TURNED UPSIDE DOWN College Admission in the Time of COVID-19 By Cindy Dashnaw From the sidewalk, Kristi Lafree glanced up at the branches of the dogwood trees creating a canopy over her head. It was March 13, 2020, and she realized the trees would soon be blooming with the bright-pink flowers that help make the Butler University campus so photogenic. She made a mental note to get pictures for some enrollment marketing materials she was working on. She didn’t know the United States would declare a national emergency due to COVID-19 that day, and those dogwood trees would be dropping their reddish-purple fall leaves before she saw them again.
Evan Krauss ’16 and Blue IV film a virtual Open House session.
“Everything we did in the Office of Admission was turned upside down,” says Lafree, Director of Enrollment Marketing. “It’s been a whirlwind.” From full steam ahead to full stop Lafree and the Butler enrollment staff were in full recruitment mode that day. Student-led tours and family visits were scheduled. Admission counselors were visiting college fairs and high schools across the country. Even the very first visit for new University mascot Butler Blue IV (“Blue”) and new handler Evan Krauss ’16 to surprise a student with their official offer of admission was in the works. Suddenly, none of those things could happen. And the future of hundreds of high school seniors—the prime audience for all these efforts—had just become extraordinarily uncertain. “Every student we were working with had been impacted. They needed answers, and we got the phone calls,” says Lori Greene, Vice President for Enrollment Management. “There were concerns about advanced placement tests. There were concerns about final grades on transcripts. How would all these issues affect their college admission?” Now-Director of Admission Jerome “Jerry” Dueweke says the staff was “moving at light speed” to keep up. “No one had a script. It was all hands on deck.”
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Blake Hall of Indianapolis receiving a socially distanced admission packet from Blue. Top priority: Ease the pain Despite the pace, Butler’s enrollment team made a key decision early on: to act with empathy. “The stress on high school seniors is unbelievable. We’ve done everything we can to alleviate that,” Lafree says. Greene agrees. “We communicated all along the way, ‘We understand. You’re not having a prom, you won’t get the grades you worked so hard for. We’re sorry, and we want to help.’” High school counselors were concerned about the strain on their seniors. In response, Butler’s Admission staff made themselves available to help students through the college search process, even those no longer considering Butler.
