Recruitment, Retention & Student Success

This pre-conference session is available to SEMM alignment package attendees only.

• Wondering what SEM is or need a quick refresher?
• Not sure how SEM is relevant to your role?
• Wishing you could have a bigger impact on student success?

If you’re at all like us, you REALLY want to see the right students enroling at your school, enjoying a fantastic educational experience, and transitioning into a fulfilling career.

SEM-thinking can make this happen – but only if everyone who works with students (behind the scenes or on the front line) gets involved.

In this pre-conference workshop exclusive to SEMM Alignment Package attendees, you’ll gain a better understanding of what Strategic Enrolment Management is all about – and why everyone has a role to play.

We’ll get you oriented with a simple explanation of SEM and outline why it’s so important for everyone in your institution to understand how their role fits in the SEM puzzle.

You’ll also learn about the benefits of a SEM mindset as well as some of the potential challenges institutions may face as they try to become more strategic in their attraction, recruitment, and retention of students.

Responsibility for SEM does not belong to any individual or team – it belongs to everyone who cares about students. Join us for this SEM overview and become better equipped to get the most out of your Virtual SEMM Conference experience!

Students who have struggled in the school system may have university as a desired goal, but face extra steps before being able to apply, such as repeating high school credits. The Enriched Support Program at Carleton University has built a recruiting and retention strategy by giving those students a chance to 'Start Now'. Our alternate admissions process gives students supported access to first year studies, full membership in the university, and the ability to start earning university credits right away.

Through presentation and interactive discussion, we invite you to think creatively about how to appeal to under-served students and groups, think collaboratively about the possibilities within your institutional environment, and to celebrate and place value on alternate admissions pathways.

If your institution has an alternate admissions pathway or you want to create one, this session is for you.

Learning Outcomes

• Think creatively about how to appeal to under-served students and groups in post-secondary education.
• Think collaboratively about the possibilities within your institutional environment.
• Celebrate and place value on alternate admissions pathways to university.

Understanding the factors that influence student retention is a critical element of providing a high-quality student experience. Machine Learning (ML) techniques give a new means of analyzing this long-standing area of interest.

In this session, we will explore the process of developing a predictive model to identify students at risk of not being retained. We will review the origins of the project, the progress that we have made, and the directions of future work. We will also discuss how the Microsoft Fabric environment provides a single platform for unified data management, constructing ML models, and reporting insights in Power BI.

Learning Outcomes

• How insights acquired from ML models can be used to enhance the student experience.
• Understand student retention better and use this information to improve student experience.
• Gain knowledge about creating ML models to identify at-risk students.
• Learning about the Microsoft Fabric platform where data can be stored, ML models can be built, and results can be visualized in Power BI.

The landscape of student recruitment is evolving rapidly, requiring post-secondary institutions to continuously refine their strategies to stay ahead. This interactive session brings together recruitment professionals to share recent initiatives that have yielded strong results and discuss outdated practices they have chosen to leave behind. Through open dialogue, participants will gain insight into innovative approaches that enhance engagement, streamline processes, and improve enrollment outcomes.

By exchanging real-world experiences, attendees will explore the challenges and opportunities that come with adapting recruitment strategies. The session will highlight emerging trends, data-driven decision-making, and creative outreach efforts that resonate with today’s prospective students. Whether you're looking for fresh ideas or ready to retire ineffective tactics, this discussion will provide actionable takeaways to help shape the future of your recruitment efforts.

Learning Outcomes:

• Identify successful recruitment initiatives that have improved engagement and enrollment.
• Recognize outdated strategies that no longer serve their purpose and understand why they are being phased out.
• Gain practical insights and innovative ideas to implement in your own recruitment strategy.

Discussion Topics:

• What’s one new recruitment initiative your team has tried recently, and what measurable impact has it had?
• What’s a long-standing recruitment practice you’ve decided to let go of, and why?
• How are you balancing the need for innovation with the realities of limited budgets and resources?
• What surprising-insights have you gained from student feedback on your recent recruitment efforts?
• If you had unlimited resources, what’s the first big change you would make to your recruitment strategy?

This engaging panel discussion, hosted by Dr. Golnaz Golnaraghi, Founder of Accelerate Her Future, includes students and recent graduates who will share their honest insights into their post-secondary journeys. The panelists will discuss what motivated them to pursue higher education, the factors that influenced their choice of institution, and their experiences navigating academic and social supports. They will explore how their expectations aligned with reality and how they prefer to be communicated with by their school.

The conversation will also touch on the critical transition from post-secondary education to the workforce, with recent graduates sharing their reflections on the career support and guidance they received. This panel offers educators, administrators, and stakeholders a unique opportunity to hear directly from those they serve, gaining valuable insights to inform strategies for student engagement, retention, and support.

Learning Outcomes:

• Identify key factors that influence students' decisions to enroll in post-secondary institutions.
• Understand students’ communication preferences and expectations for engagement with their institution.
• Recognize the types of academic, social, and career-transition supports that students and recent graduates value most and identify potential gaps in current offerings.

Digital advertising is evolving rapidly with the emergence of new platforms and channels.

This session will explore the growing role of Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising and the unique opportunities it offers to key audiences, especially within feeder high schools.

Attendees will learn how to adapt their strategies to meet their audience where they are, capitalize on new advertising trends, and enhance content effectiveness across multiple channels.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the latest social media platforms and digital channels to effectively engage with your target audience
• Discover the potential of Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) advertising and explore opportunities within feeder high schools.
• Review best practices for creating impactful digital content and ensuring your strategies remain effective in today’s fast-changing landscape.

Students want to go to a school that understands them, and they are the first to notice when universities are out of touch on social media.

In Fall 2023, with one of the largest social accounts at McMaster University, we became the ones out of touch, almost losing the social community we worked so hard to build.

Now, after a hard reset and a newly developed social strategy, we're using our platforms to their full potential with platform-specific tactics, 80–100% student-generated content, and intentional collaboration with university partners. We've figured out how to market to students who don’t like being marketed to, all while balancing brand priorities and keeping students at the centre of our content. We’re giving students digital platforms where they want to develop connections and build a sense of belonging, which, in turn, results in stronger trust and a more engaged audience.

Attend this session to find out how we got here (and how you can, too!). We’ll share:

• How we learned from our mistakes to develop a robust social strategy
• How we rebuilt audience trust using a co-creation model for authentic storytelling
• Tactics you can use, like solutions for platform roadblocks and tools to keep your audience at the centre of the content
• Qualitative and quantitative benchmarks to measure success

Learning Outcomes

• Solutions for platform roadblocks
• Co-creation model for authentic storytelling
• Qualitative and quantitative benchmarks to measure success

Whether your institution is just starting to explore scholarship-based recruitment or looking to refine its approach, this session offers actionable insights to stay competitive in today’s enrollment landscape.

Join Haley Prentice from the SchoolFinder Group as she moderates an insightful panel featuring representatives from leading post-secondary institutions who are currently navigating the art of using scholarships as a strategic recruitment tool.

Panelists will discuss innovative approaches to designing, marketing, and leveraging scholarships to attract high-potential applicants, enhance diversity, and align with institutional goals. From merit-based awards to unique targeted scholarships, attendees will hear how these initiatives have become game-changers for enrolment management.

Panelists will share success stories, lessons learned, and data-driven strategies that attendees can consider to maximize the impact of using scholarships as a recruitment tool.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand how to align scholarship strategies with institutional goals to attract diverse and high-potential applicants.
• Learn creative ways to market scholarship opportunities effectively to prospective students.
• Gain insights into measuring the success and ROI of scholarships as a recruitment tool.

Increased challenges from IRCC changes to provincial funding models require post-secondary institutions to become more competitive than ever before — especially in our own backyards. In this increased competitive landscape, the way we engage with prospective students, their parents, and other key influencers will make all the difference.

From creating meaningful connections to addressing concerns with empathy, attendees will learn how to use sales tactics that drive interactions toward positive outcomes with greater precision.

Whether you’re navigating enrolment challenges, overcoming objections, or highlighting your institution’s value, using sales strategies will empower you to build trust and inspire confidence in every interaction.

This session will benefit those in student recruitment and other student-facing roles, exploring actionable techniques that will elevate your ability to meet prospective students and their supporters where they are, understand their needs, and authentically communicate how your institution can help them achieve their goals. Through real-world examples, role-playing (don't worry, it will be fun!), and practical insights, you’ll be equipped to turn conversations into conversions.

Learning Outcomes:

• Develop personalized communication strategies that foster genuine connections with prospective students, parents, and other influencers.
• Master objection-handling techniques to effectively address concerns and build confidence in your institution’s value proposition.
• Blend storytelling and data-driven insights to authentically showcase your school’s unique offerings and align them with the aspirations of prospective students.

This session describes how Queen’s University at Kingston transformed its academic planning and registration systems to highlight learning outcomes, enabling students to tell their own stories of personal development, growth, and academic success. Utilizing the power of learning outcomes, and mobile-first technology, Queen’s is foregrounding course-level and program-level learning outcomes to empower students to make more informed, and personally relevant, academic decisions. In doing so, our institution will enhance and streamline the registration experience to be more student-friendly and less resource-intensive - a win-win in a resource-constrained environment.

This session will appeal to those interested in the power of learning outcomes, transformative technology, student experience, and registration.

Learning Outcomes

• Appreciate the power of learning outcomes for prospective and current students, and alum
• Demonstration of how Learning Outcomes transformed Queen's thinking about Academic Calendars, and registration
• Learn about change management in a highly decentralized institution

The landscape of domestic student recruitment is shifting rapidly. With rising competition and international student revenues plummeting, attracting and retaining the right domestic students has never been more critical.

Join us for an interactive session exploring what today’s students truly want from their post-secondary experience – and where institutions may be falling short.

We’ll start with the latest research on student expectations, covering key factors like career readiness, affordability, and student support. Then, through group discussions, we’ll exchange strategies, share successful initiatives, and generate fresh ideas to enhance recruitment, engagement, and retention.

Walk away with actionable insights and new perspectives to better meet the needs of today’s students – and strengthen your institution’s competitive edge.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the latest research on what today’s domestic students prioritize in their post-secondary experience.
• Recognize common areas where institutions may be falling short in meeting student expectations and explore potential improvements.
• Generate ideas to enhance student recruitment, engagement, and retention, strengthening institutional competitiveness through group discussions.

Students on campus tend to leave right after their classes, communications teams can easily find them online where we compete for a small fraction of their attention.

We can stay in touch with them that way, but what are we exactly trying to achieve? Is there a way to convert their online engagement into a real-life enriching experience to foster a sense of belonging to the institution?

This session, hosted by Nathalie Roche, will focus on sharing examples of how Université de Saint-Boniface has connected online with students in order to have an impact on their on-campus presence.

Learning Outcomes

• Examine and learn about current trends influencing and shaping student engagement behavior
• Define meaningful goals to improve on-campus engagement using social media
• Gain insights from recent initiatives at Université de Saint-Boniface that can be adapted to help improve on-campus engagement at your school.

Group advising is one strategy for managing large advising loads while fostering student development, taking a proactive and community-based learning approach to supporting student success and improving retention. Leaning on UTM’s recent experiences offering a number of group advising initiatives, as well as insights inspired by theory and advising best practices, this webinar will offer principles and considerations for how group advising can help us address many student needs and meet resource shortage challenges in the challenging institutional context of a large research university.

Learning Outcomes

• Learn about recent ongoing and ad-hoc group advising initiatives at UTM, including challenges we faced, solutions we came up with, our notable successes, statistics, and assessment results
• Explore which methodology and theoretical approaches may work best in various institutional settings
• Consider and discuss important and potentially contentious questions of employing student leaders / mentors to support student advising and applying FIPPA guidelines in group advising situations

Okanagan College has rapidly increased female enrollment in trades and overall college and departmental collaboration on SEM and equity initiatives through a focus on partnerships in hands-on outreach and exploratory activities for youth in the past 3 years.

With leadership support for priority seats for females in Trades Sampler and all Foundation and Apprenticeship intakes, along with engagement with organizations such as the Canadian Home Builders Association and the Canadian Association of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology, the college has been able to take action toward Transformative Inclusion, whereby supporting female participation and success in trades is now part of our institutional culture.

This has supported OC to be one of two institutions in BC with significant increases in trades training funding in recent years, successful proposals to the Canadian Apprenticeship Strategy and some of the highest female enrollment in the province and in the country. It has also led to significant opportunities with industry partners, increased PAC membership, an academic research publication with SEM Quarterly, deeper connections across college portfolios and campuses, best practices for domestic recruitment, and increased instructor and department chair participation in trades awareness and recruitment, exponentially increasing our capacity and outreach and leading to ongoing positive media coverage of our programs and expanding our reputation as a welcoming institution and for trades awareness in the community.

Learning Outcomes

• Best practices for female participation and retention in trades
• How to bring your department on board for SEM and EDI action
• How to build on your partnerships to support youth engagement

In this session, we will explore how a four-person hybrid admissions and registration unit for specialized programs transformed from a highly siloed, overlooked unit to a resilient, cross-trained, and future-proofed team. By sharing the challenges, strategies, and outcomes of this reorganization, participants will gain actionable insights into centralizing knowledge, streamlining workflows, and fostering collaboration to improve both operational stability and stakeholder satisfaction.

Key topics will include:

• Identifying and addressing risks in siloed workflows
• Transitioning from program-specific portfolios to a fully cross-trained team
• Leveraging staff turnover as an opportunity for positive change
• Building robust process documentation to enhance efficiency and student experience
• Strengthening collaboration and communication with academic units. Participants will leave with practical examples to modernize operations, improve team morale, and future-proof their own business units for long-term success

Learning Outcomes

• Identify key indicators of inefficiencies in siloed workflows and their impact on student and academic experiences
• Understand the steps involved in transitioning a business unit to a cross-trained, collaborative model
• Learn strategies for auditing and documenting business processes to improve operations and stakeholder relationships

In this interactive session hosted by Lucy Romao Vandepol, Director of Student and Career Development at Durham College and Mental Fitness and Empowerment Coach at Shifting Perspectives Coaching, you will identify what is hindering your well-being, productivity, relationships, and, ultimately, the student experience.

We will explore how our internal narratives can hold us back and lead to stress, exhaustion, and burnout, ultimately affecting our self-esteem, quality of life, and the student experience. You’ll gain practical, actionable strategies to help you and your students thrive.

This session will provide valuable insight into what obstructs your path and offer clear steps to help you and your impact on the student experience be EPIC!

Join us on this empowering journey toward student success!

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the core concepts of Positive Intelligence
• Recognize how internal narratives contribute to stress, exhaustion, and burnout
• Identify how mindset and internal narratives impact student success
• Discover actionable strategies that will help you and your students thrive

Although strategic enrollment management approaches advocate for integrated approaches to issues of recruitment and retention, oftentimes, the siloing of these efforts can seem inevitable in day-to-day practices due to heavy workloads in one's respective area, poor inter-departmental communication, focus on different mandates and objectives, and more.

Despite these challenges, recruitment professionals can play an integral role in supporting student retention and, more specifically, first-year student persistence by infusing a retention focus in its recruitment efforts.

By facilitating recruitment events with a retention orientation, recruitment professionals can help thwart first-year student attrition, while also ensuring their recruitment efforts go the distance in supporting students long after they have actually been recruited.

This session will look at one such approach and the positive results associated with it. Join to talk through this case study and think through ways retention can be better supported through recruitment event programming.

Learning Outcomes

• Better understand reasons behind first-year student attrition.
• Learn about programming that can help to support first-year student retention.
• See the potential impact of retention-informed recruitment event programming.

There are many ways of conceptualizing and practicing leadership, including designations of leadership through hierarchical rank, positional entitlement, and collectivist approaches.

Collectivist approaches to leadership, which prioritize self-awareness, relationships, and community can often be relied on during turbulent times to offer a sense of stability, trust, and connectedness. They create space for creativity, perspective, and the unique gifts each person may bring into the organization. A key starting point to being able to lead collectively is knowing where and how you and others can contribute, which requires self-understanding as well as awareness of your impact on the people, practices, and processes around you. This session will provide participants with a model for collectivist leadership on initiatives related to Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) in post-secondary spaces. It will offer some guiding principles and template for how to bring your organization on board as you work to develop and implement IDEA strategies. We will spend time considering the relationship between this work and marketing, communications, recruitment, and student success and retention.

Learning Outcomes

• Engage in self-reflection about their personal position and strengths Identify how their positionality and perspective might influence their approach to leadership.
• Examine how positionality and perspective might influence what and how a person might notice within their organization, particularly during turbulent change.
• Consider how they can create processes with space for multiple voices or perspectives to be heard within their own organization.