May 7, 2021 Minutes

Steering Committee Minutes

Committee Members Present:

  • Stephen Benson – Vice President, Finance & Administration (Co-Chair)
  • Londa Carriveau – Director, High School Pathways
  • Karen Clark – Director, Admissions & Recruitment
  • Daelynn Copeland – Asst. Professor/Facility Director, Child Studies & Education
  • Frank Graves – Dean, Workforce & Public Service
  • Fred Hills – Vice President, Instruction & Student Engagement
  • Paul Hoffman – Director, Student Development
  • James Kubacak – Director, Financial Aid
  • Kim Patterson – Executive Director, Foundation/Institutional Advancement (Co-Chair)
  • Phil Rhodes – Vice President, Research, Effectiveness & Information Technology
  • Lise Uhl – Division Chair, Visual & Performing Arts
  • Laura Wichman – Director, Institutional Research
Committee Members Absent:
  • Meredith Brown – Program Director/Assoc. Professor, Radiologic Technology
  • Lisa Elliott – Director, Marketing & Communication
  • Johnette McKown – President of McLennan Community College
  • Aranzazu Torres - Recruiter

Meeting start time: 2:03 

Agenda Topics: 

  • Welcome and Opening Discussion (Dr. Stephen Benson)
    • Board approved the Contract for the Strategic Enrollment Plan. 
  • Subcommittees
    • Admissions & Marketing – Karen Clark
      • Met and started moving forward with plan to have a 1 1 ½ - 2-hour f2f class.
      • Focus point is to teach people what is available and where to find information. Plans to follow-up with Paul’s team since we are talking about the similar ideas. 
  • Finance – James Kubacak
    • New scholarship program called Rising Star available for students.
    • Committee agreed to make changes to McLennan’s Policy and Rising Star. After the Board Retreat, Dr. Benson mentioned looking at other changes as well.
    • Discussed using Laptops as incentives for enrollment.
    • Creating a class to teach what we do in Financial Aid.
    • Announce Award information earlier so we can increase enrollment. 
  • Research & Growth Opportunities: Joe Arrington & Sharon Kenan
    • Name changes for college
    • Strategic Plan Progress – to increase MCC’s reputation within community.
    • Advising & Enrollment working team
      • Focus on Developmental Education for students & non-traditional students.
        • Upfront incentive incremental course work.
        • Upfront discounted text books.
        • Dedicated instructors
        • Incremental – local discounts
        • Back end incentives – people completing and taking back end course.
        • Tuition reimbursement or discounted tuition based on course work.
        • Overall idea: Is to make sure the college is not out of a lot of money if students don’t meet benchmark and to increase enrollment. Any feedback?
      • Benson recommended running these ideas through the Financial Group (James Kubacak).
    • Offering non-degree options.
    • A need to build awareness by using a PowerPoint to implement marketing campaigns. It is important in mapping to Pathways. 
  • Other groups: Community Surveys (Laura Wichman & Joe Arrington)
    • A community survey was created from recommendations made from prior Town Hall meetings.
    • Survey timeline is to send out by June 1st or mid-June.
    • Online survey sent by email or QR code.
    • Spotlight with news station’s Community Events. 
  • Discussed how to use incentives to recruit new students. (Current students and employees are excluded).
  • Offer a tier incentive programs – different amount gift cards. 
  • Joe Arrington – First time enrollment
    • Linkage between like people.
    • Identify large, small, private schools and home schools.
    • Build practice sets to start with. 
  • Retention – Paul Hoffman
    • No official meeting, but sub-committee are regular contributors to conversations on a regular basis. 
  • Current Spring Enrollment – Dr. Benson
    • Please refer to website. 
  • Current Enrollment Initiatives
    • Reskilling Grant – Dr. Benson
      • How to get more students eligible.
      • Trying to tweak process to increase number of students that are eligible. There are a lot of restrictions preventing eligibility for students. 
  • Marketing Efforts – Kim Patterson
    • Expanded more marketing tools for Summer I, II, and Fall 2021.
    • Grayson did survey of marketing budget for other colleges – publicity budget and we are at the bottom of the categories. We are not at the same market as other larger cities but comparable to smaller cities. There may be an area we can boost. 
  • Admissions & Recruiting Efforts – Karen Clark
    • Email campaigns and texts to remind students about registration.
    • Three open houses are scheduled for Express Path in May at the Bellmead Civic Center, Dewey park, and China Spring High School. 
  • Closing thoughts - Dr. Benson
    • McKown has a group of students she discusses COVID related issues and we put together a questionnaire for them to fill out.
      • Question: How do you think we could improve recruiting potential students?
        • Responses:
          • Increase appearances in local schools.
          • Use current students to help recruit at local high schools.
        • Question: What is the best reason to attend MCC?
          • Responses:
            • Tight net community.
            • Affordable
            • Local 

Meeting Adjourn: 3:17 p.m.