Strategic Alignment: Recruiting Students in a Highly Decentralized Environment.

All enrollment managers face some level of challenge related to decentralized decision making and operations. Policies and practices can vary considerably by academic area, creating administrative complexity, restricting the scope and speed of institutional initiatives, and limiting potential efficiencies. Central attempts to standardize or streamline these diverse processes may be unwelcome and perceived as counter to local interests. Identifying ways to manage these complexities-and even benefit from them-can be useful.This article will briefly introduce the structure of the University of Toronto as it relates to student recruitment. It will then look at specific challenges arising from this context, review strategy and initiatives to enhance recruitment, consider outcomes, and, finally, revisit the challenges in light of lessons learned.CONTEXTWith more than 85,000 students enrolled at its three campuses, the University of Toronto is Canadas largest university. Seven of the university's academic divisions offer a total ofyoo first-entry1 programs. Five of these are faculties on the St. George campus in downtown Toronto: Arts and Science (the university's largest academic division); Applied Science and Engineering; Kinesiology and Physical Education; Music; and Architecture and Landscape Design. The other two divisions are campuses rather than faculties: the University of Toronto Mississauga and the University of Toronto Scarborough. These two campuses currently enroll between 12,000 and 13,000 students each, and each offers predominantly arts and science programs. Nearly all of the university's undergraduate growth is expected to occur on these campuses. These and other faculties and schools at the university offer second-entry professional programs- graduate and undergraduate-and the university provides a wide range of doctoral programs.There is a considerable amount of both decentralization and asymmetry when it comes to student recruitment and admissions. The central Enrollment Services (es) department coordinates student recruitment, financial aid, and admission policy and services to the first-entry divisions. However, all first-entry divisions have their own student recruitment staff and may also have admission and financial aid staff; the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering manages its own separate admissions function. Seven colleges2 are within the Faculty of Arts and Science, each with staff who have some involvement with admission and recruitment. And all divisional recruitment and admission staff have reporting relationships within their divisions (rather than centrally).The executive director of enrollment services also serves as university registrar.3 Unlike most of their U.S. counterparts, Canadian registrars usually have recruitment and admissions responsibilities. The University of Toronto has approximately z6 registrars or equivalents in its various academic divisions; all have some level of responsibility for recruitment and admissions for their division in addition to more traditional registrar-related duties. This is unique in Canada. Other institutions may have separate campus registrars and/or graduate registrars, but rarely are there registrars of other academic divisions.Enrollment Services employs approximately 70 staff for its recruitment, admissions, and financial aid operations; it processes nearly 70,000 applications per year, two-thirds of which are submitted by Ontario high school students. Enrollment Services also includes the Office of Student Recruitment, with approximately twelve staff plus student tour guides.The Office of Student Recruitment (osr) is responsible for managing a visitor center and running tours on the St. George campus; organizing open house events; producing the university viewbook and other recruitment publications; managing the prospective student web presence; conducting or attending school visits and fairs domestically and internationally; liaising with guidance counselors, and organizing the university's presence at a large prospective student fair held each year in Toronto (i. …

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