College’s lack of faculty, staff diversity is a bad match for students
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Street art on 79th Street boosts positive imagery Volume 51, Issue 26
ColumbiaChronicle.com
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April
11 2016
Open House preparation up, but fewer RSVPs » LAUREN KOSTIUK & ANDREA SALCEDO LLAURADO CAMPUS EDITOR & REPORTER
prospective students RSVP’d to Columbia’s April 2 Open House compared with last year’s event. Of that, only 54 percent of the 1,596 students who RSVP’d attended. Ania Greiner, director of Enrollment, Events & Services, said one possible reason for the low turnout of those who RSVP’d was the cold, snowy weather conditions the day of the event. Open House is Columbia’s largest enrollment-focused event, which encourages prospective students to enroll at Columbia by inviting them and their families to campus for tours, presentations and meet-andgreets with current and former students. According to Jeff Meece, associate vice president of Enrollment Management, the college implemented a new collegewide system for tracking Open House attendance in which people who RSVP’d were alerted to check in when they arrived at the event via an email or text notification. A total of 864 prospective students attended Open House. Data on attendance at previous Open House events was unavailable, as this is the first year such a collegewide system tracked attendance, Meece added. Meece said the new check-in system had previously been used for campus tours, and it should allow the college to better predict future enrollment numbers. “Now that we have a good tracking method we can count on, we can start to build that data and make a correlation [between Open House and enrollment] potentially down the road,” Meece said. In addition to the new check-in system, the college took some new approaches to interacting with prospective students at Open House. For the first time, Vice President of Student Success Mark Kelly addressed prospective students and their families during the Open House welcome sessions along with President and CEO Kwang-Wu Kim’s usual presentation featuring current students and motivational videos showcasing Columbia’s culture. NEARLY 400 FEWER
Columbia’s April 2 Open House, a collegewide event that encourages prospective students to enroll, attracted 864 potential students, only 54 percent of those who RSVP’d.
» PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/LOU FOGLIA
Greiner, who said Open House preparation begins a few months before the event, said she hopes to improve Open House’s marketing by targeting more admitted students of varying educational levels. Greiner also said her team is working to improve the Open House communications by making the schedule of events available online prior to the event. Kelly said he was happy to see more students participating in interactive presentations showcasing their major, like the Music Department’s drum circle and the Photography Department’s presentation
of the various forms of photography they created. Students also gave one-on-one feedback to prospective students about college life and academic experiences at Columbia. The total number of students who RSVP’d decreased from last year, but chairs of several academic departments, including Theatre, Radio, Television, Cinema Art + Science, Audio Arts & Acoustics, Creative Writing and American Sign Language, said they had a large turnout for their departments’ presentations and sessions.
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This year also marked the first Open House in which the Office of Marketing and Communications helped develop recruiting materials for the Office of Enrollment Management, according to Deborah Maue, vice president of Strategic Marketing & Communications. She said her team also helped develop the presentations by Kelly and the various academic departments. “The core message in terms of our educational approach is a convergence of creative arts, liberal arts and business that we provide to our students,” Maue said.