In higher education, institutional success depends on collaboration. Collaboration fuels innovation and drives stronger enrollment outcomes by uniting academic and administrative insights. However, nurturing collaboration across administrative and academic departments is often overlooked.
The relationship between enrollment management (EM) professionals and academic leaders, a driving (or impeding) force of enrollment outcomes, is often marked by misalignment, missing the incredible potential collaboration holds. Collaboration between EM and academic leaders goes beyond boosting numbers; it aligns mission, values and strategy to build meaningful pathways for student success.
We’ve discovered firsthand how transformational this partnership can be. As Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management and Dean of Nursing and Health Professions, we’re working together to build a partnership that helps us effectively address shifting student needs and market challenges. We have cultivated a strategic partnership grounded in trust, transparency and shared purpose.
This article reflects our experience and offers practical guidance to academic and enrollment leaders seeking to build or strengthen similar partnerships. We hope our story inspires others to break down silos, think collaboratively and move toward partnerships that serve the good of students, colleagues and our institutions.
The Power of Collaboration: Why This Relationship Matters
When EM and academic leadership are aligned, the impact is powerful: Strategic enrollment planning becomes more precise, student support more holistic and institutional decision making more responsive to both internal and external changes.
At Antioch, this alignment has allowed us to develop clear lines of communication and establish mutual respect as hallmarks of that communication. Alignment also provides the common starting point for our work to tailor marketing messages that highlight the strengths of our programs, ensure offerings meet student needs and collaborate on innovative new program opportunities.
Unfortunately, it’s a common refrain in higher education that these relationships are strained or underdeveloped. When enrollment leaders and academic deans operate in isolation or at odds, they miss opportunities. Programs might launch without adequate demand, or promising ideas may stall due to lack of shared ownership. Miscommunication and mismatched priorities often lead to tension, lost revenue potential and student attrition.
But when EM and academic leaders collaborate intentionally, the benefits are tangible. At Antioch, we’ve seen how a unified approach to program development and student recruitment can elevate everything from prospective student engagement to faculty involvement in retention. It’s no exaggeration to say that when we are aligned everyone wins.
Key Factors That Make Our Partnership Work
Effective communication
Strong communication is a foundation stone of successful partnership. For us, that meant moving beyond transactional emails or last-minute crisis meetings. We established regular cross-functional meetings between enrollment management and the nursing and health professions academic teams. These meetings aren’t just updates but strategic conversations where we cocreate solutions, discuss trends and bring challenges into the open.
We’ve also adopted shared language to bridge our different perspectives. For instance, while the EM team speaks in funnel metrics and lead conversions, the nursing and health professions team grounds decisions in academic rigor and student preparation.
By creating space for each of us to learn the other’s language, we’ve built trust and created space for work through misunderstandings. Transparency in our decision-making processes—whether about marketing priorities or program development—has fostered a deep sense of mutual respect.
Shared goals and institutional alignment
Our work is most effective when it’s tied to a shared vision. We believe enrollment and understanding academic quality’s role is a shared responsibility. We’ve committed to shared ownership of both.
From the beginning of our collaboration, we’ve shared a commitment to aligning academic programs and student recruitment with the university’s values and mission. As dean, Diane has emphasized that preparing future leaders to create meaningful change in healthcare requires recruitment strategies that are both broad and intentional. Such strategies include reaching individuals from underrepresented and marginalized backgrounds, as well as those who have demonstrated a commitment to justice and service within their communities, organizations and networks.
In support of this vision, the enrollment management team expanded its analysis of recruitment regions. Alongside traditional labor market data, the team applied an equity-focused lens to identify areas and populations where intentional outreach could advance both student success and the university’s mission.
Commitment to data-informed decision making
We also share a belief that data is a shared, common language—one that anchors our strategic conversations. Rather than relying on anecdotal insights or reactive decisions, we’re building processes that prioritize data analysis in everything from pipeline management to program development.
Data plays a crucial role in shaping where and how we recruit students. As an adult-centered institution focused primarily on graduate education, Antioch University benefits from identifying regions with strong undergraduate populations but limited access to graduate programs, offering promising opportunities to build enrollment pipelines. When enrollment management shares these insights with academic leaders, it strengthens strategic planning around growth models and program development.
Too often, academic program planning happens in isolation, relying primarily on workforce data. While helpful, this type of analysis offers only a surface-level view of opportunity. In contrast, partnering with EM data officers provides a more nuanced and comprehensive perspective—one that supports more targeted, mission-aligned decision making.
Recommendations for Strengthening EM-Academic Partnerships
For leaders looking to cultivate these partnerships, we suggest the following:
- Establishing structured collaboration opportunities like joint strategy meetings and shared dashboards that offer visibility into enrollment pipelines and academic planning
- Developing shared accountability for enrollment goals and student success metrics
- Fostering a culture of mutual respect and trust by learning each other’s language and co-owning solutions
- Involving faculty in recruitment and retention efforts, from attending open houses and college fairs, to designing orientation and onboarding experiences
- Creating feedback loops, so what’s learned in these processes feeds into continuous strategy refinement
Conclusion
With the current volatility and sense of unknown in higher education, collaboration between enrollment management and academic leadership has never been more essential. Our partnership demonstrates what’s possible when we nurture relationships with intention, respect and a shared sense of mission. Collaboration is not always easy, but it is always worthwhile.
To other institutions: Start where you are. Reach out to colleagues and listen deeply. Create opportunities for thinking, envisioning and strategizing together. The first step toward enrollment transformation might be as simple as a conversation.
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