New student enrollment at Oklahoma City University grew significantly this year, having a 12% increase compared to last year’s numbers, produced by the new curriculum, online courses, and hybrid recruitment methods.
“This year, new student enrollment was up, and total enrollment was even,” said Vice President of Enrollment Management Kevin Windholz. “That puts us in a prime position. If everything is done correctly for next year, [it’s expected] not only new student enrollment to go up again but the total enrollment to go up. It was the best year we’ve had in three years.”
This year, approximately 800 new students enrolled, which included about 300 freshmen undergrads, 320 graduates, and 180 transfer students.
“To recover some of those enrollments, [it has] required some program reinvention,” said Windholz. “There’s a greater demand for online enrollment [and] multiple tracks of degrees like a Master of Business administration instead of a general one.”
The School of Theatre, experiencing the highest increase in student enrollment this year, added an Acting For The Screen major to run alongside their stage acting program.
“That allowed them to have more acting students and generated interest.” said Windholz, “Increases in new students were across the board and were not confined to theatre.”
The Masters in Computer Science experienced a large jump in their enrollment numbers, with previous years averaging 10 to 15 people compared to this year’s 90 students.
“That had a huge following and attraction from India,” said Windholz, “and it was not only students that were coming in brand new with their visas. There were also Indian students that were studying at other universities that heard about the program and transferred.”
Another department experiencing some significant strides is the OCU Kramer School of Nursing. Both the Bachelor of Science in Nursing and the Master of Science in Nursing now have identical, completely online courses, opening more opportunities for students in the workforce or off campus.
“That was a nice surprise, how the two new online enrollment programs in nursing came about,” said Windholz. “We actually saw a slight increase in new students in our on-ground BSN students.”
As well as the added online courses, OCU’s recruitment methods have become more accessible, with a combination of in-person and online enrollment. During the pandemic, online enrollment and auditions were helpful tools for students who were unable to travel to different schools due to Covid-19.
“The best example I can give is the Stars 101 sessions,” said Windholz. “The ones before the pandemic were 100% in-person, and then we got into 2020 and 2021, they had to be 100% virtual. In 2022, we did three in-person and one online, and I would look for us to continue that pattern moving forward.”
Enrollment management hopes to continue the hybridization of enrollment through other forms of recruitment as well, moving into the future.
“The in-person will never go away because there’s something very rich about the experience that you often can’t replace virtually,” said Windholz. “But there will always still be these side recruitment events on Zoom.”
Despite the success this year with high enrollment, OCU is continuing to look for ways to continue this steady stream of growth, working to think out of the box to adapt to changing views on college education today.
“I’ve been doing this for 22 years,” said Windholz. “22 years ago, people were more focused on the college experience. Now, people are very focused on the outcome.”
OCU has begun to explore more online options for current as well as new content to encourage growth in areas that have not seen as much growth these past couple of years.
“Every college and school here,” said Windholz, “I can honestly say… everybody has some new form of curriculum that they’re working on. I can’t think of one college that’s not looking at some new program in addition to what they already have.”
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