Strategic Planning and Purposeful Progress
With the fall season underway, our College is actively advancing through our annual strategic planning process. Throughout the month of October, each of the graduate program units and functional specialty units will review the progress made on the strategic choices from last year’s planning process and clarify and declare the path forward to continue to make purposeful progress toward advancing the Catholic mission and vision of our College.
I’d like to convey deep appreciation and congratulations to each of the Marketing and Graduate Enrollment team members and our colleagues across the College who played an essential role in helping to lay a very solid foundation that we will build from going forward. Reflecting on the progress achieved since our Marketing and Graduate Enrollment team was formed illuminates the strength of our collective unit. The team has implemented an innovative marketing and graduate enrollment model to elevate the brand reputation of our College, driving purposeful enrollment growth and tight alignment across the enrollment journey, enhancing the entire student experience.
Achievement of performance metrics has been stellar, far exceeding our organization’s goals. Today, Mendoza has the largest number of enrolled graduate students than in any of the prior 10 years, reversing year-over-year declines, while achieving substantial gains in key class profile and diversity metrics. The team’s laser focus on delivering an exceptional student experience across each stage of the enrollment journey is central to our multi-year transformation plan.
The strategy employed includes the following three key components:
- Defining and activating our new brand strategy that powerfully conveys our meaningfully distinct value proposition to Grow the Good in Business™.
- Deploying a Smarter Marketing and Recruitment Playbook that delivers highly personalized communications across the student enrollment journey.
- Implementing an integrated team organizational structure that focuses on deeply understanding and seamlessly operating across each phase of the enrollment journey.
As we look to deploy the Marketing and Graduate Enrollment strategic plan going forward, we will be guided by the following priorities:
- Powerfully present our brand distinctively and authentically across all stakeholder touchpoints.
- Build and enroll a community of inspired learners committed to become the best version of themselves and to Grow the Good in Business.
- Apply the art and science of demand management in order to create and deepen relationships across both digital and physical stakeholder engagements.
- Operationalize a data-driven integrated operating model that illuminates the efficacy of our investments and drives a go-to-market model that senses and responds to optimize performance.
- Attract, retain and upskill the best talent in the industry while continuing to live the Notre Dame values.
While these are indeed unprecedented times, I’m confident that together with the exceptional talent here we will continue to successfully deploy our strategic plan priorities and make purposeful progress advancing the mission of this incredibly special College.
In Notre Dame,
Tim Bohling
Chief Marketing and Graduate Enrollment Officer
Teaching Professor of Marketing
Teaching Professor of Marketing