Dr. Kate Ross is the former Associate Vice-President Enrolment Services and Registrar at the University of British Columbia. She has an extensive background in student services and has led major initiatives to enhance the student experience, student aid and access to post-secondary education.
You’ve been a registrar for a long time. How have you seen the use of data evolve to help improve enrolment?
Well, what’s definitely changed over time is the amount and quality of data collected, and of course, the potential for that data to improve enrolment. But this comes with a caveat: enrolment is both an art and a science. Just possessing data isn’t enough – it’s how we use the data to inform our decisions and actions. There’s an art in actually interpreting the data, using experience and knowledge, to gain maximum impact.
The other aspect of successfully using data is being able to recognize when to take a new approach for changing circumstances. During the pandemic we were using patterns and information from our past enrolment experiences and we quickly realized that our predictive models needed to change as student behaviour changed. It required agility and quick decision making with the information we had often requiring intuition based on what we were seeing.
The other thing is that you can’t follow what the next person or institution is doing. Your enrolment strategy has to take into account the type of institution you are, the environment that you are in, where you’re recruiting from, and what you are trying to achieve in terms of enrolment.
Lastly, effective use of data to improve enrolment outcomes is increasingly becoming a competitive matter. For example, maybe you’re not looking at the data surrounding your incomplete applications. Understanding what is happening with incomplete applications can inform so much and being able to mine them for insight can dramatically improve your enrollment. If your competitor is doing that, it puts your school at a disadvantage.
“Partnerships are so important because if you are going to bring about any changes (policy, service, use of technology, enrolment), you have to bring people with you.”
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing registrars today?
The first thing that comes to me is student affordability. It’s a really big issue right now, and can impact both recruitment and retention of students. It plays out in terms of financial aid both for domestic and international students. There are changing student expectations and we need to think about how this impacts the student population you want to enrol and retain.
The other issue is aging technology or use of technology. Service expectations changed as a result of the pandemic and many institutions have old student information systems and desperately need to replace them and create an effective ecosystem that supports the whole student lifecycle and experience. That kind of change is a very daunting task and a major investment on the part of the whole institution.
What about the biggest opportunity that registrars may not be taking advantage of?
I always think the biggest opportunity for a registrar is being seen as a strategic partner in the institution. For example, if you want or need to improve the use of technology to better serve the institution, then you want to be part of related decision-making processes by partnering with IT and building collaborative and productive relationships. If you are working on enrolment, you want to have strong partnerships with the faculties and related services such as housing.
And, you also want to have strong partnerships with other institutions or organizations and be seen as a leader who supports change within enrolment services and within the institution. I think that is the biggest opportunity. I always focused on trying to improve things through partnering with others and in service to the institution.
Partnerships are so important because if you are going to bring about any changes (policy, service, use of technology, enrolment), you have to bring people with you. And the other major partnership, of course, is with the students. You can change so much when you really know what is meaningful for them, and what kind of policies or processes they find most cumbersome or challenging, then get the institution behind an effort to address and make changes there. Driving that change can have some significant downstream effects when it comes to helping them achieve their academic goals.
“I really encourage everyone to be strategic about access and digging into how you can diversify your student population.”
From your POV, what’s the biggest hurdle that students are facing today?
I think the biggest hurdle, and it’s everywhere right now, is affordability and particularly housing. I’ve just been on two significant trips to three countries and housing is an issue everywhere.
It feels like it became exacerbated by the pandemic and now we can’t react fast enough to address the issues related to it and its impact on student affordability.
We need to be able to step back and figure out really what is going on and how we, as institutions, can offer some kind of creative, practical solution. It’s hard to learn when you don’t have stable housing. It’s really, really hard. Some institutions have invested a lot in housing over a long period of time, but many institutions haven’t. So, how do they catch up in a quick way or come up with creative solutions?
A good example I saw from the Okanagan, which is already dealing with even bigger challenges from the fires over the summer. It was an initiative for empty nesters or retirees who have an extra bedroom to take on a student from out of province or another country, and what a gift that can be for all parties. So, it’s finding ways to entice people to collectively solve that very challenging issue.
Tell me a bit about the efforts you’ve seen to make the admissions process more equitable?
In Canada, admissions are, for the most part, still based on grades. So, to a certain extent, there seems to be a level playing field, in large part due to our very strong public secondary system that has reasonably consistent quality regardless of your socioeconomic circumstances and community.
But we still have inequality in terms of certain students: former youth in care or students who have had their education interrupted for a variety of reasons, immigrants or refugees or indigenous students, for example. There are a number of reasons why someone may not have performed to their full potential through high school. So, part of it is putting in policies that support under-represented groups of students, depending on the nature of your institution.
One of the things I worked really hard on throughout my career was to actually understand who had access and who didn’t and how to improve things for those who might have benefitted from a policy change. In those cases, we looked beyond just grades and took into consideration a whole range of aspects about their background that made them a really good student and able to benefit from a public post-secondary education.
We can create change through policy and process. Let’s examine it through the policy lens of financial aid. Research shows that socioeconomics plays into student’s options and institutional choices, right? If your parents have more resources, then you are going to have greater access to better education.
If you have merit-based aid that has a needs-based component to it, it can result in improved access for students who might not have thought your institution was even a possibility for them. Because one of the things that we know from the research is that if you come from lower income, your choices tend not to be as broad in terms of post-secondary institutions, and yet those students might have the ability. It addresses that financial aspect via scholarships that are awarded based on need and merit.
In my experience, this kind of policy shift can diversify the student population. It just naturally does it, which is really rewarding. When you meet and talk to the students, you recognize that your institution was out of reach for their families. I really encourage everyone to be strategic about access and digging into how you can diversify your student population.
Finally, do you have any advice that you would give for a registrar looking to make a positive impact within their organization?
Yes, be a leader of possibility. Look for the opportunities to improve things for students, for the programs and faculties. Lead and encourage change by partnering and examining possible solutions to difficult problems your institution is having.