Saint Mary's Newsroom / Campus Notes

Recruiting plans

Plans and activities are underway at Saint Mary’s University for the next recruiting cycle. The Undergraduate College Admission Office has initiated a major shift to a new and improved partner to help target, craft, and deliver compelling messaging to prospective students, from the time we learn of a student through when they decide to enroll. Liaison International is in the process of collecting survey information from prospective students. As Liaison develops communications specific to our programs to customize messaging to prospective students, department chairs and faculty will be called on to help provide more information. The Undergraduate College Admission Office will coordinate meetings with each department to facilitate this effort. Additional work is underway to improve our transfer student intake process to be more efficient and attractive to prospective transfer students, and this work will continue through the year. New programs in nursing and social work will also bolster next year’s new student class.

The Graduate and Bachelor’s Completion Admission Office and the Marketing and Communication Department are meeting with each school at SGPP to help establish enrollment goals and to develop strategies and activities to meet those goals, including extended and targeted advertising and improved prospecting for adult undergraduate and graduate students. New mail and email campaigns have been initiated, and those programs have helped increase the number of inquiries into SGPP programs. SGPP has also made significant efforts to offer certificate and badge programs to encourage adult students to get started with their continuing education goals.

“As we implement and further develop our plans for the upcoming recruiting cycle, we feel well positioned for future semesters, and look forward to working with the entire university community to bolster enrollment,” said Tim Albers, vice president for enrollment management.

Enrollment update

Official enrollment at Saint Mary’s is lower this fall, after a second straight year of significant negative impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Total enrollment at the College is 975 students (936 full time), compared to 1,020 (994 full time) last fall. There is no increase in the freshman class, and a small increase in new transfer students. Enrollment at the SGPP is 3,671 students compared to 4,049 last fall.

Retention for students at the undergraduate level improved this year, from 79% to 80%. Final retention for graduate programs looks promising, but is not final.

“While this year has been difficult across the country for almost all colleges and universities, Saint Mary’s has held its own compared to our sister universities in the Minnesota Private College Council (MPCC),” said Albers. “Transfer enrollment was down across the MPCC, while we saw a bit of an increase, and our retention rates stayed steady, while they dropped at most other institutions.”

Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota ranked No. 3 in the “Best Value” category among all Regional Universities in the Midwest — and No. 1 among all Minnesota universities in this category — according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2022 ratings.

Prospective students and undergraduate parents often look at key rankings when deciding on a school to attend, which is why it’s important to promote and celebrate rankings when they showcase our university. While the Marketing and Communication Department shares rankings on our website, in marketing materials (including a new billboard campaign), on social media, and with regional media, you can also play a role in helping share our new No. 1 value ranking.

According to criteria, the best value calculation takes into account the school’s academic quality and the net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid. According to U.S. News, “The higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal.”

Based on a recent brand survey from Modern Climate, the organization Saint Mary’s is working with on our brand refresh, prospective students are looking for schools that provide the best value — cost and quality are top priorities. The survey identified the top three characteristics prospective undergraduate students are seeking when selecting a college are:

1. Affordability
2. Academic excellence
3. Safety

The university was also ranked No. 34 in the Best Regional Universities of the Midwest category. The ranking positions Saint Mary’s in the top 20% of the 157 schools listed in this category and as third among all Minnesota universities in this category.

According to the institutional data, in 2019, Saint Mary’s first-year undergraduate class of 301 included more than 85% of students coming from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois, which shows a large portion of our undergraduate student population comes from the Midwest region.

Saint Mary’s is proud of these results, and we encourage you to share this exciting news with colleagues, partners, and most importantly prospective students. Let’s utilize this message in as many opportunities as we can.

The Marketing and Communication team is making great strides on our brand refresh and web redesign project thanks to the wonderful support and ongoing feedback from many individuals across Saint Mary’s community.

We started working with an external partner this summer on the brand refresh and a total web redesign, including a new content management system. These two key initiatives will help advance Saint Mary’s strategic priorities with a focus on building reputation and revenue.

Here’s what’s happened since June:

• Current website audit and competitive analysis
• Initial sitemap created to guide the website redesign, informed by Google Analytics (user demographics, most visited pages, time spent, etc.)
• Quantitative and qualitative research on brand perceptions and the website (focus groups and surveys including current undergraduate and SGPP students; prospective students; alumni; faculty; and staff
• To support this critical work, the MarComm team has recently onboarded three new staff members:
  • Dan Berdal, director of web services
  • Rachel Bjerstedt, director of digital marketing
  • Diane Riggs, marketing account manager
• Meetings with faculty and staff across all three campuses to help ensure technical requirements are met and many voices are considered when developing student journeys and a website structure that will support them.
• Met with our compliance team for insight on compliance issues as we move toward engaging more users across the university in managing content and strive for a more streamlined approach to website updates.
• Research analysis based on focus groups and surveys completed in September.

Key next steps include:

• Brand foundation work including messaging and tone, design, and brand standards.
• Persona development and customer journey mapping to aid in website navigation and structure.
• Brand refresh proposal shared with the president and cabinet.
• Initial website technical requirements will be shared with Modern Climate, our brand and website redesign partner, but the discussion about requirements, structure, and content will be ongoing.

Project timing

We hope to have an approved set of brand standards, graphic style guide, and templates in winter 2022, and the new website by summer 2022. We will plan a brand rollout with education and engagement opportunities so the entire community has an opportunity to ask questions, get resources, and understand the refreshed brand and overview of the website. We will continue to send out regular updates that reflect our most current launch estimate.

As always, we appreciate all the thoughtful questions, feedback, and support from the community on these projects. Lots more to come! Please let us know if you have any questions.

Welcome to a reenvisioned Cardinal Update, which will continue to be sent to faculty, staff, and university trustees every other Tuesday.

With our new internal communication, Saint Mary’s Today, which includes day-to-day updates, news, and events, we are focusing the Cardinal Update content on high-profile, high-level news, important updates, stories about key events, and notable accomplishments. It will include fewer articles but more strategic news and will be written by Marketing and Communication staff.

Suggestions for articles, which can be prewritten by the submitter or written by Marketing and Communication staff, can be sent to smumn.edu/cardinalupdateform.

Because we have both vaccinated and unvaccinated students on our Winona Campus, Saint Mary’s will conduct weekly surveillance testing of at least 10% of the student body there each week through December 2021. The testing will commence on Friday, Sept. 17, and be conducted by the Wellness Center. Participation in surveillance testing is mandatory for all students. Failure to submit to surveillance testing may result in fines, quarantine, or loss of university housing.

A student is exempt from surveillance testing if:

• The student provides documentation of a positive COVID-19 test within the past 90 days and/or
• The student is fully vaccinated.

The College student handbook provides that residential students are required to comply with health and safety laws, orders, ordinances, regulations, and health and safety guidance adopted by the university as it relates to public health crises, including COVID-19. This guidance will evolve as the public health crisis evolves and may include, but is not limited to, social distancing, limitations on mass gatherings, wearing a face covering, COVID-19 diagnostic and surveillance testing (including before or upon arrival to campus), contact tracing, disinfection protocols, limitations on guests into residence halls, and quarantine/isolation requirements (including before or upon arrival to campus).

This requirement for testing is not new. We conducted mandatory weekly surveillance testing of 10% of the student body all last semester.

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is Wednesday, Sept. 15. This most solemn religious fast of the Jewish year is also the last of 10 days of penitence that began on Rosh Hashanah, most commonly referred to as the Jewish New Year, last week. As our brothers and sisters of the Jewish faith conclude this time of atonement, fasting, and prayer, we join them in prayer and reflection — as we work together to build a better world.

Leon Dixon
Vice President for Inclusion and Human Dignity