Recognizing Campuses for Excellence in Enrollment and Diversity

In 1989, RNL (Noel-Levitz in these days) needed to acknowledge faculties and universities for his or her efforts in enhancing pupil retention and completion. The thought was that establishments displaying distinctive innovation, dedication, and outcomes with pupil persistence mustn’t solely be acknowledged but in addition held up as an illustrative instance for different establishments to comply with. That yr the corporate established the Retention Excellence Award and started awarding establishments yearly, with a public acknowledgement of them on the RNL Nationwide Convention. Within the 2000s, we added Advertising and marketing-Recruitment Excellence Awards to acknowledge those that had distinctive approaches to campus advertising and marketing and pupil recruitment. Aside from 2020, we now have honored a number of establishments yearly since 1989 for his or her achievements.

This yr on the 2022 RNL Nationwide Convention, we have been happy to have the ability to award the certificates in individual once more for the primary time since 2019. We awarded 4, together with a brand new award to acknowledge range, fairness, and inclusion.

Retention Excellence Award Winner: Black Hills State College

RNL awarded one Lee Noel and Randi Levitz Retention Excellence Award to Black Hills State College, a regional public establishment with an undergraduate enrollment of about 3,500 college students. Over the course of the pandemic, Black Hills State College noticed their highschool recruitment pool shrink as potential households hunkered down and held off on faculty choices. This highlighted the significance of retaining present college students with efficient retention and pupil success methods.

Black Hills State College partnered with RNL to develop a strategic enrollment plan which outlined retention methods that:

• Present college students with skilled tutorial advising,
• Provide tutoring, supplemental instruction, and college mentoring,
• Present second yr/second semester expertise,
• Develop high-impact practices,
• Present peer mentoring, and
• Prolong profession help and career-oriented work research programming. 

This plan helped the college obtain a 5-year, $2.16 million greenback Title III grant.

Black Hills State College has already seen terrific retention outcomes. In 2020, the college had a retention fee of 65 p.c and is on observe to carry retention to 75 p.c within the fall of 2022.

Advertising and marketing-Recruitment Excellence Award: Berry School

Two establishments obtained the Peter S. Bryant Advertising and marketing-Recruitment Excellence Award this yr. The primary was Berry School of Mount Berry, Georgia, a non-public liberal arts faculty with a pupil physique of about 2,200 college students. Berry was based by Martha Berry, who as soon as stated, “the pursuit of exhausting issues, troublesome issues, makes us stronger.”

Berry started its partnership with RNL in 2018 with the objectives of accelerating headcount and income whereas persevering with to prioritize Pell college students, out-of-state college students, and college students of shade. The outcomes have been spectacular.

• Between 2018 and 2021, Berry’s first-year enrollment grew 48 p.c, with document lessons in fall 2020 and 2021.  
• Web income elevated by 44 p.c.
• College students of shade elevated 90 p.c.
• Out-of-state college students elevated 18 p.c.
• Highschool GPA of the enrolling class has gone up three consecutive years.

Advertising and marketing-Recruitment Excellence Award: Franciscan College of Steubenville

Franciscan College of Steubenville in Ohio obtained the second MREA honor. Based in 1946 by Franciscan friars to offer academic alternatives for returning World Struggle II veterans of their neighborhood, Franciscan describes itself as a small, personal, “passionately Catholic” college. Over the previous 75 years, Franciscan has grown however stays dedicated to its model promise that college students will probably be “fashioned professionally and fed spiritually.”

Franciscan remained nimble by way of the pandemic, addressing fast challenges and ever altering circumstances, whereas persevering with to plan for the long run. The college partnered with RNL to undertake a strategic enrollment planning course of. The aim was to construct a stable plan to emerge from the pandemic with a powerful sense of path to advance their mission.

• The collaborative strategy engaged greater than 60 individuals throughout the campus in each tutorial and administrative capacities.
• The strategic enrollment communication plan has been built-in into often scheduled campus bulletins to maintain the neighborhood apprised of progress. 

Range, Fairness, and Inclusion Excellence Award: Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech obtained a brand new honor from RNL, the Range, Fairness, and Inclusion Excellence Award to acknowledge efforts to extend range and higher serve underrepresented college students.

In 2015, Virginia Tech famous a disconnect between the range of it’s pupil physique and that of the general public it served. Whereas the inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Virginia was 20 p.c Black, solely 5 p.c of Virginia Tech’s pupil inhabitants was Black. It additionally needed to extend the variety of underrepresented and underserved college students.

Virginia Tech went to work implementing a variety of initiatives to enhance campus range. As a type of initiatives, Virginia Tech’s enrollment group partnered with RNL’s monetary support service consultants to higher perceive how monetary support awards influence underrepresented college students. With its cautious concentrate on monetary support since 2017, the campus has grown its underrepresented and underserved inhabitants from 33 p.c of its coming into class to greater than 40 p.c of its college students for the autumn 2022 semester, all whereas sustaining a powerful tutorial profile. The campus additionally elevated the proportion of incoming college students who establish as Black and two or extra races indicating Black to almost 9 p.c.

Prepared to put in writing your excellence story? Discuss with us.

These establishments all associate with RNL. Our group works intently with them to assist develop methods and implement options that assist them exceed their objectives. We are able to do the identical for you. Attain out and we are going to arrange a time to speak.

Congratulations to our 4 winners for his or her dedication and exhausting work. It will likely be terrific to see a brand new set of establishments be acknowledged for his or her efforts in 2023!