As we prepare for our first meeting together again since the start of the Pandemic, we face daunting enrollment challenges. Research on the impacts of COVID-19 on higher education worldwide has just begun to produce some initial insights into the level of disruption and the level of opportunity those impacts created. It has been in some ways an accelerant on forces pressing on higher education for some years. Online teaching took a leap forward from interesting and supportive to essential and mainstream. Community college enrollments, which had been gradually sliding since 2011, took a sharp downward turn in a year. 

This special edition of SEM Quarterly pulls from the past year’s articles to present conference participants a wide array of topics and issues. Many, if not all, of these will be covered in plenaries, workshops, and sessions. As you turn your attention from matters on campus to this opportunity to learn and reflect on the trends, opportunities, and challenges in enrollment, we hope that these articles will be an accelerant for you, as well, and that you will find yourself starting SEM 2021 with some background and frames of reference for this experience. 

It would be impossible to present this special issue of SEMQ without the talents and hard work of Managing Editor Heather Zimar. Many thanks, Heather, for your insights and dedication. Thanks, too, to our many authors whose research and writing skills you will witness in reading their works. See you in Miami!

Tom Green, Ph.D.

Editor-in-Chief  

Research:

Delineating a Practitioner-Defined Research Agenda for Enrollment Management by John M. Braxton, Don Hossler, and Alexandra Wendt

International:

Exploring the Relationship between International and Racial Minority Enrollment in M.B.A. programs at Public Universities in the United States by Olga Komissarova

Recruitment:

Partnering with Faculty to Recruit Undergraduate Students: Successful Tactics for Collaboration by Lee Furbeck 

Retention:

Influencing the Mindset of High-Risk Students Early in the College Experience by Lisa Kasper, Diane Walleser and Kristin Waters

Community College:

Managing Enrollment during the “Unprecedented” by Tara Sprehe

Leadership:

SEM As a Connector:  Building Relationships in a New Normal by Stanley E. Henderson and Kevin Pollock

Data:

The Coming of Age of Data Analytics in Higher Education by Reid Kisling, Andrew Peterson and Robert Nisbet          

Graduate:

The Relationship between Institutional Budget Models and Graduate Strategic Enrollment Management Structures by Joseph H. Paris, Matthew Brinbaum, and Nicholas Dix