Challenges and Opportunities Facing Rural Community Colleges

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Challenges and Opportunities Facing Rural
Community Colleges

• Randy Smith, Ph.D.
• President, Rural Community College Alliance
• Altus, Oklahoma

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Overview

• Lots of information, a short amount of time!
• Need your participation
• This presentation should facilitate networking
  among participants after the conference
• Explore some challenges
• Explore some opportunities (what we do well)

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Challenges

• List the two or three most important challenges
  facing your college
• List two or three challenges facing your rural
  community

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Rural Demographics

• Socio-economic status of rural communities
• Typically poorer
• Less access to healthcare
• Lack of growth/poor economy/low paying jobs
• Decreasing number of high school graduates

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Rural Demographics

• Declining rural population
• WOSC service area population

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Rural Demographics
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Rural Demographics

• Palm beach County School District will experience
  a DECREASE of 4,145 high school students from
  2008 to 2013.

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Rural Demographics

• Is your service area decreasing in population?
• Is the enrollment at your college flat or
  decreasing?

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Challenges

• What is the most important challenge/factor
  facing the rural community college?
• ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT!

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Enrollment Management

• The most important factor affecting rural
  two-year institutions
• Who is responsible for enrollment management at
  your institution?
• Who should be involved with E.M.at your
  institution?
• Do you have a defined E.M Plan

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The Problem

• Flat or decreasing enrollment in community
  colleges
• Greater competition for a smaller pool of high
  school graduates and non-traditional students
• Lack of research on rural community colleges
• Financial consequences of falling enrollment

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The Challenge forRural Community Colleges

• Increase enrollment at rural two-year colleges.
• How?
• What do students want in a college?

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Four Categories of Factors that Influence
Decision to Enroll

• Student Services
• (On-Campus Housing and Childcare, College
  Sponsored Sports)
• Academic Issues
• (Transferability of Credits, Academic Reputation)
• Marketing
• (Distance, Campus Appearance)
• Personal Issues
• (Cost of Tuition, Family Influence)

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Conceptual Framework
Independent Variables Dependent Variable
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Activity

• Please rank the following factors in the order
  YOU think students most desire in a rural
  two-year college.
• Family input, Transferability, Academic
  reputation, Driving distance, Campus appearance,
  Housing, Team sports, On-campus childcare, Cost

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Factors Influencing Enrollment

• Survey of 831 Students at 8 Rural Two-Year
  Colleges
• Average age 29.3
• Average Miles Driven to Attend College 25

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Rank Ordering, Means, Standard Deviations and
Dependent t-tests for Student Ratings of the
Nine Factors on Importance
Note. p lt .05 p lt.01 p lt .001 a
Dependent t-tests that assessed differences in
successive factors.
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What does this mean?

• Do you focus on academic reputation and quality
  of instruction?
• Do you require faculty to be involved in
  recruitment?
• Is your campus well maintained, clean and
  attractive?
• Do you have a written E.M plan involving all
  areas of the college?

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What does this mean?

• Do you advertise your low tuition cost and
  compare costs to four-year universities?
• Do you venture outside your service area and
  market your institution as a destination college?

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The Bottom Line

• Continue to maintain your strengths while slowly
  improving on your weaknesses.
• Students are more interested in academic issues
  than in student services (regardless of location,
  ethnicity and gender)
• Students go behind the scenes to really find out
  what is going on. Do you?
• Competition is INCREASING

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Enrollment Management

• Do you have a written E.M. plan based on your
  SWOT?
• Do you have an E.M. committee?
• Have you surveyed your own students? Why do they
  enroll at your institution?

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Priorities

• You can always tell a colleges priorities by..
• the way they spend their money

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Challenges

• Faculty and administrative retirements
• Do you have plans now in preparation for the
  future? How are you going to recruit faculty?
• What attracts faculty to teach at a rural
  college? (this is where you respond)
• Lifestyle, focus on instruction, climate of the
  college, family reasons

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Challenges

• Failing infrastructure (strategic planning,
  master plan)
• Increasing competition for a shrinking pool of
  students (distance education)
• Inability to keep up with technology trends

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Opportunities

• What do two year colleges typically do better
  than other institutions of higher education?
• INSTRUCTION. We are student centered and focused

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Opportunities

• What are the strengths of two year colleges?
• Cost, location, open enrollment policy, focus on
  student, remedial services, change/adapt quickly
  to community needs
• Do we get the word out about our strengths?

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Opportunities/ Economic Development

• What is economic development?
• Attract new business
• Grow existing businesses
• Train employees
• What else?
• Why should community colleges be involved in
  economic development and partnerships?

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Economic Development

• What should be the role of the community college
  in economic development?
• What can your college do to be involved in or
  improve economic development? Be specific
• We are ideally suited to partner, change, and
  create new programs as needed

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Summary of Opportunities

• Ability to quickly change/adapt
• Ability to meet demands of business and industry
  (partnerships)
• Excellence in instruction
• Low cost of attendance
• Add/improve technical programs
• Add/improve developmental courses

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Summary of Challenges

• Enrollment management (recruitment and retention)
• Failing infrastructure
• Recruiting faculty, staff and administration
• Increasing competition
• Inability to keep up with technology trends

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Leadership Simplified

• What is an employees first reaction to any
  decision that you make?
• WIIFM Whats in it for me?
• Think about this BEFORE you make a decision

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Leadership Simplified

• The most effective thing you can do as a leader
  is
• Help others be successful. You work for the
  employees, they dont work for you. When they
  are successful, you are successful
• Excellent internal customer service breeds
  excellent external customer service.

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Effective Leadership

• Successful employees create successful leaders!!
• Successful leaders create successful employees!!
• Start the cycle, see what happens

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1 Trait of Effective Leaders

• TRUST

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Effective Leadership

• Four cornerstones of effective educational
  leadership
• Enthusiasm
• Attitude
• Vision
• Feedback

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Leadership Greatness

• The two most important traits of greatness (after
  trust) are

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Leadership Greatness

• Initiative
• And
• Attitude

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Video Clip
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Thank you for your participation, time and
attention!

• Randy.Smith_at_ruralccalliance.org
• 580-477-7890