Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

DOI

10.61186/johepal.4.3.132

Publication Title

Journal of Higher Education Policy and Leadership Studies

Volume

4

Issue

3

Pages

132-155

Abstract

Higher education institutions around the world were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020. Because U.S. community colleges focus on two-year degrees and workforce development, they were affected differently than their four-year counterparts. This study examined how academic administrators at different rural community colleges in Virginia, United States, perceived enrollment management practices that were implemented or changed due to the pandemic. This sequential explanatory study's first phase was quantitative and measured mid- to senior-level administrators' views of how the pandemic affected their colleges' enrollment management practices. The second qualitative phase resulted in five themes surrounding COVID-related enrollment management practices: a) COVID-19 led to crisis management and operations in phases; b) managing student onboarding during COVID-19; c) COVID-19 created unique challenges for community college students; d) COVID-19 affected decision-making procedures; and e) COVID-19 resulted in work/life balance issues and COVID fatigue. Implications and future directions are provided to ensure that community college enrollment managers and policymakers understand how to continue to pivot to ensure student services are maintained or enhanced during a crisis.

Rights

© 2023 The Authors.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the author.

ORCID

0000-0002-7838-7490 (Williams), 0000-0003-4653-3008 (Bullington)

Original Publication Citation

Daniel, R. C., Williams, M. R., & Bullington, K. E. (2023). Enrollment management strategies at rural community colleges resulting from the pandemic. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Leadership Studies 4(3), 132-155. http://johepal.com/article-1-446-en.html

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