Compass
November
c\iv
/
UlUiUfaMxM
Vol. 44, No.l
Welcome!!!
SPECIAL
ANNOUNCEMENT
As we all know, our
Chancellor, Dr. Marlon D.
Thorpe, has been seriously ill.
“ The Compass” staff would
like to wish him a full speedy
recovery.
The entire University
Family wants you back at the
helm again, Dr. Thorpe!
Editor and Staff
Sterling Hudson,
New Admissions Director
sterling Hudson is our new
director of admissions. He
. comes to ECSU after spen
ding the last 15 years as both
student and employee dt
Hampton Institute.
He not only did^is un
dergraduate work but earned
his Masters Degree at HI. He
served in the Admissions
Office there for nine years.
He began in 1973 as an Ad
missions Counselor, then
moved to Assistant to the
Dean of Admissions in 1979.
Wanda McLean, our
4 previous Admissions
Director, worked under him
as an Admissions Counselor
at HI. Many of the ideas and
programs that they were
using there, she has tried to
implement here. One of the
ideas was to attract the
desired number of students
^nd students of higher
academic
Hudson thinks that uie
reason ECSU is not con
sistently getting the desired
number of students it wants is
tiiat we are not involved in
trying to increase the
academic preparedness level
it admits. He says this has a
cause-effect relationship with
our image problem. “In the
ten county local radius, there
is not so much a negative
image of us as there is an
indifference toward us.” We
need to make the potential
successful student aware that
we are here.
With Dr. Jenkins, Vice-
Chancellor for Academic
Affairs, and immediate
supervisor Dr. Robinson,
by Lee Bowser
Assistant Vice-Chancellor for
Academic Affairs, Hudson
has taken steps to develop a
new recruitment plan.
He feels that it is a
tremendous job for an ad
missions office to recruit
students in total isolation
from the institution.
Recruitment should be
comprehensive, university-
wide. He's not just talking
about filling empty places. To
explain what he meant, he
used a tripod. “The whole
thing fits together. We call
the three legs recruitment,
admission, and retention. In
other words, recruit students
that will come here with the
purpose of leaving with a
degree.”
Along with staff members,
he plans to develop two
recruitment teams. One
team will include volunteers
from the faculty and staff of
the university; the other
team of volunteers is from the
student body, which will be
called the ‘Viking Anm-
bassadors’.“One of my
beliefs is that you cannot hire
anybody who can be a more
effective recruiter of students
of a university than students
themselves. Presently
enrolled students, satisfied
students.” The students will
be used as representatives
when there are visitors to the
school and also go out in the
field. Students have already
been out on the field, though
they haven’t been officially
organized.
The plan he and his staff
has is twofold. First, he
wants to identify as many
prospective stuaents as
possible in the September to
December period, and to
generate interest in the
university. Then in the follow
up period, encourage the
prospective student with the
hope of recruiting him. The
Admissions Staff will go out
with the goal of meeting or
exceeding the enrollment
goals of 1983. Unfortunately,
because of the critical nature
of the enrollent problem, the
admissions office is in an
emergency type situation.
By the spring of 1983, the
Admissions Office hopes to
help the Viking Ambassadors
organize and implement a full
scale ‘high school day’ on
campus. The visiting
students will have an op
portunity to talk with enrolled
students and administrators.
He hopes this will become an
annual event.
He also hopes to implement
a satellite program. When the
admissions staff is on the
field, there will be some
financial aid personnel with
them, so that if a student
were to present the proper
credentials, he or she could
be admitted and awarded aid
on the spot. Students in the
local communities will be
offered an opportunity to
come to the campus on nine
or ten different weekends this
semester. If they bring the
proper credentials, they can
be admitted then. These will
be called ‘Saturday Admit
Days.’
Sterling Hudson is
definitely a man who believes
in what he’s doing.