By RAEGAN NEUFELD
Tiger Media Network
According to the annual Kansas Board of Regents report, fall enrollment at Fort Hays State University increased slightly from last year.
Between on-campus, online and international partner students, FHSU’s fall enrollment is 12,878, with 7,983 full-time students. Last year, total enrollment was 12,843 and the number of full-time students was 7,884. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and several other factors, the university had not seen an increase in these numbers since 2019.
“I told people a while back when we got out of 2020 and 2021 that we’ve got some things in place and we’re going to see the fruits of our labor soon,” FHSU Director of Admissions Jon Armstrong said. “Now I feel like we’re starting to see the tree’s a little taller, the fruit’s a little bigger and a little lower, and we can really see it and grab it.”
According to Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Leadership Dennis King, the university is seeing an increase in students from Kansas but also students from other states as well. He attributed this to the refined scholarship program and the regional rate. Starting with this year’s freshmen class, the refined scholarship program offers a $1,500 housing scholarship for students from Kansas, among other awards. The regional rate applies to 13 surrounding states where students can pay the same in-state tuition that Kansans do.
“We’ve already seen where we can maybe shift some of the recruitment activities in one area to a different area because that other area has been more fruitful for us the last three years,” King said.
Other admissions efforts post-pandemic have been focused on digital marketing and always being available.
“We needed to be more robust in digital recruitment so it’s there when a student needs it,” Armstrong said. “It’s not like, ‘oh yeah, we’ll get back to you in a week or two.’ It needs to be immediate.”
Another initiative has been to create more opportunities for students to visit campus. To do this, the admissions office started hosting College Days for each academic college, similar to Tiger Day. Students can visit specifically with the departments within the colleges they are interested in. Armstrong said the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences hosted the first of these events, which brought approximately 100 students to campus.
“It’s an idea where we can get our faculty really involved with recruitment and for them to really understand that they can do it,” he said.
According to Armstrong, the number of regular campus visits has increased as well.
In addition to recruiting freshmen and transfer students, there is also a renewed focus on retaining those already enrolled at FHSU. One specific effort in the Retention and Persistence office is a system that allows faculty to flag “at risk” students.
“Maybe they’re not making it to class on a regular basis or they’re starting to all of a sudden miss homework,” King said. “We do that extra effort to reach out, get them engaged and then start to look for trends if we see that it’s happening in one class, or with one population or in one building.”
King also pointed to the Fischli-Wills Center for Student Success as a factor in retaining students. The building is home to Academic Tutoring, Student Engagement, the Health and Wellness Center and various other resources centered around student success.
“It makes you look back and say, you put a resource in place, the outcomes were to increase retention and our retention is increasing, so it definitely seems to be having that positive impact that we were hoping and planning for,” King said.
Other parts of the current recruitment and retention efforts have been communications and marketing. According to King, University Communications was responsible for everything in the past, but the duties have been split.
“Now we’ve got marketing that’s for new students and we’ve got ongoing students and alumni with (University Communications),” he said. “That just helps us with our channels of communication and what those individuals get to look at and get to manage and get out and work with our recruiting departments here.”
For Armstrong, marketing the student experience has been even more important after the pandemic. The slogan for admissions has always been “see yourself here,” but there is an emphasis on the fact that students can be involved on campus.
“Students are longing to go and do,” Armstrong said. “They want to go do things. They don’t want to wait and we want to show them that you can come do things here right away.”