NJC staff recognized for helping with student recruitment

***Press Release***

At Northeastern Junior College, the recruitment of new students to campus has become everyone’s responsibility. In recent years, much more emphasis has been placed on this concept. Everyone from the custodial staff to the president has a responsibility to make an effort to interact with students and parents visiting campus to try to create relationships with these individuals as part of the efforts of the admissions and recruitment department to build enrollment.

Top recruiters are chosen by members of the admissions staff who see great things happen on campus while they are touring visiting students and their families across campus. Some examples given were when Jeff Schiel, who teaches some anthropology, social services and criminal justice classes on campus. Each year he has been conducting  dog or pig dig as part of a forensic investigations class. He has invited prospective students to participate. This last spring, he just happened to be conducting an alligator autopsy during a lab on campus when a large student group was visiting. They were able to watch the current students doing this hands-on activity. He encouraged the visitors to sign up for his classes when they get to campus and be part of the cool things he does. Several visiting students indicated that not only did they want to take his class at Northeastern, but they were ready to change their major to criminal justice.

Men’s Head Basketball Coach Eddie Trenkle stopped his practice one day when some visitors were on campus. He greeted the prospective students and then let his players spend a little time visiting with them about what it is like to be in college in Sterling. A warm hand shake or brief conversation is a really important part of recruitment.

During the Fall Semester 2013 Faculty and Staff In-service held this past week on campus, the Admissions and Recruitment Office recognized a number of individuals who have shown good efforts in helping with recruitment. The work has paid off this year as all of the residence halls on campus are full and the college will see a slight increase in enrollment going into fall semester. While the final numbers are not yet in, it is expected that Northeastern will see somewhere between a one and three percent increase this fall over last fall. Many of the other two year colleges in Colorado are seeing as much as a double digit percentage decrease in enrollment this fall compared to last.  NJC had the best increase in summer enrollment of all colleges in the Colorado Community College State System when it saw a six percent increase over the enrollment of summer 2012. This can be attributed largely to the very successful Summer Bridge Program that was implemented this year.

New freshmen move onto campus on Saturday, August 17^th, returning sophomores arrive on Sunday, August 18^th. Classes begin Tuesday, August 20^th.