FROM THE DESK OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ERIC LAMBERT

elambert@apca.com

Collaboration For Retention And Student Success

We’ve all read about the importance of collaboration for student life. The more academics and student services work together, the better the learning environment. The closer that student organizations work together, the more effective the campus life programming will be. Ultimately, the closer we as professionals work with students on developing their own potential, the better chance they have at success in their professional and personal futures.

These students come to us for a better life. They seek a better opportunity and are paying dearly for it. They want a career, they want self-sufficiency, and they look to us to give them the tools to achieve these goals. We must ask ourselves, how are we as student life professionals working with our students and academic peers to meet this need?

Come join APCA as we take student engagement, recruitment, and retention to a whole new level. Be a part of the movement to lead our students to a successful life and a fulfilling professional career. Let’s collaborate for the future of our schools, our enrollments, and our campus populations. Join the APCA family and your Student Life peers from around the country at the National Campus Activities Conference in Hershey, PA. We believe that engaged students are retained students, and we look forward to building a strong future together.

Eric Lambert

Take a minute to think about your program board's marketing strategy. First, is there one? If there isn’t, that’s a whole different article. If there is, let’s analyze it. When I talk to schools, I hear that they are using components such as flyers, campus-wide emails, digital message boards sprinkled around campus, and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. This launches a conversation about how effective each one of those components are, and many times social media is perceived to be leading the way in how boards are reaching students. My next question, “What would you do if those platforms got shut down or started charging?” typically brings crickets and a look of shock. These are both very real possibilities when you are putting eggs in a basket that you can’t control. Let’s talk about a marketing component that you would have full control over-- text messaging. This is where OnCampusText comes in.

Let’s start with some data. The #1 reason that students do not come to campus events is because they didn’t know about it. You can change that. Keep reading to find out how and why you should.

98% of US adults have a cell phone. 98% of text messages get opened. Read that again. 98%! Can you say that about your email? I know that for my personal email, I can’t say that. Let’s talk about speed. 95% of text messages are read and responded to in under 5 minutes. I feel pretty confident in saying that we have all responded to a text when we shouldn’t have, either because we were driving, or should have been paying attention to something else. There is something about being able to digest the information quickly that justifies in your mind looking at it almost instantly.