With its enrollment sluggish, the university has asked professors to make phone pitches in what it calls an "enroll-a-thon."

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, April 24, 2006

BY JENNIFER D. JORDAN
Journal Staff Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- In an effort to boost enrollment, the University of Rhode Island has begun phone-a-thons this spring, asking professors to call prospective students and encourage them to attend the university.

"It's not something I particularly wanted to do from 5:30 to 8 p.m. after I had worked all day," said Wendy Roworth, chairwoman of the art department. "But when I got there, I found it was pretty fun.

"They had pizza and refreshments for us, and they had representatives from student life and financial aid on hand, if the parents and students had questions we couldn't answer."

Roworth spoke to about 30 families the night she participated in what URI officials call "the enroll-a-thon."

John F. Stevenson, chairman of the psychology department, said he answered questions ranging from concerns about paying for college to worries about feeling lost at a big university. He said he enjoyed talking with parents and potential students.

"I'm happy to do it," Stevenson said. "I regret it's a role that faculty needs to play, but given the circumstances, I think it's a role we need to play."

Enrollment has been sluggish at URI and officials are eager to increase the university's "yield" rate -- the number of students accepted who decide to attend. The admissions office says that while more than half the students accepted at the university's competitive College of Pharmacy send in deposits to secure their places, yield rates for URI's other colleges hover around 25 percent to 33 percent. The deadline for deposits is May 1.

Three years ago, URI launched an aggressive push to boost enrollment by 1,000 students. The plan also called for 20 more faculty and several new buildings, including a cafeteria and dormitories that the university is building. While the university succeeded in adding the students, only 14 professors were hired, because URI received less state aid than expected.

In fall 2004, the university accepted its largest freshman class, 2,705 students. About 55 percent were out-of-state students, who pay far more to attend URI.

But last fall, the incoming freshman class slipped to 2,491, due in part to upheaval in the admissions office, said URI officials. Longtime Admissions Dean David G. Taggart retired last year after 20 years. A new dean, James Lynch, lasted just six months before he abruptly resigned last month. Cynthia Bonn, URI's new dean of admissions, was appointed to the $110,000-a-year job on March 18.

At the same time, the in-state, out-of-state student ratio changed. For the first time in recent history, the majority -- 51 percent -- of the freshman class came from Rhode Island. Out-of-state students pay about $12,000 more a year.

In addition, the university is facing millions of dollars in budget cuts as the state faces a $300-million shortfall this year.

Despite a slight increase in the number of applications this spring -- 13,493 -- URI officials took extra steps to ensure enrollment would not slip further.

"This is not the first time faculty have called students, but we are doing a lot more this year," said URI spokeswoman Linda Acciardo.

URI hopes to have a freshman class of 2,600 this fall, but would be happy with even 2,500, said President Robert L. Carothers.

"We want the right mix," Carothers said in an interview in his office. URI wants a good combination of minority students, honor students who are eligible for URI's Centennial Scholars program, in-state and out-of-state students, Carothers said.

About one-quarter of the incoming freshmen are Centennial Scholars, who receive scholarship money from the school. Because of problems scoring the new Scholastic Assessment Test this year, several dozen students who normally would have scored higher and been offered Centennial scholarships were shut out, URI officials say. URI made available another $1 million in scholarships for those students, and is hoping many will choose to attend URI, Carothers said.

URI IS NOT the only college asking professors to call prospective students.

Kelsey Molloy was surprised by a phone call last month from a professor at the University of Vermont.

Kelsey, 17, an honors student at South Kingstown High School, would be a good fit at UVM, and the environmental science department she had applied to would love to have her, the professor told her. Did she have any questions for him?

Kelsey, who received a modest scholarship at UVM and a full scholarship at URI as a Centennial Scholar, decided to attend URI, where her father is a professor.

But Vermont's effort left an impression on her.

"I thought it was really nice of them," she said.

The University of Connecticut has asked students to call prospective students for several years, said a UConn spokeswoman.

Phone calls will probably not disappear. Students today apply to many more colleges than in the past, and in 5 to 10 years, more colleges will aggressively court students as demographic projections show a dip in the number of students attending college, particularly in the Northeast.

"It's a very competitive and market-driven environment these days," said Jack Warner, Rhode Island's commissioner of higher education.

Some in the education field say reaching out to students is a welcome trend.

"A lot of colleges have found calling students to be highly successful. It's really a new phase of college marketing," said Steven Roy Goodman, an education consultant in Washington, D.C., who advises high school students and parents about college admissions. "Even just a slightly higher yield rate means hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition revenue for colleges."

In particular, a phone call from a state institution can change a student's perceptions, Goodman said.

"Students often complain that colleges aren't really paying attention, that they just feel like a number," he said. "A phone call can demonstrate that perhaps the university is paying individual attention to students."

IN URI'S CASE, the enroll-a-thon seems to be working.

"We are up 17.4 percent in deposits, which is 203 deposits more than we had at this time last year, and we are expecting a good number more," said Bonn, the admissions dean.

Despite the fact that phoning families is time consuming and falls at a difficult period in the hectic spring semester, Sue Boatright, an associate professor of psychology, says she enjoys talking to prospective students.

To her, she said, the phone calls "make the campus seem friendlier to someone who is facing the transition to college."

jjordan@projo.com / (401) 277-7254