Meeting & Agendas

Brette started the meeting by asking everyone to introduce themselves as there are some new faces. She said that Neil Vickers will be joining the meeting shortly to share recent data collected.

Dr. Rhodes and the Faculty Senate wish to enhance awareness to our senior students. It is still being determined how this program will look. They want to complete a focus group or send surveys in some key retirement areas to see if there is an interest. KC will create a simple 5 question survey and this group can review the results.

This idea is in the early planning stages and it could be 6-9 months out before any decisions are made. The committee is talking about having this course cost $60; being over a weekend instead of 5 weeks long; and would consist of classes covering time management, note taking skills, and items for success.

The web redesign was made with the students in mind. The language and tone of the site was made more personal. Over 800 pages have been uploaded. Search functions and staff pages are still being worked on. Submit any questions or comments to Edward Terry. Please have patience while the site is still being worked out.

• Measuring success with hits on the website, phone calls, getting students to apply • 51,000 new applications (although some are duplicates) • 25,000 new students each year (approximately). This number goes down if we take out the College Connection students. • 40,000 students “stopped out”. These are students with 30 hours or more over 3 years that have stopped coming to ACC. How can we reach out to these students and reconnect with them? How good is their contact information? There is a new policy being worked out with the PLT. • Down 3,000 students from last year. 500 are new students and 2500 were current students. • Spring is the biggest time for receiving applications. More events or an “all access” event should occur to bring in more students. Suggestions welcome. • ACC has a 91% approval rating compared to UT at 86% and AISD at 72%. • Increase advertising to support efforts in increasing enrollment.

• Loretta - stated she is hosting a Texas Reach Conference from May 29-30 at the new Highland area. This is a statewide conference and Clint Rodenfelds (former ACC staff) is the Executive Director. Logistics are still being worked out. • Soon - stated she attended the Success Equity Summit in San Antonio and it was based on institutional racism. Highlights were to turn the negative message into a positive one for the students when we first interact with them. Although we do need to discuss the student’s deficits, we should say welcome and let them know they have already succeeded just by walking through the door.

• Current numbers are down 14% for the spring and 30% over 2 years. • Trend is to register later. • Losing current students versus new students since they are waiting to register and pay. Need to figure out why they are waiting. What do they think the benefit is to wait? • Even if we figure out why, we may not be able to fix the problem. • OIEA has daily reports on their page if anyone wants to review the stats. • Now that those who came to ACC during the recession are finishing up their 2 year plans, they are moving on and this is also a cause for lower numbers. • The idea of elevating a financial aid campaign was brought up by Brette. Neil replied that the College Connection type programs where students are filling out the applications and FAFSAs but not attending ACC is messing with the data and causing inaccurate data. Other students are applying and registering but getting their financial aid denied. Also less than half of the tradition ECS students are filling out their FAFSA. • Ros stated that we should take a closer look at the College Connection program because she is serving students who don’t want to talk to us (ACC). We are expending a lot of energy on this program that doesn’t seem to be working well anymore. • Linda said this is still a good program that is working. Enrollment Management is conducting office hours at the high schools. She is a big supporter of College Connection. • Neil said the burden of proof is on the department. Applications are being marked as College Connection students and we can tell who is actually coming to ACC. There needs to be another layer of follow up to these students. • Linda said a few years ago there was a mail-out to these students encouraging them to attend a “day on campus” event. • Claire recommended that an email or call to prospective or recently “moved to students” students should take place near registration times.

• What areas are unexplored so we can better reconnect to students? • What audience should we move on first? • Email answers to Brette. Next meeting will be in February but over the next few months you’ll receive 2 email updates from Brette.