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Strategic Goals

Explore the nine strategic goals guiding SHSU’s 2026–2029 enrollment strategy, focusing on recruitment, student success, partnerships, and data-informed decisions.

SEM Plan Goals and Priorities

The Strategic Enrollment Management Plan is built around nine goals that guide enrollment strategy, operations, and student success initiatives across the university. Each goal is supported by specific initiatives and measurable outcomes designed to strengthen recruitment, improve operational efficiency, and enhance the student experience.

  • Improve recruitment and student yield processes to boost recruitment numbers and yield rates across all student types (e.g., Transfer, International, SamPoly, Graduate, Online, Veterans)
  • Integrate faculty into the recruitment life cycle
  • Educate campus partners on Enrollment processes, terminology, and timelines
  • Redesign recruiters’ roles based on key geographic areas, enhancing their presence and relationships with key enrollment partners to better represent SHSU
  • Redesign recruiter training, to be done each term, with a greater focus on academic department and program updates
  • Develop shared processes for monitoring and supporting recruiter outreach and campus visit efforts to foster stronger student engagement and community partnerships
  • Achieve recruitment accountability through the creation and continued assessment of recruiter specific goals by zip code and school-by-school
  • Launch academic department-specific yield campaigns through automated messaging and “hands-on” recruitment from faculty
  • Integrate and enhance faculty recruitment opportunities (e.g., high school visits, community college visits, fairs, Academic Preview Days, tours)
  • Increase campus visit conversion rate (visit → applied → enrolled)
  • Ensure each major and certificate has a program-specific recruitment sheet
  • Use current students and recent graduates to act as ambassadors in the recruitment process at their former high schools and community colleges
  • Enhance collaboration between Admissions Recruitment, SHSU Online, and Enrollment Marketing and Communications to strengthen yield
  • Collaborate with academic colleges and departments to create and track 3- to 5-year enrollment targets by academic program

  • Eliminate all manual processing in enrollment functions, practices, and operations (e.g., SamPoly, Graduate, Undergraduate)

  • Automate Student Communication Life Cycle emphasizing the development of more targeted and frequent academic messaging

  • Implement College Vine for transcript reading automation to reduce articulation time to 7 business days or less

  • Review and revise admission applications for a more streamlined and expedited student application experience

  • Implement integrated payment flow for university applications in Salesforce

  • Enhance the international student application process through the implementation of an I20 application software

  • Automate the recruitment and re-recruitment process through the utilization of Marketing Cloud in Salesforce

  • Automate and track all student-facing communications (recruitment, billing, advising, retention, etc.) released via incremental stages within Salesforce

  • Increase SHSU presence at community colleges and high schools (e.g., recruiter visits, advisor hours, events)

  • Develop and follow through on local and community partnerships

  • Redefine “local” for recruitment and form partnerships with Walker, Houston, Trinity, San Jacinto, Montgomery, Grimes, Polk, and Madison counties

  • Increase applications and yield from local target counties and regions across the state (online and in-person)

  • Establish recruiter visit tracking frameworks to enhance student engagement and community partnerships

  • Promote and assess accountability for recruiter visits to enhance student engagement and community partnerships

  • Increase athletics-linked high school engagement events and sponsorships

  • Identify and develop new partnerships to promote the Global Engagement Center and to aid in the recruitment and retention of international students

  • Refine community college partnerships, focusing on establishing and updating pipelines (e.g., 2+2, AAS to BAAS)

  • Identify, build, and promote internal pipelines to improve enrollment and student degree attainment (e.g., SamPoly → bachelor’s, bachelor’s → graduate, transfer → bachelor’s → graduate)

  • Establish 1–2 (minimum) formalized transfer pathways per major transfer partner

  • Develop a unified campus-wide process to develop and track partnerships, contracts, agreements, and MOUs with employers, school districts, community organizations, and industry/corporate partners

  • Create and maintain a directory of departmental contacts for enrollment-related questions

  • Strengthen student orientation, campus tours, and the initial onboarding experience

  • Establish a data collection and sharing process for campus events and activities to better understand student experience and engagement

  • Collaborate across campus to create a streamlined and comprehensive student journey from prospective to completed status

  • Enhance and promote existing enrollment and engagement events (e.g., Bearkat Camp, Welcome Week, Bearkat Family Day, Saturday@Sam, Academic Preview Days)

  • Identify and increase student satisfaction regarding campus events (e.g., Sammypalooza, campus tours, majors fair)

  • Collaborate with Student Affairs and Academic Affairs to optimize the student-facing tour experience, allowing for more prospective student traffic during peak times

  • Align and optimize technology infrastructure to further enhance the student experience

  • Collaborate with academic leadership to develop and implement a sustainable, student-centered and data-informed, long-term course planning strategy

 

  • Reduce time from initial material and content request to campaign launch for both EMC and IMC

  • Provide academic colleges with a transparent marketing campaign calendar from EMC each academic cycle

  • Incorporate and promote academic messaging and faculty involvement in recruitment marketing

  • Provide campus partners with a calendar of recruiter schedules and locations along with established enrollment/recruitment events

  • Measure ROI of digital marketing and present quarterly reports

  • Increase staffing to support the broader campus needs and ensure timely completion of projects

  • Enhance marketing materials by including student stories, campus rankings, athletic achievements, and other notable elements that set SHSU apart and above competitors

  • Acquire prospective student information, work with early outreach, invest in local events, and partner with local high schools, colleges, and communities to increase the proportion of local students who choose to attend SHSU

  • Develop a robust recruitment and yield campaign to target high-yield community colleges to promote student transfer and enrollment

  • Cultivate a process to market and connect with partially submitted students (e.g., FAFSA only, transcripts with no application)

  • Create school-specific and honors-specific plans to engage in increased academic messaging and brand awareness where applicable, including digital targeting, geo-fenced messaging, texting, advertising in school athletic facilities, publications, and dedicated fund allocation for sponsorships

  • Create physical and digital pieces targeted by population with focus on academic quality and campus experience

 

  • Deploy a full lifecycle communication map covering inquiry → applicant → admitted → confirmed → enrolled → retained

  • Reduce cases of misaligned or contradictory communication

  • Track communication preferences and reduce email-only dependence by increasing text and physical material engagement

  • Increase contact points with prospective students

  • Incorporate prospective students identified by advisors into the admissions communication pipeline

  • Introduce prospective students to campus amenities and student-facing services to support recruitment, yield, and student engagement

  • Create a pipeline between Advising and enrollment to promote communication and outreach to prospective students

  • Improve first-year student retention rates

  • Focus on a student service/engagement model for student interaction, fostering shared expectations and support for all departments that actively engage with students (e.g., recruiters, advising, tutoring)

  • Increase persistence from fall to spring, and spring to fall

  • Increase the number of students completing 30 SCH in their first year

  • Promote cross-campus collaboration to reduce DFWQ rates in core courses

  • Increase 4- and 6-year graduation rates

  • Develop a model for re-recruitment of current/continuing students by developing a registration tracking dashboard and communication campaign to enhance semester-to-semester registration

  • Reduce stop-outs among juniors and seniors through college-based outreach

  • Create efficiencies that help deliver student services to create a positive, meaningful, educational experience for students

  • Create competitive, renewable scholarships for high-achieving students to improve recruitment, promote student financial security, and promote applications from key student types

  • Create a renewable scholarship for high school graduates in local counties

  • Identify funding sources to support strategic recruitment scholarship activities

  • Evaluate and streamline scholarship application processes

  • Track and increase FAFSA completion among admitted students

  • Proactively optimize aid packaging to address student need in a timely manner

  • Collaborate with campus to mitigate internal pain points

  • Increase awareness of existing scholarships (e.g., employee dependent, local scholarships, promise programs)

  • Improve student communication surrounding scholarship and financial aid awards

  • Conduct scholarship analyses for transparent ROI metrics

  • Research and implement a net revenue model for scholarship funding to improve strategic application, financial sustainability, and student opportunities

  • Optimize aid packaging by increasing aid applications received by priority date to address student needs

  • Research and plan for performance-based funding metrics to align university and enrollment goals

  • Develop and disseminate enrollment dashboards and recruitment/yield to campus partners to improve understanding of historical trends and current data

  • Determine causes for student stop outs and create a streamlined outreach campaign supported by campus

  • Review established dashboards and ensure duplicates are removed in a timely manner for all enrollment funnels (e.g., Graduate, Undergraduate)

  • Achieve 100% alignment between Undergraduate/Graduate/SamPoly data structure for easier reporting

  • Establish cadenced data literacy training for campus partners to improve understanding of tools, data use, and DADS departmental resources

  • Provide enhanced application acceptance data in more “real time” to allow for more relevant and targeted outreach from faculty

  • Coordinate with IMC and DADS to conduct a state, city, zip code, and school-by-school assessment of current saturation