CARBONDALE - Southern Illinois University Carbondale administrators have begun a concerted effort to boost two important factors to the university's survival and status into the new century - student enrollment and retention.

Assistant vice chancellor for enrollment management Victoria Valle, who was hired a year ago, is chairing a 10-member Strategic Enrollment Planning Committee that is working on a long-term enrollment plan for SIUC.

Forming a committee to meet this end was the brainchild of acting chancellor Samuel Goldman.

"This is the first time we've been putting the whole ball together. These people have been here. No new positions are being created. They've never been coordinated by one person as a totality," Goldman said about administrators with enrollment, recruitment and retention responsibilities traveling separate avenues in the past.

"Our goal is to reduce the problem of retention. I've met with academic deans to look at this situation," Goldman said.

The committee is not being asked to prepare a formal report or meet any particular deadlines.

"I'm looking for action. The committee is coordinating, not inventing," Goldman said.

Valle, who most recently was vice president of enrollment management and student affairs at the San Francisco Art Institute and worked for SIUC Edwardsville from 1974-83 as coordinator for school and university relations, said her committee will meet for the first time in a week or so.

Names of committee members she dropped include Seymour Bryson, associate chancellor for diversity and director of the Center for Academic Success at SIUC, and Carol Henry, director of the SIUC budget office.

"SIUC has been about access and equity. How big do we want to be? At one point, the university had a lot more students. We have a good product here. We have to sell it differently," Valle said.

Enrollment management is a much bigger job than just recruiting new students, she said.

Her job requires amassing complex data, crunching numbers and looking for trends. Areas of analysis that come under the enrollment management microscope include academic advisement, financial aid, housing, quality of life, registration and international studies.

Valle said she and committee members will look at SIUC's recent establishing of satellite offices at nearby community colleges including John A. Logan. The offices are manned by personnel who help recruit community college students to attend SIUC by assisting on advisement and curriculum preparation.

The committee will look also at nearby universities and their recruiting strategies such as Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, which is getting potential SIUC students by offering them in-state tuition rates, Valle said.

Although he couldn't disclose numbers that are fluctuating and changing week by week, Goldman said current enrollment statistics look to remain on-track for a new trend that showed an increase of freshmen at SIUC last fall by 12 percent and an increase of overall on-campus enrollment after years of decreased enrollment.

scott.fitzgerald@thesouthern.com

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