Enrollment Belongs to Everyone: Shared Ownership for Student Success

The 50th anniversary of enrollment management is an opportune time to reflect on and share the good work that HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College (HACC), has done to shift the culture of enrollment ownership and accountability from a small team to an institutional commitment. This culture is one in which employees across the college now see themselves and can communicate their roles in both the enrollment of new students and the support for the retention and success efforts for continuing students. Higher education is facing a multitude of challenges, ranging from increased governmental scrutiny and a shrinking college-going population to intensified institutional competition and growing consumerism that is redefining how students think about the return on their investment of both time and money.

These challenges leave institutions with strained budgets and necessitate unprecedented decisions to cut programs, services, and personnel, as well as to shutter campuses, consider mergers, or ultimately face complete closure. It has become increasingly important for all employees at the institution to understand their roles in helping students come into, move through, and graduate or transfer out with ease. Sharing HACC’s journey in shifting the institution’s culture will inspire and equip readers with a model to do the same.

Shifting Enrollment Ownership to an Institutional Commitment

Traditionally, enrollment management has been viewed as the responsibility of the individual or division with “enrollment” in its title. In most institutions, that model still holds. While functional clarity has value, this approach has a significant limitation: It concentrates ownership of enrollment outcomes into a single role or division rather than recognizing the collective impact of the entire institution. When the focus of enrollment moves beyond the narrow scope of the student success division, it generally extends to the importance of involving faculty. In their article, “SEM As a Connector: Building Relationships in a New Normal,” Henderson and Pollock dedicate a section to “Faculty Engaging,” in which they cite multiple articles stressing the importance of faculty engagement for enrollment and student retention; however, the reach of influence extends well beyond faculty (2021, 7). More recently, Saweczko introduces the Enrollment Relationship Model, once again citing the importance of relationships, yet still presenting a model with a narrow focus: “central and academic units at the tactical level” (2024, 21).

Enrollment work is inherently complex: multi-faceted, cross-divisional, and deeply embedded in everyday institutional practices. From the first interaction prospective students have with a college, to the experience that determines whether they persist and complete, transfer, or become gainfully employed, enrollment is shaped by far more than recruitment and admissions alone.

This article serves as a guide for shifting institutional culture from the belief that enrollment is “owned” by student affairs or enrollment management to a shared understanding that enrollment belongs to everyone. Every employee plays a role in securing and sustaining enrollment. This call to action is made clear in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “[W]hat needs to happen next is straightforward, if not simple. Campuses need a new dialogue: one that includes faculty, staff, students, and trustees and is grounded in facts rather than folklore about finances, demographics, and competition” (Levine and Van Pelt 2026). Each interaction, policy decision, classroom experience, and operational process contributes either positively or negatively to a student’s decision to enroll, persist, and successfully complete. If enrollment belongs to everyone, “[W]e need to appreciate the process of connecting students to institutions and then using those connections to build relationships with faculty, staff, and other students” (Henderson and Pollock 2021, 4).

Institutional Context and Background

Founded in 1964, HACC grew into a five-campus, eleven-county service region community college with a robust distance learning presence, serving 85 school districts across central Pennsylvania. At its apex, it was the largest community college in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Like many community colleges nationwide, enrollment peaked several years after the 2008 Great Recession. What followed were ongoing enrollment declines that ultimately prompted a college-wide reorganization intended to right-size the institution. The college moved from a decentralized model in which vice presidents were responsible for individual campuses with dedicated staff, to a centralized, “One College” model in which administrators oversaw all campuses collectively, organized by functional areas. This transition began in 2019 and continued into 2020, coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Staffing reductions to right-size the college persisted throughout the pandemic, largely while the institution operated remotely. Moreover, remote operations masked some of the immediate impacts. Upon returning to the campuses in 2021, it became clear that some staffing reductions were hindering on-campus student support and operational effectiveness.

Upon the onboarding of a new permanent vice president in 2021, it was also discovered that the college had not had an active enrollment plan in place since 2016. As a result, the experience across the college was one of triage: respond to immediate crises rather than advance long-term enrollment strategies. However, the arrival of a permanent leader marked a critical turning point, establishing stability and ensuring the right people were positioned in the right roles. Gradually, this alignment fostered sustained progress for rebuilding momentum and trust.

Research, Realignment, and Reframing Enrollment

In 2021, HACC intentionally paused to assess its structure, processes, assumptions, and roles. Albeit difficult, realigning roles based on strengths and reorganizing departments under appropriate leadership produced meaningful benefits across the college. An assessment by external consultants was conducted to support rebuilding enrollment planning and management capacity. This period included a comprehensive review of institutional decision-making practices, prior enrollment efforts, and available data, which added structure to the work ahead. The data told a clear story: HACC had experienced nearly a decade of enrollment decline, with losses accelerating dramatically during the pandemic. A renewed, intentional enrollment plan with clear strategies, tactics, and intended outcomes was essential.

In response, a cross-divisional enrollment committee was established, staffed by new voices in different roles; it was a signal of support for a cultural shift. The goal was no longer to “fix enrollment” within a single division or by simply engaging a single constituency group, such as faculty, but to embed enrollment thinking across the institution under a shared guiding principle:

Enrollment belongs to everyone! The push to redefine the strategic enrollment management (SEM) practice at HACC has been supported by research. Willis and Yang’s study confirmed the need for SEM to evolve in response to the shifting landscape of American higher education. Their study revealed the important role of collaboration on various levels. Implementing data-driven, proactive approaches to partnerships that will positively impact enrollment management is critical for institutional viability and student success (2024, 7).

At HACC, to ensure colleagues across the college understood the concept of enrollment belonging to everyone, the first and most critical shift needed was not about tactics or technology; it was about redefining the historical lens of ownership. Historically, at most institutions, enrollment “belonged” to admissions, enrollment services, or student affairs. However, functions that are just as critical—facilities and grounds, finance, human resources, or even the latter half of the enrollment journey (completion)—are often overlooked. And while there is value in tradition, ultimately it limits growth and diffuses accountability. At HACC, this began by challenging and reframing enrollment not as a departmental function but as a network of employees that would support student success. Our approach is aligned with collaborative ownership; as E.J.Whitt argued “educationally effective colleges and universities are marked by partnerships, cross-functional collaborations, and responsive units. Effective partnerships have been demonstrated to fuel the collaborative spirit and positive attitude characterizing those campuses” (Eynon and Iuzzini 2020, 42).

In this model, enrollment starts with marketing, connects through onboarding, and extends across academic affairs, financial aid, and even workforce development. Critical to this work is understanding that enrollment is not about headcount; it is about student momentum. When students move forward from inquiry to application, application to registration, to the first day of class, and from semester to completion, that momentum translates directly into enrollment health, which ties to the college’s fiscal stability.

To make this work, college enrollment leaders needed to start with changing the guiding question. What once was, “Who is responsible for enrollment?” became, “Which part of the student enrollment journey is each department and colleague responsible for?” (see Figure 1). This shift transformed the enrollment conversation. It created shared accountability, ensuring that every colleague understands that their role at the college matters for supporting students because when enrollment belongs to everyone, so does our success.

Shifting the Culture: From Concept to Practice

Cultural change does not happen quietly or passively. It is intentional and requires repetition, visibility, and leadership endorsement. At HACC, this shift began by clearly and consistently naming the concept, then reinforcing it through action. As enrollment officers recognize, the goal of recruitment extends beyond encouraging students to enroll; it includes supporting students through credential completion. Yet, many students stop out or withdraw within the first few semesters, and this dual reality persists across higher education. This tension underscores why Enrollment belongs to everyone. Every function of the college influences a student’s decision to persist, progress, and complete—not solely the decision to begin. Enrollment does not end with admission; it ends with post-completion transfer or gainful employment. This philosophy was repeatedly communicated through visual graphics at college-wide meetings so that every employee can identify their role and responsibility in the institution’s enrollment health.

The images include several interconnected functional areas from across the college; however, shifting the culture and mindset required more than a diagram shown in college-wide presentations. It required confronting how information is accessed, interpreted, and used to drive action. Consistent with trends reported across higher education, HACC was data-rich, information-poor, and action-weak. Like many institutions, we had access to data goldmines, but lacked the structure and skills needed to use that data to inform decisions.

Most, if not all, institutions have student information systems (SIS), whether purchased (e.g., Ellucian) or homegrown. Additionally, some institutions may have software that integrates with their SIS, such as Starfish or EAB Navigate 360. The benefits from these tools, along with others such as Lightcast or Argos Enterprise Reporting, are not realized with access alone. It is critical that end users can interpret trends and act on data in a coordinated or collaborative way. At HACC, it was necessary to transform our relationship with data from one of observation to one of curiosity and activation. This is best done in a tiered teaching and learning approach that is guided by what employees need to know, how they come about knowing, and assuring they can communicate why they should know.

The work began with a shift in focus from pulling data to producing reports, and ultimately to using the data to tell meaningful stories. Making sense of numbers required the ability to interpret the data and then translate insights into action and accountability. As a result, the transformation moved HACC from an institution with disconnected metrics to one with an intentional data literacy infrastructure that moved away from anecdotes toward evidence and informed action.

The infrastructure was built on five foundational pillars:

• 
  Establish a data literacy baseline by asking employees how comfortable they
  are with interpreting trends and dashboards.
  
• 
  Create a data literacy plan that outlines competencies for employees that
  are determined by their role at the college.
  
• 
  Develop a shared understanding and common language by building a data
  dictionary that defines terms and metrics.
  
• 
  Implement standard processes and practices to engrain data into the culture.
  For example, the Office of Student Success and Enrollment Management (OSSEM) provides “Enrollment Bites” to the college (see Figure 2),
  cross-functional teams develop Data Assemblies, and the president, Dr. John
  J. “Ski” Sygielski, incorporates data and micro-quizzes into his weekly Zoom
  sessions when he discusses enrollment college-wide.
  
• 
  Maintain data vigilance. Clean data equals trusted data, and trusted data
  equals usable data.
  

The commitment to shared language, shared accountability, and shared understanding is the hidden work behind sustainable change. Everyone has a role in reading, writing, and telling their enrollment story related to student success.

To actualize results from the foundational pillars, the deployment of key strategies was needed. These strategies included:

• Repeating the message frequently and publicly across the college
• 
  Engaging the president and cabinet to model and communicate shared ownership
  
• 
  Celebrating enrollment work through retreats, videos, and institutional
  messaging
  
• Building consistent, shared college-wide enrollment communications
• Creating new dashboards and trainings to assist decision-makers
• 
  Developing a concise, compelling 30-second “elevator pitch” tailored to
  every division, such as faculty, finance, human resources, and
  administrative leaders
  
• 
  Assisting employees to identify their spheres of influence—the
  subset of the student population they are most likely to positively impact
  
• 
  Meeting with every division to connect enrollment outcomes to their daily
  work
  
• 
  Communicating with visuals and data to demonstrate how institutional
  decisions directly influence enrollment
  

Through sustained effort to shift the assumptions, beliefs, and mindset that inform and shape the college community, enrollment began to be understood not as a function of a department but as the collective responsibility of all employees, given its collective impact to the mission, sustainability, and future of the college.

The Diagnosis: Data-Rich, Information-Poor

To determine the college’s use of and capacity for data, various assessments were distributed college-wide and through individual committees. One college-wide assessment HACC completed was deployed and analyzed by Achieving the Dream (ATD) coaches. ATD is a nationwide non-profit organization that sends seasoned community college practitioners and executive coaches to work with community college leaders and their staff. Their focus is on whole-college transformation to advance student success outcomes and economic mobility. The coaches initially administered the Institutional Capacity Assessment Tool (ICAT), which helps college leaders to identify strengths and areas for improvement across seven key areas, ranked by the organization. At HACC, all employees, both faculty and staff, were asked to rate several questions, such as:

• Does the institution set performance targets for improvement?
• 
  Are qualitative data gathered to better understand students’ needs and
  motivations?
  

HACC scored lowest in data and technology, followed by policies and practices. The results revealed that employees believed the college was doing well with the basics of data use, but could improve in data insights and actions, including enrollment strategies and tactics. Additionally, within OSSEM, professionals were provided the ACPA (College Student Educators International) and NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education) Professional Competencies Rubric for Student Affairs Professionals. This tool was used by the Strategic Enrollment Planning and Management (SEPM) steering committee and student success leaders to assess their proficiency in Assessment, Evaluation, and Research (AER). Baseline data were collected to establish a foundation for improving assessment practices and data literacy to inform decision-making.

The timing of the administration and feedback from both tools was critical, as the college had several large initiatives underway, including partnerships with external organizations. These efforts led to a steady increase and unrealistic demand for data from the Institutional Research and Reporting (IRR) department. This demand made sense because, as Parnell (2021, xiv) shared, “internal and external pressure will continue to mount for college professionals to provide evidence of successful activities, programs, and services. Therefore, going forward, nearly every higher education professional will need to approach their work with a data-informed perspective.” Similarly, the college identified the need for increased data literacy and expansion of institutional capacity in data acumen to strengthen enrollment health and improve student success outcomes. These priorities became central to the various large-scale, college-wide initiatives underway. This included, but was not limited to, the skill and ability to read dashboards, interpret data to develop insights, and take data-informed actions.

While appropriate tools and systems were in place to provide data, developing actionable insights was slow. This challenge was evident across the college, including membership within the enrollment steering committee. Data literacy needed to be strengthened across the college; however, this was not a technology project involving building additional dashboards. Instead, it involved a shift in institutional practice and culture change, specifically regarding who interprets the data, how frequently it is reviewed, and what decisions or actions follow to improve enrollment.

C.A.R.E. Framework: Building Sustainable Insight Across the College

Through the college’s work to become data-rich, information-rich, and action-strong, a framework was established. The C.A.R.E. Framework for building sustainable insight included four main steps.

• 
  Culture: Enrollment belongs to
  everyone
  
• 
  Acumen: Build data literacy before
  expecting insight
  
• 
  Routines: Create protocols that make
  data use automatic
  
• 
  Execution: Transform insight into
  actions across the funnel
  

The college’s C.A.R.E. framework aligns well with Gordon and Wankel’s (2023, 28) research, which noted that data is the foundation of SEPM work, that useful, digestible data is key to enabling the iterative nature of SEPM, and most importantly, that it empowers decision-makers to quickly make course corrections as appropriate. As part of their work, they provided examples of website communication, leveraged a data-rich environment by coordinating college-wide data retreats, and enabled various campus members to share and discuss data by providing clear dashboard examples that made their metrics transparent and accessible to decision-makers. Modifying but following these steps proved transformative for HACC. Below are some examples of steps the college took to build its data literacy and confidence.

Macro to Micro Changes to Increase College-Wide Data Literacy

One of the first steps was to develop a repository for data literacy education materials. It was essential to ensure everyone had easy access to the materials needed to build capacity, so a Google site dedicated to data literacy was created. The landing page prepares visitors by sharing how data will be used to forecast trends, inform decisions, and execute plans, as well as to allocate fiscal, time, and personnel resources. Furthermore, it communicates the commitments to:

• Increase data literacy knowledge and skills.
• Foster a culture of critical thinking and continuous questioning.
• 
  Disaggregate the data to tell the story of all of our students and to assure
  equal opportunity to thrive.
  
• Share data for accountability and transparency to our stakeholders.

With a clear understanding of the “why” behind building increased data literacy capacity, the Google site continues with pages dedicated to:

• 
  Sharing, defining, and providing additional resources related to our common
  vocabulary
  
• 
  Accessing data by identifying our data systems, as well as the types of data
  they provide
  
• Developing knowledge and skills related to data storytelling
• Equipping employees with basic Excel skills

Leadership Commitment to Communicate Using Data

The college established a weekly publication titled Enrollment Bites. At first, it was distributed to those closest to SEPM, but it quickly expanded to college-wide distribution through the president’s weekly email. Then, it expanded to the president sharing and discussing enrollment-related data visualizations in his weekly college-wide Zoom meetings. Thus, there was a commitment, even from top leadership, to use data to inform practices.

Enrollment Bites was designed as a strategic just-in-time storytelling tool to enhance data literacy through clear, visual communication. It served to garner interest in data, develop shared language, and monitor a snapshot of common data over time. Moreover, it became a tool for recognizing the good work people were doing across the college, which contributed to HACC’s culture of enrollment belonging to everyone. Each week, someone was recognized by their peers as an “Enrollment Champion” for the unique role and scope of their work at the college.

A few examples of these peer-to-peer shout-outs:

• 
  We want to take a moment to thank the Talent Acquisition Team for your
  outstanding efforts in hiring 279 talented individuals from July 1, 2023, to
  June 30, 2024. Your dedication and hard work have had a tremendous impact.
  By bringing in such a diverse and skilled group of professionals, you’ve not
  only strengthened our institution but also significantly contributed to
  increasing student enrollment. Your commitment to finding the right
  candidates ensures that our students receive the highest quality education
  and support. Thank you for your invaluable contributions to our college’s
  growth and success.
  
• 
  Thank you to our Bookstore team for your dedication to supporting our
  students as they prepare for the start of classes on August 26th. Your
  efforts to ensure that all required textbooks and supplies are readily
  available have not gone unnoticed. Your commitment to excellent customer
  service, whether assisting students in finding the right materials or
  offering guidance on the best resources, helps students begin their academic
  journey fully equipped and with confidence. Thank you!
  

Each semester, Enrollment Bites intentionally gets a refreshed look and feel to keep the audience engaged. The example shown in Figure 2, from fall 2024, has a coffee shop vibe.

Identifying the Gap: Culture, Capability, and Alignment—Building Data Use and Insight Acumen

Many colleges possess systems and reports yet lack shared insights, accountability, and action. Specific strategies to strengthen people, processes, and platforms were needed so that insights could be developed and translated into action. As Kezar (2013) is quoted, “process change alters how people perform their work and becomes transformative when enough people change their practices, resulting in improved experiences for large numbers of students. Attitudinal change occurs when individuals develop a new understanding of their work and view institutional processes differently, and can take place at both the individual and organizational levels” (Achieving the Dream 2021, 58).

Filling the Gap: Implementing Change

Strategic Enrollment Planning and Management Steering Committee meetings, along with divisional leadership meetings, were redesigned to include regular, structured practice using dashboards for insight building and skill training. This work was intentionally approached as a collective learning process, reducing the perceived threat of learning new competencies, encouraging curiosity, and reinforcing shared responsibility. The same approach was extended to other college-wide or cross-functional teams, expanding its impact across the college. As a result, regular use of data and student success conversations became unavoidable and productive. These data conversations led to the recognition that critical insights were unavailable. For example, although specific barriers affecting students’ progression through the enrollment process were known, the absence of clear, aligned dashboards limited the ability to make informed, targeted changes.

Leveraging Technology

Accessible data was needed to indicate how students were progressing through the enrollment funnel. A collaboration with IRR led to the development of a tool that shifted the college’s practice, enabling data to regularly inform cross-functional efforts to improve the student experience (see Figure 3). Nussbaumer Knaflic noted that “when designing a graph of categorical data, be thoughtful about how your categories are ordered. If your categories have a natural ordering, it may make sense to leverage it” (2015, 58). Information for students moving through the enrollment funnel certainly has a natural ordering and presents an opportunity.

As a result, in spring 2022, a cross-divisional task force convened to address the critical need to gain data insights from the onboarding funnel. More than seven functional areas directly contribute to new student enrollment at HACC, from application submission to first-semester class registration. However, the chief enrollment officer did not have timely data on how many students were in the onboarding phase of the enrollment funnel and how they were progressing. The college’s enrollment leaders addressed this by envisioning a one-stop interactive tool that became the Enrollment Progression Monitoring Dashboard. This vision was then shared with the cross-functional task force for discussion and input. Following the collaborative effort to develop the dashboard with IRR, silos among the cross-functional onboarding team members were broken down. The teams were equipped with timely data and were able to have informed and honest conversations about the health of our onboarding, in order to make just-in-time tactical decisions to reach enrollment targets.

This work lent itself to Phase Two of the dashboard development, which included enhancing the dashboard to provide record-level outreach lists that inform students of the individualized and precise next steps they need to take. Through process mapping (see Figure 4), it became clear that too many units were communicating with new students and that communications caused confusion and were both redundant and lengthy. After reviewing the data and the number and length of communications, the need for change and for the breaking down of silos became evident. Current staff were reassigned to the role of Onboarding Coach, and these coaches became the only individuals, post admission letter and outside of financial aid, to directly communicate with students about their onboarding journey. They communicated next steps, replacing communications from individual units about placement, orientation, submission of transcripts, and other important onboarding requirements.

Every student now has a clear, concise pathway that shows them how to move forward, as well as an assigned coach to help guide them.

How Insights Became Action

The practical, just-in-time training conducted as part of HACC’s onboarding redesign became a model for other training programs. Additional training on how to analyze raw data, use Tableau dashboards, and create data visualizations allowed for storytelling about the barriers students were facing. The success of the onboarding redesign highlighted a key institutional shift: When faculty and staff are given access to actionable data and the skills to interpret it, enrollment outcomes become an institution-wide responsibility. As a result, multiple action plans using data to inform, were developed to improve momentum not only in onboarding but across the enrollment funnel.

From Dashboard Insights to Policy Changes: Improving Gateway Course Student Success

A cross-functional team was developed to impact student success. The team had working groups charged with defining student success, exploring data for actionable insights, and creating data literacy learning and development opportunities. The data working group initially collaborated with the math department. Armed with specific questions from the math department about developmental and first math course outcomes, the data team assisted in reviewing and analyzing newly created dashboards for the purpose of improving math gateway course completion. Their findings, summarized in Figure 5, revealed that modality seemed to be a strong predictor of success outcomes for the first developmental course students took.

Math faculty were able to add context to the data and provide historical perspective. While COVID-19 resulted in a necessary increase in distance learning, faculty support for redesigned pedagogy may not have been sufficient to assure equitable outcomes across modalities. As a result, the math faculty took the data to the Academic Council in fall 2025, which resulted in a vote to bring all developmental math courses back to campus. They also committed to decrease distance learning within college-level offerings. This is just one example of the collaborative efforts and cultural shifts that came as a result of reimagining the role all employees play in the college’s enrollment health. The workgroup moved from data to insight to action, and as a result, increased success outcomes followed.

SEPM: Improving Completion Rates

HACC’s commitment to use data to drive change continued to be championed across the enrollment funnel, from onboarding and retention to ensuring more students reached their academic goal of completion. Isserles explains, “according to the National Center for Education Statistics, among the entering 2014 cohort of first-time, full-time degree-seeking undergraduate students at public two year degree granting institutions, the one-year retention rate was 62 percent. The same cohort’s graduation rate was 25 percent, and 44 percent had not yet graduated, had not been reported as transferred, nor still enrolled at the same institution” (Isserles 2021, 38, quoting McFarland, et al. 2019). Declining enrollment and persistently low completion rates have been well documented across higher education. In response, during the academic year 2022–23, HACC revisited its approach to automatic credential awarding to reduce missed completion opportunities. Following the graduation application deadline of each term, the registrar’s office reviewed the percent-complete-report to identify students who had completed 100 percent of program credits, were registered in the current semester, and did not have a graduation application on file. Audits were checked to ensure that the students were, in fact, set to graduate, pending grades. Eligible students were notified of the degree they would be awarded, contingent upon final grades, with a deadline to change their diploma name or decline the degree. In addition to students currently enrolled, the registrar’s office also conducted summer outreach to previously enrolled students who have stopped out within the past year and only require a small number of credits to complete their program. As a result of the outreach, several students completed their degree requirements. Over the past three years, these processes resulted in an average of 5 percent of graduates being automatically awarded their credentials. This practice, based on data insights, improved student outcomes and also improved the college’s completion rates.

Conclusion

The strategies and practices framed in this article will offer SEPM professionals practical steps to move from data insight to action. Shared ownership can lead to improved student success and enrollment. As members of the academy, institutional unity serves in the best interest of both students and the communities where they reside. Institutions are strongest when collaboration replaces the typical siloed work. Enrollment belongs to everyone is a cultural shift decades in the making. At a time when many higher education professionals face uncertainty, a model grounded in shared ownership, cross-college collaboration, and evidence-based decision-making is one that institutions should thoughtfully consider. This approach provides a transferable guide to advancing student success and enrollment through collective responsibility and purposeful collaboration.