Academia primarily benefits students and helps them receive training, work experience, and expand their minds through creative and innovative thinking. These students then go on to further their fields and positively transform society.
This year, 727,000 fewer undergraduate students are enrolling in colleges. College and universities might bounce back now that society is stabilizing, but institutions still have to deal with the fallout from lower enrollment projections in the future.
The Pandemic and Enrollment
Having stable enrollment is crucial so institutions can offer the type of programming that allows students to thrive in the future. So, when enrollment numbers start dropping at an alarming rate, student satisfaction is usually the first place for scrutiny.
At the same time, as traditional institutions battle enrollment fluctuations, staff are also leaving either by choice or as a result of decreased budgets. From financial aid offices to the IT departments, education professionals are stretched thin.
As a result, the remaining employees wear multiple hats and often must do more with less.
Less Staff, More Demand for Services
Having quality IT staff with institutional knowledge has never been more critical. However, with the pandemic and the many challenges it brought, IT employees are overburdened in selecting the right tech tools for a potentially new online environment and supporting faculty who may never have taught online.
Without assistance, they can’t give students the accommodations they would like to, further reducing the desire to enroll.
An effective strategy to less staff and declining enrollment is to tackle both sides of the problem.
Search First, Ask Questions Later
This generation of students, and the generation coming up, have a search-online-first mentality. Giving students, staff, and faculty the ability to locate information and resources independently from IT should be the goal. It is as much about a long-term strategy as a reaction to having fewer people to help with day-to-day demands.
OneCampus by TransACT is a cost-effective way to connect students, faculty, and staff to the resources they need with a simple Google-like search on the device of their choice.
By providing students with a modern, intuitive portal and service discovery tool, staff can control the content and be free to pursue other goals.
How OneCampus Helps
With its low IT lift, OneCampus will liberate hours allowing professional staff and administrators to focus on education and administration. The intuitive interface helps make the IT Department look like heroes because they provide one location where the entire campus can search for resources.
The interface enables users to quickly grasp the software, meaning less time spent learning a new platform and more time working on coursework.
With a platform that provides the convenience and familiarity of well-known social media apps, students feel less alienated when engaging in online learning. Staff can communicate messages to their students and update content on their schedule at a moment’s notice.
While higher education exists to serve students, staff and faculty are also critical success factors. OneCampus serves both environments. With an incredible customer service team, any issues users experience with the platform become resolved quickly, keeping operations running smoothly for students and staff.
To learn more about how OneCampus can benefit your institution, you can watch our webinar involving students when sourcing new technology.
The academic landscape is changing. Your institution can change with it.