SEMO Signs Agreements with Several Universities

SEMO has recently signed agreements with other universities to aid our enrollment goals and benefit students.

First, Southeast signed an agreement with Saint George's University (SGU) in Grenada to create a pipeline to medicine and veterinary studies for our students. The partnership sets up a 4+4 program for pre-medicine and pre-veterinary majors who meet the requirements to be granted admission to SGU's accredited School of Medicine or School of Veterinary Medicine. It also establishes a 3+4 program for our biomedical sciences majors, meaning they will spend three years at SEMO before spending their senior year at SGU as they work toward their MD. According to the Federation of State Medical Boards, in 2022 SGU was the largest source of doctors for the entire U.S. workforce. This is a great opportunity for qualified prospective students to know a seat at an accredited medical school is guaranteed.

SEMO also signed agreements this month with Universidad del Sagrado Corazon and Inter American Spanish University of Puerto Rico. The agreement will allow their students to enroll at SEMO as a visiting student to complete a SEMO internship that would allow them to gain experience at KFVS/Gray Television Inc., who owns and operates Telemundo channels. The partnership allows us to increase the development of mass media talent and enhance opportunities for students interested in pursuing careers in bilingual journalism.

There is much written about the power of partnerships to the future of higher education. Agreements like those above assist us in meeting our enrollment goals while providing unique professional opportunities for our students. We will continue to seek more.

Financial Aid Optimization Update

I shared with you last fall that we would begin working with Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) to develop strategies to optimize the award of our financial aid to align resources with our institutional goals and student needs. RNL worked throughout the fall with members of our Financial Aid and Enrollment Management teams. They will continue to meet with Enrollment Management, Financial Aid, and Institutional Research weekly as we analyze data to work through the project. We will continue to keep you updated of progress.

Cybersecurity Training

You should have all received information from IT this week about a new cybersecurity training for the University. The training is online, and its content covers almost all the security issues IT addresses on a weekly basis because of our actions. I encourage all faculty and staff to complete the online training as soon as possible to assist in keeping our systems and data as secure as possible.

Supporting SEMO with Spring Events

There are several events happening on campus this spring that will benefit the University and our students.

You may have heard the announcement last week that our alumnus Cedric The Entertainer will be returning to campus to perform a benefit comedy show to support the Department of Mass Media as well as student scholarships. Tickets are on sale at the Show Me Center now.

Tickets will go on sale next week for the Power of Women Luncheon and Expo to be held March 1. Proceeds from this annual event fund student scholarships. I'm pleased to announce that this year's keynote speaker will be Dr. Linda Godwin, another notable SEMO alumnus and former NASA astronaut that will be a good lead up to the eclipse on April 8.

Our Sesquicentennial will conclude this spring with a big finale weekend. On Saturday April 6, we will host the Sesquicentennial Ball, an event to benefit student scholarships. Tickets will go on sale in the coming weeks and will include a ticket discount for interested faculty and staff. Please watch Newswire for the latest information. On Sunday April 7, we'll hold a brunch for alumni returning to campus for the festivities. Our celebrations will come to a close on April 8 with the eclipse and activities planned on campus.

I am looking forward to these opportunities to celebrate our University this spring.

Alumni Engagement

The SEMO Alumni Association has scheduled many events this spring both regionally and across the nation. These alumni events allow us to visit with and update our alumni on what is happening at the University. The events also provide an opportunity to make connections that can strengthen the University, resulting in student internships, alumni sharing their expertise with classes, or gifts to support scholarships and academic programs. You can find scheduled alumni events on the online calendar.

Spring Strategic Action Plan Updates

I want to thank those of you who attended last fall's Strategic Action Plan Update session and those who completed the feedback form. Your insights are helping us to plan this spring's sessions. You may remember we had planned to host one session per semester; however, based partly on your feedback, we have decided to hold an additional session to spend more time sharing information about various topics. We will host an Update in February focused on enrollment, a critical component of our strategic plan. We will host a second Update in March focused on our budget and financial resources. This is a subject that also impacts us all and should be quite timely as our Budget Review Committee is commencing its work this month. I hope that focusing on one topic per session will allow us the time to share the depth of information our employees feel is valuable.

Please save the following dates and plan to attend

Strategic Action Plan Update: Enrollment

February 21 / Noon

Academic Hall Auditorium

Strategic Action Plan Update: Budget & Finance

March 18 / Noon

Academic Hall Auditorium

In your post-event feedback forms, several of you asked questions. I will respond to a few below and more during the upcoming Strategic Action Plan Updates.

Q. Regarding enrollment, what strategies have worked and what hasn't and what changes are we making?

I wish there was a "silver bullet," but the truth is that attracting and retaining a student body is a complex process. Let me give some examples.

Today, the average freshmen applicant is applying to as many as 10 schools. Response times matter so it no longer “works” for an applicant to wait too long for a response to an email, text, application, etc. Several work groups in nearly all enrollment areas have, and will continue to simplify each step in the enrollment processes for students. We are reducing application processing time for dual credit, freshmen, transfer, international, online, and graduate students. 

We made strategic investments this fall in targeted scholarship opportunities, increasing the number of marching band scholarships we offer and the amount of our President's Scholarship Finalist award for high achieving students. It is too early to evaluate the success of these tactics. Families are concerned about the cost of a college degree. Discussion around scholarships and price is important as students make their decisions, so our work with RNL will be key in determining our strategies moving forward.

This year we also made the decisions to invest in marketing actions that allow us to track the return on our investment. As a result, we pulled back from advertising options like billboards and focused on digital efforts. With limited resources, we made the decision to invest in channels where we could track the leads and applications and further make decisions about which of those channels were smart investments.

Another strategy we implemented this year is direct admissions. Briefly, we are admitting students to the University without them applying. Students must still meet admission requirements, but they need not complete an application. For those of us who have been in higher education for some time, this seems radical. But, it is quickly becoming a trend, with some states doing it across all public universities in an effort to retain students in their state institutions. This is the first year we have implemented direct admissions, and it will be interesting to see the enrollment results of these students next fall.

SEMO Athletics is also featuring our local high schools during themed games during basketball season this year. The events include giveaways of co-branded baseball caps featuring the SEMO logo and a local high school mascot as a way to further engage local school districts, prospective students, and families.

These are just a few examples of new strategies we are trying. We are also optimizing, changing, and discontinuing others. We welcome all employee suggestions because we all want the same thing--to reach our enrollment goals.

Q. Why do many staff members take on multiple positions without extra pay even though the University saves money with vacancies?

This is an important question and something I announced in my December newsletter that we would be addressing. Effective this month, under certain conditions staff who take on extra workload during a vacancy may receive additional compensation. You can learn more by visiting the mySEMO portal and searching "additional compensation program."

Q. Regarding the Transforming Lives campaign, what percentage of money is going into each pillar?

The Transforming Lives campaign is focused on raising funds to support the University in four separate pillars: Academics, Facilities, Technology, and Athletics. Our University Foundation worked with academic deans and departments to establish needs as the $60 million campaign was developed. However, percentages for each pillar are not set because donors will give to the areas they are passionate about.

I can share that our Advancement team has had a very successful December and January in working with donors to support our University. Not including the gifts I mentioned in my December email, the Foundation has received more than $300,000 in gifts in December and January alone. This includes nearly $200,000 in scholarships, $10,000 to athletics, $10,000 for facilities, and more than $85,000 to academic programs, which includes $50,000 for improvements and upgrades to the Hutson Greenhouse. It is good to see this kind of momentum in the early stages of our comprehensive campaign. May it continues throughout 2024!