Enrollment: Full-time undergraduate students

Goal 1
Recruiting: Strengthen efforts to maintain high levels of demand for a Whitworth College degree and the Whitworth educational experience.

Actions steps include:

• Continue to strengthen and improve campus-visit program for individual visitors as well as large-group events such as Fridays at Whitworth, Fall Preview, Faculty Scholarship Competition, Act 6, high-school-counselor tours, special groups, etc.
• Support and assist faculty and coaches who have systematic recruiting efforts in place to identify talented prospective students.
• Increase emphasis on articulating and promoting Whitworth's academic quality and advancing reputation.
• Build inquiry and applicant pools through personal contact, direct mail, e-mail, web presence, integrated marketing, advertising, and promotion. Continue to identify and expand number of key high schools and college nights throughout the West, Southwest, and Pacific Northwest.
• Participate in additional NACAC and NACCAP national college fairs.
• Provide "hot prospects" and all visitors and applicants with unmatched level of personal attention, service, and follow-up.
• Target specific students based on qualities and characteristics that are consistent with institutional priorities and strategic plan.
• Continue to build relationships with individual Presbyterian churches and church and Para-church youth groups such as Young Life.
• Increase use of technology in reaching and maintaining consistent contact with prospects.

Benchmarks:

• Increase campus visits by prospective students by 5% per year.
• Establish and maintain freshman inquiry pool of 18,000 per year.
• Build freshman applicant pool from 2,000 to 2,500 by 2010.
• Expand national college fair participation to Midwest and Northeast regions.
• Implement new online admission application that is fully integrated into Datatel.
• Increase scope of SEARCH by 30%, to 75,000 prospects, including more high-school sophomores and freshmen.
• Implement more specific prospect follow-up, based on academic and career interests.

Goal 2
Student profile: Shape profile of new students according to institutional priorities, commitments and goals.

Actions steps include:

• Increase selectivity in admission decisions.
• Build on success of Act 6 and other diversity recruiting efforts.
• Develop specific recruiting materials and strategies directed toward male prospects.
• Increase recruiting presence in key states outside Washington.
• Implement recommendations of international task force to recruit and enroll additional international students.
• Plan and execute additional strategies to enroll Presbyterian students.
• Place additional emphasis on recruiting transfer students through transfer-credit-articulation agreements and promotion of increased scholarship opportunities.
• Increase recruiting outreach to high achievers through programs such as the Faculty Scholarship Competition and by placing more emphasis on promoting Whitworth's ability to provide research opportunities for students as well as its ability to prepare students for career and graduate-school placement.

Benchmarks:

• Increase average composite SAT of entering freshmen to 1200.
• Achieve and maintain a 15% ethnic-minority enrollment of entering freshman class.
• Achieve and maintain gender ratio of 55% female and 45% male in entering freshman class.
• Achieve and maintain ratio of 55% in-state and 45% out-of-state students in entering freshman class.
• Maintain current level of 25% Presbyterian students.
• Achieve and maintain 40% yield on high-achieving applicants.
• Achieve 5% international students.

Goal 3
Enrollment growth: Set freshman, transfer and total-student-body enrollment targets for 2005-2010 that are consistent with the academic, financial, developmental, and educational goals of the college.

Actions steps include:

• Build financial models to gauge resource needs and revenue potential at various levels of growth.
• Establish enrollment goals to achieve moderate and strategic growth.
• Establish future classroom, residence-hall, dining and overall campus facility enhancements to keep up with growth.
• Develop and implement specific strategies to achieve a higher level of residential students.
• Develop and implement strategies to achieve optimum size through moderate growth without sacrificing personal attention, student-to-faculty ratio, or Whitworth's intimate campus community.

Benchmarks:

• Enhance revenue by increasing tuition rate in relation to higher academic profile of incoming students.
• Establish a 5-year average annual growth rate of 2%. This will increase enrollment to approximately 2,000 full-time matriculated day students by 2010. This represents an increase of 269 students from F'03.
• Build and purchase additional housing units to house 2/3 of traditional population students by 2010.
• Establish auxiliary food service locations on campus.
• Maintain competitive student-to-faculty ratio.

Goal 4
Affordability: Continue to offer competitive financial aid and academic scholarship programs and enhance efforts to promote affordability of Whitworth.

Actions steps include:

• Implement revised academic scholarship program, with merit awards ranging from 20% to 60% of tuition per year.
• Maintain institutional discount rate consistent with institutional-budgeting priorities and national averages as reported by NACUBO.
• Place greater emphasis on promoting affordability in admissions presentations, campus-visit events, recruiting brochures, and on Whitworth's website,
• Continue to be among the first colleges each year to send freshman financial-aid awards.
• Continue to study relationship of tuition level to selectivity, affordability, and perception of quality.

Benchmarks:

• Redesign admissions and financial-aid webpages.
• Maintain high ranking by U.S. News & World Report's guide to best college values.
• Increase endowed scholarships.
• Increase by 10% number of entering freshmen who qualify for academic scholarships.
• Increase ASQ ratings by enrolling and non-enrolling students in terms of "value for the price" and availability of financial-aid.

Enrollment: Graduate Studies in Education

Goal 1
Recruiting: Strengthen efforts to maintain high level of demand for master-in-teaching degree as well as increase the number of students in other Graduate School of Education programs.

Actions steps include:

• Evaluate optimum number of MIT cohorts and overall size of the program.
• Review possibility of part-time MIT program.
• Evaluate possibility of extending placement of students outside of Spokane.
• Evaluate possibility of online/distance delivery.
• Improve marketing of GSE programs.
• Target elementary-and secondary-education projects that would be influenced by new state professional-certificate requirements.
• Target special-education programs for development in anticipation of statewide shortage of special-ed teachers.
• Continue development of reading, counseling, ESL, and distance-education options.
• Market professional-certificate program in response to pent up demand.
• Evaluate faculty needs and administrative space required for development of above-mentioned programs.

Benchmarks:

• Maintenance of current number of MIT students unless evaluation reveals need and conditions acceptable for growth
• 10% growth in overall number of students in GSE programs

Goal 2
New program development: The School of Education will explore the possibility of offering a doctorate in education.

Actions steps include:

• Evaluation of market and costs-benefits analysis of this degree possibility
• Ongoing evaluation of distance-learning possibilities

Enrollment: Master of International Management

Goal 1
Recruiting: The School of Global Commerce will evaluate emerging market needs for determination of appropriate degrees, curriculum development, program and partnership expansion, and strategic recruitment of students to improve the overall enrollment in the Master of International Management Program.

Actions steps include:

• Evaluate optimal size and complexity of program to provide students with the global-management skills necessary to career growth and professional success.
• Establish the MIM Program as a primary internal resource to provide synergy for the internationalization efforts of the campus and within the Spokane business community.
• Develop potential for distance learning through internal and external alliances in order to provide greater flexibility for international and military-or career-deployed students.
• Promote professional-certificate and certificate-testing preparation (HPI, GPHR, CGBP) as an optional add-on to the MIM degree.
• Strengthen academic reputation through increased research collaboration, faculty and student exchange, and ongoing discernment of student and instructor selection.
• Encourage greater business-community involvement through mentorship, internship and project supervision, guest lectures, and financial endowment.
• Target and foster relationships with strategic Christian pipelines nationally and internationally.

Benchmarks:

• Establishment of a framework for measuring and reporting MIM's overall contribution and performance against economic, social and academic parameters. This may involve feedback from a range of stakeholders including the SGCM advisory board and college trustees.
• Creation of articulation and alliance agreements for academic exchange with two to three new institutions from strategically chosen regions in the world.
• Establishment of partnerships with area graduate programs that will foster enrollment growth, as well as enhance curriculum expansion and diversification.
• Achievement of a 5% increase per year in enrollment (if the degree is revised significantly or new programs brought on line, the benchmark would be revised upward).

Goal 2
New-program development:

Actions steps include:

• Explore possibilities of creating MIM specialization tracks and new degrees (IMBA, international MBA) to maximize appeal to prospective students and to optimize on- and off-campus resources including regional and international academic and business partnerships.
• Offer certificate programs, or certificate test-preparation programs, for HR management, global trade, and human performance improvement. These open-to-the-public programs may result in attracting more local students to MIM.

Enrollment: Continuing Studies

Goal 1
Enrollment growth will continue to be responsive to market demand.

Actions steps include:

• Examine staffing and resource needs within the context of the Continuing Studies actual dollar revenue growth and contribution, and in light of what is needed to maintain the current competitive edge in student service. Assess rate of growth in Continuing Studies relative to the college's commitment of resources to fund growth, currently anticipated at 10-20% growth each year;
• Within 18 months, provide staff and resources for development of off-campus location of Continuing Studies program(s).
• Develop an off-campus regional location outside of Spokane County within the next five years.

Benchmarks:

• Grow the overall enrollment by approximately 10% each year.
• Establish a new site within greater Spokane.