Enrollment Growth Strategy: Student Affairs to Pursue Advertising Blitz Regarding Campus Return
By JohnTaylor Wildfeuer
jt.wildfeuer@gmail.com
Students may soon catch a glimpse of new City College ads, if they ride a bus or check their Facebook.
Battling a ten-year enrollment decline and a lengthy pandemic now in its fourth semester, City College plans to use state funds to reel students back with the promise of in-person instruction.
At an Oct. 21 meeting of the Board Student Success and Policy Committee an agenda item regarding Student Retention and Outreach Allocations was tabled after a partial presentation.
In response to the scheduled agenda item, ad hoc presenter Vice Chancellor Lisa Cooper Wilkins said, “I inquired about this report and was told that because the funds are not entirely in Student Affairs there’s a small portion coming to student affairs that this was a report I was not giving.”
Despite this Dr. Cooper Wilkins went on to present a short slideshow that detailed some of the strategies the college has in mind for increasing enrollment and retaining students.
She went on to share a slide with three points, that City College received $441,625 from the state to use on increasing enrollment and retention, that Rosie Zepeda is partnering with the Outreach Office on allocation, and that the theme of the college’s outreach projects will be “CCSF is back!” to “celebrate the return of CCSF to in-person classes and activities.”
The funds are made available to the college as part of the California Budget Act of 2020, or SB 85.
City College intends to amplify their message through MUNI bus ads and social media campaigns, and to begin widespread use of Signal Vine, a higher education mass text messaging platform. According to another slide, the intent is to “enhance communication to current and prospective students,” for whom text is presumed by Student Affairs to be the preferred method of communication.
Lately, the college has posted to its Facebook and Twitter presences to trumpet an Accreditation Kick-Off, promote virtual career fairs and events for High School Students and families, and provide health updates regarding COVID-19 and flu season.
The Board of Trustees also had scheduled for Oct. 21 a Budget and Audit Committee Meeting which may have shed further light on the college’s plans for resource allocation as well as retention and enrollment efforts had it not been canceled the day before for an as yet unknown reason.
With the item tabled it is unlikely that any funds will be allocated, or any advertisements paid for or posted, as part of these projects prior to the next regular meeting of the Board of Trustees on Nov. 16.