Graduate Program Directors and Coordinators

Minutes Graduate Program Directors and Coordinators February 27, 2012 Mendenhall 221

Attendance: Ahmed, Syed; Atkinson, Terry; Bertrand, Barbara; Bishop, John; Cox, Kathy; Daniel, Randy; Decker, Jim; Eagle, Scott; Eble, Michelle; Edwards, Bob; Franklin, Richard; Harer, John; Henning, Sylvia; Huener, Thomas; Jones, Terry; Kasperek, George; Kulas, Anthony; Mahar, Matt; McConnell, Tom; Morehead, Andrew; Parker, A. Virginia; Patterson, Belinda; Preston, Ron; Pokorny, Marie; Rachlin, Sid; Siegel, David; Stuart, Andrew; Swanson, Carl; Tabrizi, Nasseh; Teleki, Jane; Trujillo, Leonard; Vogelsong, Hans; Wallen, Michelle; West, Terry; Williams, Tina; Woods, Terri

1. Call to order

3:39 PM

2. Approval of minutes from Jan. 30, 2012

Approved

3. Marketing and recruiting update

a. Enrollment update – spring 2012 trend

 Handout distributed showing spring 2012 enrollment by colleges (unofficial head count) along with increases and decreases in enrollment and student credit hour production

 There has been a small decline in enrollment compared to the spring 2011 and no change in student credit hour production

b. Application trends – fall 2012

 Trend data to show what may happen in the future

 Data allows enrollment trends to be compared among different colleges and programs

 Paid applications (although may be incomplete) have increased 50% from applications received last year at this point in the semester

c. Google ads and new landing page

 The Graduate School initiated a Google ad campaign on February 20th o 4 advertisements will be displayed at random on numerous web sites

 Clicking on the advertisement will direct readers to a landing page of the ECU Graduate School

 The ads displayed have received over 400,000 views in 2 days and 170 clicks at a cost of about $2 per click

o Ads that generate more revenue are displayed more frequently

 The advertising region being targeted is the east coast from Washington DC to Atlanta, GA

o Because 91% of graduate students are in-state residents advertisement target area may be scaled back to NC in the future

o Dr. Gemperline will follow up on tuition benefits for students living in the District of Columba

 ECU Options (8 page newspaper insert with information on DE programs) will be distributed state-wide in 70-80 newspaper markets in March d. Graduate fairs

 ECU attends 12-15 Graduate Fairs per year and also hosts an annual Graduate and Professional Fair

 Dr. Gemperline is requesting Associate Deans prepare a brochure of their colleges to be distributed at recruitment fairs

 Brochures will provide details regarding specific programs of colleges, along with information on the availability of assistantships and remissions

 Clint Bailey will assist in coordinating this project and will ensure all brochures have a common design theme and provide general contact information

o Size of printed material may vary among colleges

o Colleges that already have a program specific brochure they use for recruitment will remain in place or existing brochures can be molded into the style chosen

 Dr. Gemperline asked programs to begin working on brochure in order to give Printing and Graphics enough time to have them ready for fall graduate fairs 4. Marketing and recruiting communication plans – sharing best practices

 Add a personal touch to communications with prospective students

o Tailor communication to where the student is in the application process

 Follow up with students with incomplete applications

o Dr. Gemperline reminded graduate program directors and coordinators of the availability of BIC reports to generate a list of students that have initiated and completed applications

 Contact students out for a semester to provide them with information regarding reapplying and encourage student to complete degree

o The Graduate School can provide data to program directors and coordinators on the students not enrolled for a term

 Post the graduate program description with application information on discipline- specific list-servs (ex: Department of Biology) with state-wide recipients

 Use of mail merges to send information to interested students

 Dr. Gemperline offered the Graduate School’s assistance to develop BIC reports for commonly encountered problems of graduate program directors and coordinators

a. Volunteers requested to serve on ad-hoc committee

 Anyone interested in volunteering to serve on the ad-hoc committee for marketing and recruitment should contact Dr. Gemperline

o Committee will meet once every quarter

5. Proposed changes to admissions procedures

a. The following proposals for reduced transcript requirements were discussed as a way to reduce barriers in the admission process for non-traditional applicants – Dr. Gemperline will check with UNC-GA as to which options might be permissible

 Not require transcripts that only have grades that are more than 10 years old  Not require DD-214 or other transcript for military applicants if health/exercise transferred

 Not require transcripts for students who have taken study abroad courses

 Not require students that began their degree at an international school and completed their degree at a US school to have an officially evaluated transcript, just the transcript

 Not require an official evaluation of international bachelor’s transcript from students providing an official transcript of earned Master’s or doctoral degree

 Students with a master’s or doctoral degree from a regionally accredited school not not required to have attended a regionally accredited bachelor’s

 Allow admission to non-degree applicants with an official transcript showing awarded degree (bachelors or higher) b. Admit by exception policy

 Graduate School will continue to review & approve requests for admit by exception (AE) from programs – authority to approve students slightly below the cut-off will be delegated to processors

 Graduate school will review AE rates annually and consult with programs when the AE rate is higher than 10%.

 Non-degree students that complete more than 9 SCH of graduate work with a GPA of at least 3.0 will be exempt from AE admission status

 The GG registration hold for AE students will be eliminated – Dr. Gemperline will review with Office of Financial Aid first c. GPA calculation revisions

 Propose renaming the Graduate GPA category to Post-bac GPA in order to better reflect the information included in each GPA category

 Post-bac GPA calculation is to begin at 9 hours of course work past the first undergraduate degree d. Separate non-degree application process for ECU faculty

 The Graduate School proposes the creation of a separate non-degree application for Faculty that will allow applications to be submitted past the deadlines and use transcripts on file with Academic Affairs.  Faculty status will be verified by HR

Adjourn

5:00 PM

Respectfully submitted,

Amy Tripp