Faculty engagement in campus-wide enrollment management activities : a grounded theory

Abstract

Despite the urging of enrollment management experts to collaborate with the academic community when designing and implementing campus-wide enrollment management efforts, there are scarce resources or models to inform them as to what incentives, encouragement, or management structures might effectively support this effort. This grounded theory study utilized partially structured one-on-one interviews to investigate incentives, motivation and management structures needed in order for members of the faculty to engage in campus-wide enrollment management efforts. Twenty-five participants were interviewed for this study including 8 academic administrators, 4 student services administrators and 13 faculty members. The study was directed by the following research question: What conditions must be present in order for members of a university faculty to participate in campus-wide enrollment management efforts?

The following subquestions further clarified the direction of the study: (1) What caused or influenced the faculty members to engage in the current activity? (2) What, if any, incentives or rewards were in place that made it possible or attractive to engage in this activity? (3) What personal or professional challenges or disincentives were encountered? Findings consisted of 25 themes. The major themes were the desire of faculty members to help students succeed, the belief that involvement with students outside the classroom contributed to the faculty member's personal and professional growth, the lack of any external incentives or rewards, and the challenge of lack of time. Ten recommendations that emerged from the study included the need to design recruitment and retention strategies to meet specific needs of the department, college or university, select faculty members based on student input and design multiple opportunities for faculty with varying levels and types of involvement. A conceptual model was developed that considered supportive and inhibiting factors to campus-wide enrollment management efforts.