The SpringHillian Volume 107, Issue 5
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
Admissions Trying New Strategies Cassidi Sterrett | Reporter
This past week Badger Day invited 110 prospective students to Spring Hill College. Spring Hill Ambassador, Caroline Strand, shares that “Badger day is a day where high school students and their families come to Spring Hill for a day filled with different sessions to learn more about the school. Sessions include things like meeting with professors for potential majors, housing tours, parent and student panels, lunch and more.” These events help prospective students gain information of what life on the hill is like. Admissions puts on these programs every single year to get students to come to SHC. The Vice President of Enrollment, Gary Bracken, discussed in an interview a new process that
Admissions is testing out this year. He states that “The events aren’t necessarily to be bigger, but they’re more intensive in terms of getting students and families to meet with the faculty, and getting them to meet with other Spring Hill students. We are trying to establish relationships and rapport with the students to generate more yield.” The yield that Bracken discussed is the time from when a student applies to school to when they put down their deposit and begin the enrollment process. Last year, Spring Hill’s yield was sitting at about 5 percent. This is significantly lower than other universities. Bracken says “Usually the benchmark is about 25 percent yield. Our yield was 5 percent, so far less than it should have been by national benchmark and far
Spring Hill staff at check-in. | Photo: Cassidi Sterrett
lower than any other Jesuit college.” This entire year the Admissions department has been working on getting the yield back up a little higher. Along with having fewer events, Bracken shares another goal of the Admissions department, saying “We cut back on a number of applications we are trying to get. Last year we had 6,820 applications. This year we have 5,260, and
that is by design because when you are trying to get students to come to college you are selling something intangible. We are selling something that people can’t see, touch, or feel. So we have to tell them about the benefits and features of an institution.” Although the Admissions department is decreasing the number of applications they are getting, they are hoping to
find the right students to attend SHC. Bracken explains “Something happens here with an education and that is what we are trying to show, by not doing a volume of things and getting a volume of students, but the right students to come here and treating them the right way when they’re going through the application process.”
SHC’s Greeks Gear Up for Spring Recruitment Jordan Parker | Reporter
This spring many of Spring Hill College students will be going through recruitment in hopes of joining a fraternity or sorority on Spring Hill College’s campus. Spring Hill College is home to eight greek organizations. There are four Interfraternity Council fraternities, including Delta Chi, Lambda Chi Alpha, Sigma Chi and Tau Kappa Epsilon; and there are four Panhellenic sororities, including Delta Delta Delta, Delta Gamma, Phi Mu and Sigma Kappa. Every year there has been a decline in freshmen who are going through the recruitment process. Vice President of Student Affairs, Kevin Abel, said: “I do believe that the size of the incoming class does have an impact
on interest and the number of students interested in recruitment.” Due to this decreasing number of freshman, campus programming teams, including Panhellenic and the Interfraternity Council (IFC) have been working to encourage students
to get more involved on campus. This was the first year that the two came together to help introduce potential new members to the Greek community by hosting a Meet the Greeks event this past September. Caroline Cusick, Panhellenic President, said:
Panhellenic ladies at Greek Week. | Photo: Jordan Parker
“We had Meet the Greeks this semester and we’re just trying to make some programming to show what greek life at Spring Hill is like as well as get people interested and involved.” Cusick also mentioned how Panhellenic has been trying to be more commuter-friendly, saying: “We’ve been trying to have the interest meetings at different times of the day and on different days of the week, because we know that we have been getting a bigger commuter class each year… because it can be harder when you’re not on campus, but commuters can definitely still rush and have meaningful memberships in greek organizations.” While you are not required to attend an interest meeting, the deadline to sign up for
formal Panhellenic spring recruitment is Dec. 8 at 11:59 p.m. While Panhellenic has been holding interest meetings, IFC also plans to start promoting their spring rush soon. Interfraternal Council President, Alex Anderson, said: “We just came up with a picture that fraternities will post on social media to encourage freshman to sign up along with sending all freshmen guys an email to sign up for rush.” IFC rush is Jan. 16-19 and there is a mandatory IFC meeting Jan. 15. You can follow both Panhellenic and IFC on Instagram: @shcpanhellenic and @shc_ifc, and you can register for Panhellenic recruitment using the link in their Instagram bio.