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CW-Q: 5
MCGREGOR
President’s Report to the Board
September 28, 2001
Re-Enqineerina the Organization
A major organizational change was made within the institution this year. The
Student and Alumni Services (SAS) division was created. The division is
comprised of the following existing departments: Admissions, Registrar, and
Alumni Relations. (In the next month, Financial Aid and Student Accounts will
move within the building to the SAS area, completing the one-stop, serving
students from “cradle to grave”). In the creation, several personnel changes
were made and admissions officers were replaced with recruiters. The new
division is still in transition, but the preliminary results around the combined
effort and aggressive focus on recruitment have been positive.
The Weekend College gave up their Program Administrator in favor of the
new SAS division adding recruitment efforts to their program, a great leap of
faith. This paid off with a larger new student population than has been seen
in the past few years.
Marketing/Recruitment
In an aggressive two-month push with two new recruiters, several on
campus information sessions, press releases, and WYSO spots, we delivered
the enrollment numbers for McGregor. We were very conservative in our
advertising, spending less than $5,000 compared with $80,000 last year. For
winter and spring, we are going to spend more, working with an advertising
agency-Flynn, Sabatino, and Day-to help us refine the process in targeting
the McGregor demographic/psychographics in our region.
Faculty support in recruitment was evident in several programs, especially in
Conflict Resolution, which has not entered a new cohort this large since the
first years of its inception. SAS and CR faculty are currently interviewing
candidates for next fall.
We lost the Asst. Dir. of Admissions, who recruited for the distance
programs, in the middle of fall recruitment and delivered 6 more students
than she predicted was possible in IMA. To be candid, this departure was
acceptable to us and we needed that position to be filled with more proactive
individual. Although, the IMA came in under goal, this was done in the SAS
Co-Director/Registrar’s “spare” time. A new recruiter was hired to replace her
and begins October 1. The new person comes with years of experience in the
program. The winter goal has been set higher as a result. Winter entry –
applications are also being processed now. ^
Because of the State of Ohio’s new requirements, all of our education
licensure programs are new. They have more credits, are more expensive
and more complicated than when we offered certification programs. The
University of Dayton and Wright State (direct competitors) have much lower
tuition and yet, we have been able to maintain a competitive market
position. We are moving to make these offerings even more attractive by
moving the licenses to master’s degrees, much more quickly than the other
institutions can move (hopefully by January). This will greatly increase our
marketability.
Development
Last October, Sean Creighton was hired and began working on establishing a
development program for the McGregor campus. After laying the groundwork
and the initial success last year, we have set aggressive development goals
in 2001-2002. Our goal of $155,000 is comprised of restricted (30%) and
unrestricted (70%) contributions and will be achieved through grants, an
annual alumni campaign, and a major fund-raising event aimed at the
Dayton business community. In addition, we are cultivating several alumni,
who will be approached for major gifts.
The Renaissance Fund has a goal of $45,000. To accomplish this, the
campaign will begin in mid-October. Last year, the campaign began in
December and we raised $36,000, 44% over budgeted goal. In addition to a
letter appeal, a telemarketing component is being added. With the same
strong support from our alumni, McGregor employees, and Antioch Trustees,
we are confident we will meet the goal. In particular, we have been
cultivating our alumni.
We have created the Lifelong Learning Scholarship to increase the appeal for
giving to McGregor. Our goal is $25,000. One of our alum is being cultivated
for a major gift and has already expressed that he intends to contribute. The
amount of his gift has not been determined.
In addition, we have created the Teacher Technology Scholarships, with a
goal of $25,000. Funds are being raised from several sources. We have
received support from the Greater Dayton IT Alliance, committed to raise
funds for the scholarships. We recently applied for a grant of $7,500 to the
Frank M. Tait Foundation in Dayton. In addition, we are submitting a
proposal to Leonard Nimoy and the Coke Foundation.
A fund-raising event is being planned for February that is a one-day
workshop. The content area has not been finalized. We anticipate generating
$10,000.
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We have a special fund-raising event, the Executive Spelling Bee, planned
that appeals to the Dayton business community: The event will be held on
April 30, 2002 at the Loft Theatre in downtown Dayton. Our goal is to
generate $60,000 in sponsorship and contributions. A special events
committee began working on the event in July. This is a lofting goal and we
will feel more confident about meeting it once we secure sponsorships for the
event. Partnering in the planning is the Dayton Business Journal.
We will continue to explore additional grant opportunities to expand our
efforts.
See our web page for alumni services and activities:
http://www.mcgregor.edu/aiumni.html
Program Development
As noted above, a great deal of work is going into transitioning the education
programs from certification to licensure. Due to the reputation of our
Education Department, we have been approached by the Western Governor's
University (WGU) to be the primary provider of Alternative Licensure online.
WGU was established under the collaboration of eighteen western
governors, with each state initially required to provide $100,000 to
participate. If we partner with WGU, we will provide courses/programs to
them that they will market and use under their institutional name. We
receive a percent of the income; they do all the marketing. We can use any
distance learning platform we want; therefore, since we are already ramped
up for WebCT, there are no changes needed. We also own the course for our
own dissemination under the Antioch banner. This is win-win.
From the WGU web site:
Western Governors University offers a totally new way of looking at higher
education. We're a new type of university centered around you, the student.
What makes WGU so different and exciting is that we know that not
everyone who wants a college degree or courses can live on, or near, the
campus of their choice. We offer distance learning courses from dozens of
colleges, universities, and corporations across the United States (and soon
the world!). Courses offered through WGU (you'll find them in the Catalog)
will come to you, wherever you are, not the other way around. These courses
use both high-tech and low-tech ways — from the Internet to satellite to the
Postal Service — to provide you with real options.
Through WGU, you will also be able to earn degrees by focusing only on the
skills and knowledge areas that you need. We call this "competencv-based"
education, since it is not based on the number of credits you may have
accumulated. We won't make you relearn what you already know. You can
count skills and knowledge you've gained at other universities, on the job, or
just through life, toward your WGU degree.
The Graduate Management Program, Community College Track
This program will be presented through the ULC as a new track within the
management program to begin in the fall of 2002. To date, I have had
discussions with the local community college (Sinclair Community College)
whose president is interested in us establishing a continuing education or
certificate program for all forty of his department chairs. We have the Vice
President for Academic Affairs and a Sinclair Board member on our Board of
Visitors.
We are marketing this program through the leading organization in the
country for community college innovation:
From the web site, at www.league.org
The League is an international organization dedicated to catalyzing the
potential of the community college movement. We host conferences and
institutes, develop Web resources, conduct research, produce publications,
provide services, and lead projects and initiatives with our member colleges,
corporate partners, and other agencies in our continuing efforts to make a
positive difference for students and communities.
There are nineteen members (including Sinclair and Barbara's former school
in Rochester) and over one thousand alliance/associate members.
Conferences attract between 2500-4000 attendees. We are a sponsoring
member for an extremely discounted rate and therefore have a booth
presence at these meetings to promote our programs.
All program are constantly self-examining and looking at changes; this report
only features a few.
Community Relations and Special Projects
Board of Visitors
The Board is very strong with representatives from business, non-profit
organizations, schools and Sinclair Community College. It includes alums and
