A situational analysis examines the internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats, informed by retreat participants’ experiences, impressions, and perspectives. The original SWOT analysis was completed at the initial implementation of the strategic enrollment plan in fall 2017 and was updated in fall 2020.
Strengths:
- Expertise, passion, dedication, and innovation of the leadership team within the Division of Enrollment Management
- Readiness to try new initiatives to make improvements and address challenges
- Emergence of greater collaboration within the Division and across campuses, resulting from a reduction of work performed in silos
- Excellent program offerings that aid in making it attractive to market the campus and recruit and retain students at IUPUI (Indianapolis, Columbus, and Fort Wayne)
- Urban location as a source of distinction, differentiation, and competitive advantage for the Indianapolis campus
- Commitment to embracing, valuing, and growing diversity, equity and inclusion—of students, staff, and faculty
- Access to high-quality data and analysis from IRDS to inform decision-making
- Strong relationships within the Division, with schools and other enrollment stakeholders, and with enterprise-level IU offices and colleagues
- Relationships with community partners that help to enhance the awareness and consideration of the campuses of IUPUI to prospective students, parents, and other key influencers in the enrollment journey
- A willingness to learn, including the ability to fail and recover on the way to getting things right
Weaknesses:
- Silo mentality still exists within the Division of Enrollment Management, despite greater collaboration
- Colleagues within the Division still tend to work as individuals and may lack the ability to be viewed as experts in an overall strategic enrollment management plan – which limits our ability to fully utilize all the strengths/skills available to move the work of the division and more importantly, the institution forward
- Competing and confusing identities, policies, and process: IUPUI, IUPUC and IUFW as campuses and IU and Purdue as degrees offered
- Lacking the capability to fully recognize the value of all student populations, including ensuring enough resources are secured/allocated to reach goals of expanding student populations
- Inability to tell a compelling and comprehensive ‘story’ of the Division’s portfolio and options – including the role the offices within the division provide in supporting the IUPUI, IUPUC and IUFW campuses
- Lacking funding and other resources to sufficiently carry out Division priorities
- Students experience inconsistent service because of structures (e.g., silos)
- Variability in the level of cooperation and coordination from academic units with the Division, resulting in inconsistent sharing of information, ideas, etc.
- Lack of coordination and training within different technology platforms on which to perform work
- Loss of talent in terms of employees separating from the Division
Opportunities:
- Create a better understanding of the Division’s identity and how its various components contribute to the fulfillment of campus mission and priorities
- Significantly improve partnerships within the Division, across campuses, with schools and other enrollment stakeholders, and with enterprise-level IU office and colleagues
- Sharing resources within the Division and with others to gain efficiencies and leverage collective capabilities
- Ability to respond to a competitive, evolving external market including making appropriate changes to address changing circumstances
- Harnessing and leveraging data to make more informed decisions about student success
- Better evaluation, integration and coordination of policies, processes, and procedures leading to improved outcomes for the Division
- Need to prioritize Division strategies to provide focus on activities, including determining where greater emphasis is needed and what things may need to be minimized or discontinued
- Leverage the lessons learned from our own history/experience, particularly those learned because of the pandemic, along with incorporating promising practices from elsewhere (e.g., other institutions, AACRAO, EAB), to make ongoing improvements to Division activities
- Outline and clarify the Division support of our sister locations in Columbus and Fort Wayne, including highlighting areas of similarity or difference in key enrollment management initiatives
- Intentionally and carefully review all aspects of the divisions culture and practices to address issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion
- Actively participate in the IUPUI Action Committee anti-racism initiatives to target systemic racism on campus and improve the overall experience of students of color.
- Work better to capitalize on relationship with Ivy Tech campuses in Indianapolis, Columbus, and Fort Wayne to strengthen the transfer pipeline
Threats:
- COVID: prospect student behavior breaking from norms as access to core segmentations of our traditional student pipelines are facing limitations thus impacting engagement in the recruitment/yield process, strain on continuing students to persist, strain on staff and operational priorities
- Over saturated market in the pursuit of prospective students: the ability to stand out amidst “the noise” amidst decrease of mediums for engagement
- Reduced state appropriations; more competition for less money
- Lack of resources dedicated to student success, providing ongoing challenge to recruit, retain and support persistence particularly due to pandemic driven environment
- Competitive and fast changing Higher Education Market —locally, regionally, nationally, and globally—offering comparable experiences, credential and outcomes for students
- Demographic change in traditional college-going population, which will provide continued pressures to meet enrollment goals
- Institutional systems and structures that pose challenges to campus needs and ability to be nimble, resourceful and react quickly to changing environment
- Silos and compartmentalization across the institution can be a challenge for the division to grow and change causing innovation to slow