Goals and Measurable Outcomes

—From the desk of Brier Albano, Associate Vice-President, Student Success

Last week, I shared how Selkirk College is framing strategic enrolment management (SEM) to ensure that we consider our institution's sustainability and how we can grow from sustainable to be our best and most vibrant. This week, we move from the questions we ask, the conversations we have and the information we review to what we plan to do over the next five years and how we will measure that.

While our framework sets definitions, our Strategic Enrolment Management Plan 2025–2030 is a short-term (five-year) achievement document that positions Selkirk College where we would like to be.  

 One of the things you may notice is that 20% domestic full-time enrolment (FTE) growth sure isn’t the 10 to 15% we were proposing last winter, when I toured each campus and provided online sessions to hear what types of things you wanted to see in a SEM plan. The feedback was very clear: we didn’t want to stick with best practices. We wanted to be more aggressive with our enrolment goal setting to ensure that Selkirk College can inspire and educate to the best of our abilities. Moving to 20% is our response.  

You’ll also notice that our goal is domestic-student focused. While I wish the conversations on international were simply conversations about markets and recruitment, unfortunately, the limits are far broader and beyond our control—despite impressive industry advocacy.  

Selkirk College was very successful this fall in recruiting international applicants compared to many of the other western Canadian rural institutions—some of which are seeing as few as nine new students this month. Many of the students we successfully recruited as applicants this year have been turned away by IRCC as the limits to approve visas become more restrictive and fast –changing, with little notification or knowledge. Building our domestic capacity over the next five years will help us regroup and implement more sustainable international strategies that can guide our success in later SEM plans and planning. It also helps us to collect data that will aid us in setting good goals for our college and region. 

The other element you’ll notice in this plan is the focus on support. Making sure that there was strong and focused accountability for SEM leaders (me!) to provide plans for good data, support, training and guidance toward the goal is a priority. This is not a shelf plan, nor is it a plan that we are already well on the way to achieving—it’s a plan that needs support, action and attention to work.  

With the plan supported in the right way, all employees who have been working hard on enrolment for their program, department or area should feel relief as they paddle with stronger paddles and a collective purpose toward the SEM goals, and our strategic plan as a whole. By measuring support, it will make the easy things easy, so the hard things can be dealt with thoughtfully and with purpose.  

Coming up in the October 7 newsletter, I’ll fill you in on the Strategic Enrolment Management Response Team, which you’ll see mentioned in the plan.  

If you have any questions in the meantime, please send me an email or a Teams message. I really enjoyed all the messages I got from people reaching out from last week’s post!  

Check out the Strategic Enrolment Management Plan 2025–2030!