This is sort of related to what David81 said, but Athletics has seen a surge in supporters and donors since Powell was hired. The Athletics dept as it stands has better marketing strategies and outreach programs than the academics from the looks of it! I think that the academics side needs to do better with outreach and marketing if they want to see some returns. Sitting in your office with your feet kicked back on your desk isnt going to solve this problem. You need to be out in the community, not just doing a world tour to find alumni. Get back into HS's do some service work around Valpo and Northern Indiana.
Athletics has seen a surge in supporters and donors since Powell was hired.
unless you work at the university, I don’t see any way to prove that.
@kreitzerstl Its what I've heard from people close to the basketball dept. Only way I personally can prove that is by looking at how many people are wearing officially licensed NIL merch, and it is a considerable amount of people
@rezynezy My faculty friends tell me that donors are down across the board. If that’s not the case, the administration should be sharing that message more transparently.
It is good to see Valpo winning games in my Google Alerts. The school needs good news, and it needs to share that news internally and externally.
How do get the majority of faculty to go the extra mile when they are compensated 20% below market value? Someone will need an excellent strategy and pep talk to get engagement.
Pay gap notwithstanding, why are faculty responsible for recruitment? Doesn’t the university have a dedicated admissions division?
Faculty should be active and helpful partners in recruitment work, but their primary responsibility (and training) is in delivering a quality education. Asking them to run point on recruitment is like asking the finance office to also do fundraising work.
KreitzerSTL - I see your points to a degree, but also think your reliance on Admissions may be unrealistic. To get a student to come to your university, you need to sell them on the university AND the college. It is Admissions job to sell the university and to get them interested and on campus...but I do not believe they can effectively sell a College like the faculty and senior staff in the College can. You are right that that selling the College is primarily done once the prospective student is on campus with his/her family - but you also need to close the deal which likely happens beyond the visit. Follow-up calls, correspondence, etc. are necessary from the College, since it is the College that really needs to establish the relationship. You can say "we're paid a lot less than the market rate, so why should we do this?", but at the same time the alternative is likely further declines in enrollment.
Relatedly, I think (from my somewhat distant perspective) that the university has not rallied the Colleges to be a major part of recruiting. As with any mid to small sized firm or organization, this is likely needed for an effective turnaround strategy. That said, the Colleges can also take a much more aggressive stance with Admissions...telling them that this is what we are going to do to increase enrollment in our College (still as partners with Admissions, but creating and driving the College-specific strategy far more than Admissions). This is what my College has done at my university and it has been very successful for our College.
