A study of faculty and administrator attitudes toward, and involvement with, educational marketing and student recruiting in Florida public and private community/junior colleges

Abstract

Admissions offices at many colleges and universities, once the passive processors of whatever applications came their way, have been forced by a dwindling pool of traditional students to turn to more active recruitment. Many institutions of higher education have borrowed marketing practices from business and industry and have applied those practices in the educational environment. On many campuses these business-like tactics have been resisted by some administrators and faculty. When marketing approaches are applied, admissions directors are at the center of the effort on college campuses. Many admissions directors have found that increased involvement on the part of faculty and administrators can foster a better understanding of ad~issions practices and efforts, and create mutual cooperation and support of recruitment activities between faculty and administrators. It was within a framework of declining student population and the subsequent increase in marketing activities on college campuses, often rejected by academia, that this study was conducted regarding faculty and administrator attitudes toward, and involvement with, educational marketing and student recruiting in Florida's public and private two-year community/junior colleges. A mail survey was distributed to 28 public and 14 private community/junior colleges listed in the 1987 Florida Education Directory. The faculty sample consisted of a random selection of faculty names from current institutional catalogs. Chief academic and student affairs officers served as the administrator sample. Eighteen Likert-scaled items were used to assess attitudes toward various statements regarding marketing and student recruiting. Eight single-item questions were used to establish level of involvement with marketing and student recruiting activities. Frequency distributions and chi-square analysis provided the basis for data comparison. Data analysis revealed that faculty and administrators expressed similar attitudes toward the effectiveness and acceptability of marketing and student recruiting. Significant differences, indicated by chisquare analysis, were revealed among the following: (1) admissions department effectiveness; (2) effects of declining enrollment; (3) utilization of big-business tactics; (4) appropriateness of newspaper advertising; and (5) willingness to conduct campus tours. While public faculty and administrators were in slightly closer agreement than their private colleagues concerning the role marketing and student recruiting should play in higher education, private faculty and administrators were slightly more involved in marketing and student recruiting activities than their public counterparts.

Notes

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Graduation Date

1989

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Hernandez, David E.

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

College

College of Education

Department

Educational Services

Format

Print

Pages

150 p.

Language

English

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

Identifier

DP0027207

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Education; Education -- Dissertations, Academic

Accessibility Status

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