College of Arts and Sciences

Dean's Council Chairs and Directors Meeting

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

 

Present:

Steve Bayne, Chair of Philosophy

Jocelyn Boryczka, Director of Peace & Justice

Sara Brill, Co-Director of Classical Studies

Cecelia Bucki, Chair of History

Mary Ann Carolan, Chair of Modern Languages and Literatures; Director of Italian Studies

Kevin Cassidy, Director of Irish Studies

David Crawford, Chair of Sociology and Anthropology

Nancy Dallavalle, Chair of Religious Studies

Johanna Garvey, Director of Black Studies

Elizabeth Hohl, Co-Director of Women Studies

Janie Leatherman, Director of International Studies

Mark LeClair, Chair of Economics

Danke Li, Co-Director of Women Studies

John McCarthy, Chair of Psychology

Marcie Patton, Chair of Politics

Steve Sawin, Chair of Mathematics & Computer Science

Michael Serazio, Assistant Professor of Communication (on behalf of Maggie Wills)

James Simon, Chair of English

Kraig Steffen, Chair of Chemistry

Brian Torff, Chair of Visual and Performing Arts

Brian Walker, Chair of Biology and Co-Director of LACS

Joan Weiss, Associate Dean of College of Arts and Sciences

David Winn, Chair of Physics

 

Guests:

Carolyn Arnold, Account Manager for College of Arts and Sciences

Lisa Calderone, Web Communication Editor

Mark Gregorio, Director of Media Relations

Katie Magee, Assistant Director of Admissions Marketing

Catherine O'Donnell, Director of Marketing for Academics and Admissions

Karen Pellegrino, Director of Undergraduate Admissions

 

 

Approval of the Minutes

All chairs were in favor of approval of the November 3, 2010 minutes, with one abstention.

 

Introductions

The Admissions and Marketing team joined the Dean's Council meeting. The Dean had everyone introduce themselves, beginning with the CAS chairs and directors, sharing their names and associated departments and programs.

 

The Admission and Marketing staff introduced themselves, along with a brief description of their roles at Fairfield.

·      Karen Pellegrino has been Director of Undergraduate Admissions for the past six years. She shared the following information.

o      The Admissions staff is presently working on the 3800 early. This is the first year that they moved to a completely on-line process.

o      The Admissions Office interacts mainly around recruitment of expected, who are in the pipeline as inquires and more importantly our admitted students.

 

·      Cathy O'Donnell—Director, Marketing for Academics and Admission

o      Cathy explained how the Marketing and Communications Division utilizes an integrated marketing approach to support the strategic goals of the entire University as well as the goals of the various schools, departments, and admission offices. Their staff is organized into marketing teams, inclusive of an account manager for each school, as well as web, media relations, and design staff to provide marketing expertise.

o      Working with an ad agency, CDHM, the Marketing division also manages all of the University's academic, athletic, and arts advertising. The media sources include print, radio, online, and outdoor sources and strive to building brand recognition, message consistency, and enhancing the recognition of the University.

    

·      Carolyn Arnold—Account Manager for the CAS.

o      Ms. Arnold is the first point of contact for news related to promotion and marketing of the College's events, programs and activities. The College should contact her for projects, faculty research, student and alumni stories, events, and department and program news, as well as any other opportunities that require marketing assistance, inclusive of press releases, publications, event posters, web pages, photography, or advertising. Once Ms. Arnold finds out about information, she passes it along to Mark Gregorio for press and Lisa Calderone for web-based assistance.

o      Ms. Arnold works with the Dean on the CAS Newsletter, highlighting faculty research and grants, student stories, as well as alumni stories. The Dean generally copies her on news relative to the College. Ms. Arnold also solicits from chairs any updates on faculty accomplishments (send to carnold@fairfield.edu)

·      Lisa Calderone—Web Communications Editor

o      Ms. Calderone works in the Department of Web Communications. Web Communications provides technical, editorial, and graphic support for Fairfield.edu, our public website. Fairfield.edu is externally focused and primarily serves the needs of prospective students and parents. Our internal portal is StagWeb; Web Com has a seat on a Committee which is looking at a new portal system, scheduled to be tested this spring and launched next year.

o      Approximately 2 years ago, Ms. Calderone worked with many of the chairs and directors during the rebrand of Fairfield.edu. One of the goals of the rebrand was to bring consistency across our navigation, including all our undergrad and graduate programs. Since then hits have been up, as has stealth applications, so prospective undergraduate and graduate students are finding both program and admission information with ease.

o      Web Communications is always looking at ways to refresh and improve the site. For example, using the billboard space to promote news, programs, events, and activities. In the coming months, with the help of user input and testing, navigation features will be reworked to create significantly quicker ways to get to vital information. Specifically, two improvements in production are:

Þ   A new rollover navigation that will be vertical instead of horizontal (expected to launch before the beginning of the next semester).

Þ   A more robust Content Management System for the back end.

o      Ms. Calderone's role on the web team is as the academic web liaison and as a staff writer who focuses on our web audience. She provides editorial support for the account managers and our clients as new web pages are updated or created, and is the Editor of the Stag Spotlight, a University publication.

o      She also works with the web team on tools to help market faculty and student accomplishments to our web audience. Some since the rebrand have included:

Þ   The Faculty Profiles.

Þ   The new Research site at Fairfield.edu/research that includes a spotlight on Faculty-Student Research Projects.

Þ   The Stag Spotlight, at blog.fairfield.edu/web_features - an online news and features journal open to faculty, staff, student, and alumni contributors.
.

o      The next tool currently in production is a Constituent Profiles database, which will help replace the outdated testimonials on the site.

o      CAS is part of our "Top 10" story—Of the 3,100 pages that make up Fairfield.edu, the CAS homepage is the 10^th most visited (internal and external web audience), and the 7^th most visited by external audiences alone.

 

·      Mark Gregorio—Director of Media Relations

o      The philosophy of the Media Relations Office is to utilize all resources to project and portray the University as a leader of academics and service athletics, faculty, and students. They focus on whatever tells the wonderful story about the University.

o      Success stories involving students, faculty, and staff, as well as news about grants ad awards are highlighted. Also, ways to connect the University to what is happening around us globally, and finding ways in which members of the University can act as resources within our community.

o      Mr. Gregorio focuses on interviewing and picking up wonderful coverage across the Country.

o      He recently interviewed Dr. Jocelyn Borycka, Associate Professor of Politics and Director of Peace and Justice, on mid-term elections. He encouraged everyone to work together, and would like to meet with chairs and directors to become familiar with faculty and student stories. The Dean noted that chairs might invite Mark to come to a department meeting to learn more about the program and individual faculty achievements and expertise.

·      Katie Magee

o      Ms. Magee is a new member of the Marketing and Communication Division and works on marketing projects specific to UG and Graduate Admissions' offices and Financial Aid. She joined the Dean's Council meeting to become more familiar with projects and people within the College.

 

The Dean created an opportunity for chairs and directors to interface productively with Marketing and Admissions to share ideas and concerns. Prior to the meeting she asked chairs and directors to forward a list of their questions, of which she added some additional inquires that she has received from CAS faculty. This list was shared with all participants of the Dean's Council meeting in advance for reflection prior to this informal conversation. The Dean opened the floor for discussion.

 

Ms. Karen Pellegrino began by noting that the Admissions Office and Marketing teams work very closely together, meeting every two weeks to ensure they are aware of the activities with which each department is involved. Ms. Pellegrino shared the following Admissions data:

 

o      The University reached their goal for the Class of 2014 reaching 925 confirmed students

Profile of the Class of 2014:

o      College of Arts and Sciences had 548 confirmed students.

o      Twenty percent of the class is students of color. This is a dramatic departure, moving from less than ten percent 6 years ago. There was a concerted effort not only from the Admissions staff, but also from the University supporting these students through the development of the Student Diversity Programs, which are facilitated by William Johnson, Director of Student Diversity Programs, as well as a significant commitment from financial aid.

o      The Financial Aid budget has increased by approximately 80% over the past five years. Much of this increase can be attributed to President von Arx's change in the admission strategy to go "need blind" and to enhance socio-economic diversity of our student body. Ms. Pellegrino mentioned that during the current economic situation the Admissions Office is currently being somewhat "need aware" in some stages of the admissions process. This means that at a certain point some extremely high need students (not the most academically gifted) would likely be wait listed and could be denied admission.

o      Almost twenty-one percent of the University's students are eligible for a Pell Grant. This category means that they are among the neediest students in the Country. This is a significant increase. Five years ago this was only 6%. Diversity of the class is not only in terms of color and religion, but significantly in terms of socioeconomic status, as well.

o      Twenty-two percent of our students are first generation college students.

o      116 of our students are legacies, 60 are Magis Scholars, 9 have community scholarships (a program we run with schools of Bridgeport, one school in New Haven, and five schools in NYC), 22 of our students are recipients of the Bridgeport Tuition Grant (full tuition grant offered to residents of Bridgeport with an adjusted gross income of under $50,000 a year who have high academic achievement at any high school in Bridgeport).

o      Twenty-eight states are represented in the class, as well as Puerto Rico and seven different countries.

o      This is the first year of being a test optional school. Almost ¼ of the class did not submit their test scores.

 

Ms. Pellegrino shared the procedures in terms of the Admissions process for the incoming freshmen. Admissions focus on travel opportunities, as well as on-campus activities. They work closely with their Marketing colleagues during this process, engaging in a strong communication plan. They travel to areas where they mailed information to prospective students. Ways to communicate with students have been enhanced, utilizing physical publications and letters, as well as electronic means. They are more involved with different social networking sites, such as facebook and twitter. The challenge for both Admissions and Marketing is how to communicate with students. Students have a tendency not to open their mail or e-mails. They are on facebook all of the time, but they do not want Admissions to be part of this social network. Reaching out to prospective students is costly and challenging. Admissions forward mail to students, in hopes that parents are opening their mail. A number of students list parent's e-mail addresses, so parents are receiving the messages sent and sharing them with the student.

 

Admissions invested more in their recruitment and marketing efforts, working with Hobsons, a company that allows them to send personalized e-mails out and gives great analytical facts. Admissions is able to determine how many students open their e-mails. For e-mails that go out to their inquiry pool, they are lucky to receive a ten percent open rate. For students that they admitted and who made a significant commitment to the University, Admissions may get 30 to 40 percent of them to open an e-mail.

 

Ms. Cathy O'Donnell added that they often engage in focus groups (3 last fall), which helped to determine ways to capture the student's interest. There are five different Admission view books that are mailed to prospective UG students and most are student and faculty profiles. There is one comprehensive view book (The Big Picture) which gives lots of academic and school information along with athletic, community service, and many other aspects of a Fairfield education. Other view books include Inspired Life, Fairfield's Jesuit spirit, Outcomes after Fairfield, and Good Works (community service opportunities.) These assorted view books are mailed to prospective students throughout their college search. A new Prospective Parent newsletter was developed this fall that went out to the parents of student inquirers. Another new admission brochure is the Self-guided Campus Tour brochure and map available to prospective students visiting campus during off hours. Ms. O'Donnell also invited chairs and directors to share any experiences they had as parents or ideas to enrich their services, increasing ways to reach out to prospective students and parents.

 

Ms. Pellegrino mentioned that the University has great resources to share with prospective students, but the key is to capture them in their inquiry pool. Forty percent of applicants are "stealth applications." The time between when a student applies and is admitted is crucial for introducing them to Fairfield and getting information to them.

 

Question and Answer Session

 

Dr. Brian Walker – Are there population of people that you reach out to, who are intermediaries between the University and the students, such as guidance counselors, coaches, etc…

 

Ms. Pellegrino mentioned that this Fall Admissions visited 750 High schools. Some were individual visits from Fairfield University Admissions' staff, while others were evening college nights. Admissions travel to 25 different states.

 

Admissions have regular communication with guidance counselors. This is the second year a counselor fly in program was implemented. This program captures a small group of high school counselors, because it is costly to accommodate them. They had 20 counselors spring 2010, 18 fall 2010, and 20 expected spring 2011. These counselors come from a range of different schools all over the country. This fall there was an interesting group of Jesuit high schools, private schools, and Cristo Rey schools (urban schools serving students, who are socioeconomically and educationally disadvantaged). A lot of the Cristo Rey students are students of color, first generation students, and students from low income families. Many are connected with the Jesuits. The students going to these schools are engaged in a work commitment, so one day a week they are involved in an internship, probably to differ the cost of their education. Fairfield ran a summer program for these students, where the University flies them in to spend a week to participate in a few mock classes, engage in application and admission workshops to get them expose to the College process. This is the first time that a lot of them have been out of their state and on a plane. The University went from 10 applications from Cristo Rey schools to approximately 60 in the course of about a year.

 

Dr. Cecelia Bucki showed concern with the minimal profile that Fairfield has in the New Haven area. She sees this as a lost opportunity. New Haven's market is very competitive and the University should have a higher profile. Ms. O'Donnell mentioned that in terms of graduate students, most go to a school closer to where they live. There are so many opportunities in the New Haven area for these students. It would require a large amount of resources to compete with this market. Dr. Bucki noted that we should think about emphasizing diverse students more in our marketing materials.

 

Dr. Kraig Steffen—With regards to alumni, how do you work to develop that network and in terms of student's entrance interviews, how often is a personal contact the first contact for someone finding out about Fairfield? He believes that the single most important means of learning about Fairfield is the students' own personal contact (neighbor, friend, etc.).

 

The Admissions Office works closely with the Alumni Association. Alumni attend College fairs and participate in interviews in the field, when Admissions' staff is not available. Admissions attempts to bring as many students to campus for an interview, because they feel the visit to campus is influential in getting a student to choose Fairfield. Alumni participate in a series of receptions in their homes for admitted students, targeting early action students. These events are generally coordinated while our students are home on holiday break. Receptions took place in DC, Philadelphia, Boston, and Long Island, all of which were a success.

When students show interest in a specific area, how do you respond? How targeted can Admissions be; how much information are you sharing with the alumni/alumna and staff, so they are equipped to offer specific information relative to these interest?

 

Ms. Pellegrino responded that part of the reason the Admissions and Marketing staff attended the Dean's Council meeting was to see how they could be more efficient in this area. When Admissions visits high schools, the students tend to ask very general questions. More than half of the students are undecided students, so they really do not know what questions to ask. In this case, Admissions talk a lot about the value of the core curriculum and having some structure to their exploration as they start the application process. Ms. Pellegrino commented that they need to do a better job with connecting students with faculty who could assist students, who show interest in specific discipline. There is a large scale program for admitted students, where classroom sessions are facilitated by faculty. Students obtain a greater level of information during these sessions, as they are a captive audience opposed to the previous format used during fall Preview Day. Fall Preview Day was discontinued, because students were not following through to the application process from this event. Students tend to be very passive and do not feel comfortable going to a table, where faculty are sitting to answer questions. Being in a classroom environment and hearing the information seems to be a more effective method. More effort was invested in exposing students to campus, so weekend programming was enhanced to offer more Saturday and Sunday informational sessions and campus tours. This allows them to reach more students with a slightly less focused program, where students hear about the University opposed to specific disciplines.

 

Stag Connect is an admission web portal used by prospective students who provide specific information about their academic and extracurricular interests in their college search. It is a way for Admission counselors to target future messages pushed out to prospective students about their interests and how a Fairfield University education can serve their interests. Stag Connect can link to University News and push out info in our press releases, stories, and announcements of interest about faculty and current students.

 

The Dean said that when she receives student stories from faculty, she passes them to Carolyn Arnold, copying Karen Pellegrino. These stories may end up in Campus Currents, Fairfield Magazine, used as a profile on one of the University's webpage, or a story that an Admissions counselor shares with a prospective student, who has a similar interest. Stories that are vivid and help track a student's outcomes are very helpful. We are looking to share information more specific to their majors and how they integrated these experiences into their life after Fairfield. Ms. Calderone mentioned that this is important information to have, because the Fairfield Website has a "Life After Fairfield" page that students can search if they are interested in learning more about a specific major. It is nice for students to read about these success stories.

 

The Dean mentioned that this year the College is undergoing three self-studies, so it will take the College some time to obtain this information on all of the programs. The Dean has been talking to Institutional Research about the degree to which information gathered from alumni could be shared with Admissions (e.g., alumni could check a box stating that they can be contacted). As departments complete their self-studies, they will be able to interface with the web and Admissions people, because they will actually know a much broader picture about what their students are doing.

 

Dr. Nancy Dallavalle—Do we have an opportunity to turn the pipeline around? Is there a way to leverage and push the energy so that the prospective students are connecting with other people about Fairfield using viral marketing? Perhaps if we send pens or Fairfield University t-shirts to the prospective students, so they could share with others. Ms. Pellegrino mentioned that they are in the process of developing viral marketing. They also have a virtual campus tour that is about to go live. This is done through the students' perspective: a student literally walks around with a camera on his head as they film the campus. These are around fifteen minutes in length and at the end of the tour there is a message that states, "Share with a friend."

 

Ms. O'Donnell mentioned that idea is to get students to buy into a particular platform. It has

to be free form, rather than pushing information on them. It seems that they are more accepting of information when it is shared from student to student.

 

Professor Brian Torff mentioned that the Visual and Performing Arts Department experienced difficulty with news relative to exciting faculty stories moving up the pipeline. He had trouble "lighting the fire" when trying to share good media stories. He was wondering if a "cheat sheet" on how to increase communication for departments to follow would be useful. The Marketing staff passed out a worksheet flow, as well as a brochure that explained the communication lines.

Mr. Gregorio mentioned that successful media operations have great customer service. He will ask staff and follow-up with Brian.

 

Dr. Kevin Cassidy mentioned that the Fairfield Irish Festival was hosted on the Fairfield University campus for the first time this summer. Plans are to have this event on campus for the next five years. Cassidy was disappointed, because the only representation as a University was a small table of Irish students. He had the impression that there was some concern, on the part of the University, about not wanting to appear too visible. Is this considered not a good venue? Ms. O'Donnell mentioned that this is a good opportunity to show that Fairfield University does from a community standpoint, and she did not hear any push back. The Dean asked how we could develop a comprehensive strategy for leveraging these events. Ms. Arnold mentioned that she heard about this event a bit too late, so the timing was not great, but she felt it could be a great event in the future. The Dean reminded chairs about how important it is to pull Ms. Arnold into event planning at the earliest stages. Ms. Arnold now sits in on Humanities Institute grant meetings in order to know about events at the early planning stages and then she reaches out to organizers to develop the promotion strategy with them.

 

Dr. David Winn—How could we increase the cohorts for Biology, Chemistry, Math/CS, and Physics? When students get involved it works very well. They could tweeter or Skype with current students. Ms. Calderone asked if he knows of other universities that have this procedure underway and asked that chairs share those kinds of examples with specific links etc. Dr. Winn also suggested that if we gave students an honorarium to go back to their high school to talk about Fairfield it may be helpful in the recruitment process, perhaps something on the STEM fields that would be much more coordinated and visible than the department WebPages.

 

Dr. Liz Hohl mentioned that under the question relative to non-traditional programs, Peace and Justice is nicely featured but there is no mention of Women Studies, for example. Ms. O'Donnell said that they try to profile a variety of programs, and they are open to profiling and will change it up every year. Ms. Pellegrino mentioned that not a lot of students know what is meant by the term "interdisciplinary programs," and often are not sure what they are interested in. The Dean mentioned that with her conversations with Admissions every fall, one concept she tries to promote is the whole notion of interdisciplinary, because she feels that Fairfield has a very unique environment around interdisciplinary. We should promote programs that cross disciplines around themes or topics that are of great interest to students. She reminded us that while students often see the core as too rigid, we do give a lot of latitude in the core. What she would like to promote is the question of interdisciplinary and its importance to these students future.

 

Dr. Mary Ann Carolan commented that Admissions typically speak to juniors in high school. Is there any way to share with students the importance of continuing to study a foreign language during their senior year? Those who do not tend to have difficulty in college. Ms. Pellegrino mentioned that Admissions does encourage students to continue to engage in the most rigorous courses and not to drop language or science once they've met their H.S. graduation requirements but to continue these subjects in the senior year.

 

Dr. Danke Li commented that we have a couple of Chinese exchange students and it might be helpful to reach out to them about how we might recruit more international students. She suggested that Admissions take advantage of our current international students and sit with them to find out why Fairfield was appealing to them and get their opinion on how to obtain selling points. Ms. Pellegrino mentioned that they are in the process of ramping up international marketing. It is being done in conjunction with the graduate program marketing efforts, and with Chris Johnson, Director of International Programs. It is in the School of Business and Engineering that there will be a greater international market. International recruitment is a large undertaking, and our resources are limited.

 

Dr. Steve Sawin commented that the Math department is getting students that are not meeting their criteria (having had pre-Calc in H.S.); therefore, students who were admitted into the Dolan School of Business, for example, are having a difficult time in their math courses. Ms. Pellegrino mentioned that it is typical for students to have three years of math and science. This also may be a result of Admissions going to deep into the enrollment pool, though all students accepted do meet our basic admission criteria. Her concern is that if Admissions does not admit these students into the area of math/science, they may not come to Fairfield at all and we will lose them to another University. If there is something that Admissions can look for to predict success or failure, they would welcome the suggestions.

 

Dr. Cecelia Bucki asked how we could update our profile as an academic institution. She felt that we do not get serious students by and large and she finds that it's often the best students who transfer. Ms. Pellegrino agreed that the on-campus tour focuses more on University life. It is hard to cover everything in a 45-minute session. The Dean hopes that Admissions can work more collaboratively with faculty on design of tours and preparation of tour guides.

 

It was mentioned that hosting a lunch with early action students would be helpful. The invitation could come from faculty. This will give prospective students an opportunity to highlight more of the academic division and get students on campus to discuss various disciplines, as well as inviting them to visit the classroom.

 

The Dean thanked the Admissions and Marketing staff for joining the Dean's Council and meeting and again encouraged chairs to invite Mark Gregorio and Carolyn Arnold to department meetings periodically to update them on the work of the department in and outside the classroom.

 

Announcements

 

The Dean shared the schedule for the Canisius Hall Carpet Installation and Abatement with Chairs and Directors. She shared the temporary location of the staff in the Dean's Office.

 

The meeting adjourned at 5:30 p.m. to a dinner reception with CAS staff, chairs, and directors.