The enrollment decrease of about 450 students has caused Eastern to implement new recruiting strategies, including soliciting 60,000 students from the ACT process.

President Bill Perry said they are continuing to explore different ways to compete with in-state and out-of-state universities.

“I think that we recognize that the landscape for recruiting students is getting more and more competitive,” Perry said.

When taking the ACT, students can choose to have their scores sent to different universities of their choosing.

During the Council on University Planning and Budget meeting Friday, Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said Eastern has not had a systematic procedure to acquire names of students who have sent their scores to Eastern.

“This year, we have acquired approximately 60,000 names independent of that process, which we are going to be using for direct contact and solicitation,” Lord said.

The students will be contacted through the Admissions Office and other departments, he said.

Lord said they have also been contacting Charleston High School juniors and seniors to come to campus on Nov. 3 for different activities, such as a flashlight tour of Eastern.

“We are trying to interact more intentionally and directly with our local high school,” Lord said. “We are doing this for Charleston High School at this time, and if it is successful then we will replicate it and look to extend it to other localized high schools.”

He said they also hired a consultant company to help with general recruitment strategies to increase enrollment, which is the Noel-Levitz Higher Education Consultants company.

“We are working to get (the consultants) on campus for an initial meeting with the president’s council and then the key players in the enrollment process, admissions, financial aid, housing, new student programs and so on,” Lord said. “We have also received a data request from them so they can get access to the data and start doing their analysis to inform their conversations with us.”

Perry said they hired the consultant to learn more and develop new recruitment strategies.

“We have small classes, faculty in classes who have strong programs, great student and alumni satisfaction, and a beautiful campus where people care about the students,” Perry said. “What we have to do is make sure we are getting the right message to the right students at the right time and in the right way.”

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].