AUB - Initiatives - Student Enrollment Services

Student Enrollment Services

In Spring 2009, the provost appointed an Enrollment Management Task Force (EMTF) to evaluate and recommend improvements to admissions, registration, and financial aid processes; and to other student services provided by the faculties (such as advising) and the Office of Student Affairs (such as new student orientation). The task force has four members: its chair, Hala Muhtasib (also chair of the Unified Admissions Committee); Salim Kanaan (director of Admissions); Moueen Salameh (registrar); and Eleanor Johnson (assistant to the provost for special projects). It has also established a number of specialized sub-committees to consider specific questions in greater detail.

The guiding principle of the EMTF is to improve the experience of students in certain non-academic areas by strengthening and expanding services and simplifying the procedures followed by the University’s existing student population, as well as potential students interested in joining the AUB community. Since its establishment, the task force has made inroads in many different areas. Some of its accomplishments include:

Promoting and testing a new and more qualitative method of evaluating the applications of freshman students;
Advocating the online payment of application and commitment fees;
Creating a course equivalencies database;
Undertaking a comparative study of freshman and sophomore performance and acceptance into majors;
Devising automated waiting lists to help students register for required courses/sections already filled to capacity;
Developing software for a centralized facility (classroom, laboratory, lecture hall) reservation system to make the best possible use of instructional space;
Reviewing the new student orientation process.

In March 2011, an EMTF sub-committee proposed the creation of a separate University Committee on English Language (UCEL) to review, recommend, and facilitate the implementation of new policies that relate to AUB’s English language proficiency requirements; undergraduate and graduate admissions; student placement in communications skills courses; and the subsequence academic performance of students in all faculties. The proposal was studied by the Board of Deans, and UCEL began work in October 2011.

Strategic Planning

The members of the EMTF also belong to one of three strategic planning units created by the provost at the start of AUB’s second strategic planning cycle in Fall 2010. The unit is responsible for drafting a comprehensive enrollment management and student services plan that corresponds to the University’s strategic objectives and includes major initiatives for implementation over the next five to ten years. More specifically, it will establish clear enrollment management goals; improve financial aid processes; align financial and programmatic planning; identify ways to improve student services; promote student success (as measured by the retention and graduation rates); and isolate appropriate key performance indicators for assessment purposes. Other members of the planning unit include: Hanin Abdallah (assistant dean, OSB); Nizar Jawhar (University statistician); Andre Nahas (director of the OSM); Talal Nizameddin (dean of students); Katherine Yngve (director of OIP); and Provost Dallal.

“Establish a formal and robust enrolment management unit to improve fulfillment of AUB’s mission and strategic enrolment goals. In addition to assuming the current functions of UAC, the unit should be actively and systematically involved in the continuous assessment and improvement of the following: (i) admissions criteria and processes and their effectiveness in attracting and admitting qualified students; (ii) means to increase the pool of applicants; (iii) retention and graduation rates of enrolled students, particularly the freshman class; (iv) geographic and socio-economic diversity of the student population; and (v) financial aid programs and practices and their impact on the size of the pool of applicants, yield of accepted students and diversity of the student population.”

From AUB’s 2008 Institutional Self-Study, Chapter Four, pages 55-56.