Implemented Projects
Emergency Scholarships
- Created a scholarship program for students experiencing life emergencies that can impact enrollment
- Cross-campus representation on committee
- Since Fall 2019, funded over 250 applications, not including thousands of students receiving COVID relief funding
Financial Aid Leveraging
- Created 4-year renewable scholarships: Nanook Pledge (merit-based) and Nanook Commitment (needs-based)
- Fall 2021 increased in transfer, re-admit and first time freshman within top 10% of nation, surpassing enrollment goals within these populations
Housing Scholarships
- Implemented in Fall 2021
- Offered 2-year renewable scholarships to cover the cost of a room based on application review
- 19 students were selected for the first cohort and are required to offer some sort of programming for fellow residents
Military Tuition Rate
- Implemented in Spring 2021
- Active-duty military are eligible to pay a consolidated tuition and fee rate of $250 per credit, which is the maximum amount of tuition assistance provided by the Department of Defense
Search Engine Optimization
- Of the 264 phrases geo-targeted for Ӱpro, 254 are on page 1 of Google
- Of the 255 phrases geo-targeted for the US, 20 are on page 1 of Google
- Of the 255 phrases geo-targeted for Online, 47 are on page 1 of Google
- 510 keyword phrases being tracked - 199 Preferred Landing Pages were performing
Academic program pages with embedded ROI
- 140 pages developed since April 2019
- Fall 2021, 98 students matriculated from this source, up from 92 for Fall 2020
UAF homepage geared to prospective students
- Carousel regularly features content about virtual tour, rankings, academic programs and research, online degrees
- Prominent calls to action added for applying, requesting information and visiting campus
- Prominent sections added to promote rankings, academic programs
Enrollment Management Web Developer
- 140 pages live and 40 in development
- Fall 2021, 98 students matriculated from this source, up from 92 from Fall 2020
- Spring 2022 numbers are ahead of where they were this time last year
California Regional Recruiter
- Expanded recruitment presence of west coast markets
- Complementing recruiter in Washington
- Increased number of applications, admits and yield from this territory in Fall 2021
Dual Enrollment coordinator
- Created Ӱpro Advantage program in fall 2019, which is a virtual dual enrollment program offering students a discounted course cost
- 144% increase from AY19-20 to AY20-21 among Ӱpro high school students in the Advantage Program
- Created North Star Middle College fall 2020 with a cohort of 40 Fairbanks North Star Borough School District seniors
Outside of Ӱpro Marketing
- Climate Scholars Program digital marketing $20k
- Increased digital marketing spend to $50k
- Nanook Pledge promotion via digital and radio $25k
- Admissions videos from Ologie $10k
- Support SEP Spring traditional campaigns (Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr) - radio/TV in AK, WA, CA, streaming radio in TX $438.4k
- Digital Marketing extension into FY22 $50k
- FY20 Marketing
- FY21 Marketing
Application Fee Waivers
- Expanded fee waivers to include dual enrollment populations, Title 1 high schools, all military and veteran students.
- Implemented a proactive fee waiver internal process to facilitate processing and reviewing fee waiver requests.
- Approximately 700 waivers have been used for admissions applications (500 for 2021-2022 and 200 for 2022-2023 as of December 2021)
Virtual Tour
- Updated and modernized the virtual tour (last update was in 2015)
- Shifted focus of tour to highlight the student experience rather than physical buildings
Recruitment & Readiness Coordinator
- Facilitated a streamlined process for awarding and auditing the Nanook Pledge and implemented awarding/auditing processes for the Nanook Commitment.
- Managed the Finish Strong program for the 2020-21 academic year
Corporate Enrollment Support
- Conducting outreach and building enrollment partnerships with Ӱpro businesses, agencies, and organizations
- Partnering with and marketing to corporations that provide tuition benefits to the employees to drive corporate enrollment
Nanook Brotherhood Project
- Created endowed scholarship program, effective Fall 2020
- Speaker series last spring
- Currently working on cohort-based retention program for males of color students
Expansion of Living Learning Communities
- Increase access to LLCs by expanding current LLCs and adding new LLCs
- Added the Impact LLC in Fall 2020
- Both the Honors and Engineering LLC participation increased by 60% in Fall 2021
eSports Center
- Received $500K donation from GCI
- Holding camps, tournaments, and events for UAF students and potential students
- Most popular stop during campus Admissions tours
- Provided $1,000 scholarships to winners to the eSports High School State Championship
Honors College
- Changed name to Honors College (from Honors Program)
- Added full time, dedicated director
- Creation of Climate Scholars Program, which is experiencing rapid enrollment growth, an active endowed scholarship program, and now offers four interdisciplinary climate research intensives in Gustavus, Fairbanks, Toolik, and Dillingham. See promotional video here: https://uaf.edu/honors/climate-scholars/
Rural Student Services Indigenous Outreach and Wellness Coordinator
- Removes barriers and acts as liaison to accessing wellness services and activities both on campus and with Ӱpro Native community organization
- Creates space at the UAF Troth Yeddha’ Campus for cultural expression activities through student organizations/clubs in combination with increased wellness programming, some the accomplishments this fall include:
- UAF student request for a trauma-informed, culturally knowledgeable Indigenous Counselor
- 450 students have access to a culturally knowledgeable Indigenous Outreach & Wellness Coordinator who:
Establishing an official UAF Beading Club which has been meeting 4 hours a week throughout the fall semester
Collaborating with the Festival of Native Arts Club to organize a kuspuk making workshop that involved participation from 12 students, faculty, staff and even Provost Prakash
Leading a nature walk that identified local plants and medicines
Programming seven Positive Connection Nights (PCNs) at RSS which had an average attendance of 35 students each
Online BA/BS Biology
- Fall 2020, BA program created
- Summer 2021, BS program created
- Over 30 students enrolled in online Biology programs as of Fall 2021
Developmental Studies
- Renaming of Developmental Math (DEVM) courses to a mathematics (MATH) designator to remove negative connotation with “developmental”
- Creating of study skills class to accompany WRTG 110 course
Online Accounting
- Fall 2020, BBA in accounting created with program development funded by CBSM
- Spring 2020, creation of post baccalaureate certificate
GIS Certificate
- Developed the edX Professional GIS Certificate featuring three online courses and already (4 months) attracting more than 6,000 learners.
- Graduate Certificate in GIS still in development
Created campus advising coordinator
- Established advising council
- Advising mission
- Advisor standards
- OnBoarding
- Created foundation training
- Monthly advisor information sessions
- Created Advisor Site for information, news, manual, etc.
- In collaboration with Admissions, created the advising welcome letter to new admits
Graduate Award Process Efficiencies (GAPE)
- Moved Graduate TA processing from Grad School to Financial Aid to ensure compliance and provide comprehensive award offers to students
- Changed campus timelines to provide information on funding to students earlier in the award cycle
Enrollment Management Communication
- Targeting students with no applications that submitted FAFSAs to UAF
Identifying dual enrollment students
- Consistent coding of high school students in Banner to ensure high school information is captured and students are captured for recruitment.
Course Approval Process
- Process Improvement Team (PIT Crew) was formed Spring 2019
- Policy and procedural changes to include both fall and spring catalog submission, improvement to approving occupational endorsements, focusing curriculum review to two committees down from five
- Enhanced tools and instructional guidance with best practices for course and program review, as well as additional support in CourseLeaf