Enrollment decline, staff shortages, outdated manual processes and lagging technology – these are a few of the systemic challenges currently facing higher education. While it’s easy to sometimes feel these obstacles are insoluble, Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) found a path to success and shared their transformative journey in a recent webinar, entitled: MSU Denver’s Enrollment Recovery – Knowledge was Power, but Implementation was their Superpower! 

Take Your Mark, Then

Make Your Mark.

Change
Starts Here.

"In terms of our relationship with CampusWorks, every dollar we spent was absolutely worth it. We could not have done it alone. Everything that we accomplished in 12 to 18 months would have taken us 5-6 years or longer had we tried to do it in-house."

Dr. Will Simpkins, MSU Denver

To recover enrollment, we start with listening to your story, and then work through a series of data-gathering and benchmarking exercises with your team and come back with an action plan that suits your campus. Our clients see excellent results, including boosts in new student enrollment and overall headcount. Positive outcomes are possible. After all, a thriving campus is a happy campus. MSU is thriving again based on the outcomes of their recovery focus:    

Step 4 - Outcomes

If these outcomes appeal to you, let’s talk about how we can get your institution on the path to recovery. 

There is no place for bias when assessing an institution — or a strategy. Just as you need to know your patterns to break them, CampusWorks offers a fresh look at your unique bottlenecks, obstacles, and roadblocks.               

MSU Denver’s objective assessment identified three primary problems to solve:  

Step 1 - Problems

Student Experience

Great Resignation

Enrollment Decline

"This is truly a story about a university and the efforts that we, as a community, undertook in the last 2 years to influence our enrollment."

Dr. Will Simpkins, MSU Denver

Whether your data indicates a need to automate transcript, credit evaluation, or financial aid processes or empower your leaders, your desired outcome starts with outlining the critical strategies. We’re mindful of the fact that your team may be stressed, on the verge of burnout, or in need of objective feedback, so we work fast to develop thoughtful and concise plans that get you moving in the right direction and keep you going for years to come. MSU Denver identified and deployed the following emerging strategies:    

Step 3 - Strategies

"My President talks about the Boomerang effect.  We want to grow team members (through professional development) because even if they leave for another institution tomorrow, we want them to come back in five years and bring the knowledge from that institution."

Dr. Will Simpkins, MSU Denver

When the numbers suddenly drop, having an objective third party with extensive leadership experience is a must. Recovery and sustainability go hand in hand, but in order to reach your ideal solutions, you first have to determine the obstacles in your way and identify the processes required to reach your ideal solutions. MSU Denver isolated these integral processes on their path:  

Step 2 - Processes

"I will say the depth of the external reviews from CampusWorks were really stunning to me as someone who has seen external reviews over the years.  What we received was actual system maps, proposals for restructuring organizational charts and redoing processes like how a document moves through evaluation.   This was a level that didn't just tell us what was wrong, it told us potential solutions to fix the problem."

Dr. Will Simpkins, MSU Denver