can have: word-of-mouth.
About rankings
Smith is proud of the fact that Princeton Review rates Slippery Rock among the top four-year public institutions in the mid-Atlantic states. His pride is doubled by the fact that the ranking is based solely on student opinion.
"You won't hear us deride the U.S. News & World Report rankings, either," Smith says. "It's a reality of higher education these days. Being data driven, we accept that there are a variety of indicators to keep track of."
"We're not top-tier in the US News rankings - yet," Smith observes. "We don't disagree with their results. But we're not manipulating who we are to trick them, either. There are institutions who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to do just that. But students will be the judge."
Macro changes as well
Meanwhile, the school is helping in the rebuilding of the downtown area and upgrading campus facilities in an effort to be more responsive to students' recreational and academic needs. SRU will spend $110 million to renovate and construct new residence halls. Recently SRU began construction of a $14 million science and technology building.
A new University Union with a performing arts center is in the planning stage. The student government association will take the lead designing the building, as the result of a $50,000 grant. "Resource allocation may be the most powerful tool in the president's office," Smith explains. "We are very strategic in the budgeting process to ensure execution of the vision."
Quality improvements
Slippery Rock has gone through seven successful new accreditations since Smith arrived. He wants all programs that can be accredited to be so. He believes that hewing to higher academic standards will attract students who never considered Slippery Rock before.
"It's more important than ever as we sail into the teeth of some unhappy demographics." Studies indicate 18- to 24-year-old students will decrease in Pennsylvania through 2020. "To sustain ourselves as a premier residential university serving that market, we'd better have a spectacular place."
What's in a name?
Meanwhile, Smith says public perception of the university has changed. Nearly 120 years old, Slippery Rock has been about teacher education, primarily health and physical education. In exercise science it's the national leader. But its other undergraduate and graduate offerings are not well known. Some consumers even believed Slippery Rock to be a fictitious name.
"In pre-ESPN days, college football scores were announced on a TV show called "The Prudential Scoreboard," Smith explains. "One day, they ran out of scores. Since it was live TV, the commentator had to fill in with some Division 2 scores. He ended up with Slippery Rock."
"The phone lights at the TV station lit up," Smith says. Half the callers wanted to know if he had made up the name. So for years thereafter the show ended with the Slippery Rock score, and many college stadiums still display Slippery Rock scores at halftime.
Smith proved to be up to the task of overcoming a perceived name problem: keep the name; improve the image. Certain in his actions, he is a master of converting people to his vision and plan. Key administrative staff members underscore his effectiveness, like Bob Watson, the vice president for student life.
"Bob is charismatic, exactly what this university needed at the right time," recalls Watson, hired a few months after Smith arrived. "Whenever he spoke, it was very clear to those listening that Bob Smith was going to be all about the student."
Amanda Yale, associate provost and a 20-year SRU veteran, notes that attrition rates were more than 30 percent when Smith first arrived, and there was little if any collaboration between and among faculty and departments.
"That's totally changed," Yale says. "He brought a vision and engaged everyone to improve service to students. He moved the campus culture from one of 'this will never happen' to one of genuine trust and synergy."
Attract them, but also retain them
Initially he reduced the pressure by deciding not to worry faculty with the enrollment decline. "It just wasn't their problem," he observes pithily. He went about building consensus and fostering collaboration.
Today, everyone on campus is involved in retention. Custodians, for example, help identify students who are unhappy, have problems or are in danger of dropping out.
"If a custodian notices that someone hasn't left the dorm room for a couple of days, he calls the RA, who asks why," says Smith. "So we can help. We care."
Faculty are now more directly involved in recruiting and interviewing students. They are also involved in specific retention activities, mostly one-to-one with students. Smith also encouraged a more seamless connection between student life and academic affairs.
"Student Life had to change the most," Smith says. "The prevailing attitude was that they should operate like a rental operation with no responsibility for retention." "Now, with all the same people, we're a different institution," he says with satisfaction. "You don't have to come in and kick everyone out. The key is to unleash the potential of people who may feel unappreciated or uninvolved."
That includes every staffer
To let SRU personnel know exactly where things stood, Smith conducted 15 campus-wide presentations. He called each person in the audience a "de facto" chairperson, and he asked for help and suggestions
At one session with 115 clerical staffers, he punctuated his request for help with reminders that they are often the first persons that a student meets. "No one said a word when I finished," Smith says. "Then a woman raised her hand and said, 'nobody has ever spoken to us that way before' - and she started crying! I tried to identify my unintentional faux pas. There was none. She meant that she had never felt so included before."
"You can have a hundred plans and a million processes, but it's always about the people," says Smith. "Hire people who care and turn them loose."