Episode 1: Faculty as Frontline Recruiters

Your most powerful enrollment tool might already be on your payroll. When a Director of Enrollment realizes that prospective families keep choosing competitors — not because of programs, but because they never had a real conversation with a teacher — she sets out to turn faculty into frontline recruiters. What she discovers along the way changes how she thinks about authenticity, control, and what families are really looking for.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to EM Chronicles, where we turn the big ideas in enrollment management into stories you can feel. I'm Claude Anderson. This is Episode 1, Faculty as Frontline Recruiters. Let's begin.

Speaker 0:13

Danielle Brooks was sitting in the admissions office on a Tuesday afternoon, staring at a spreadsheet that should have made her happy. Applications were up, inquiries were steady. But Danielle, the director of enrollment, couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. She pulled up the yield numbers from the last three admissions cycles and felt her stomach drop. That's when Kevin Okafour, the assistant head for academics, appeared in her doorway holding two cups of coffee. You look like someone who needs caffeine and a conversation, Kevin said, setting one cup on her desk. Danielle leaned back. Kevin, can I ask you something? When you were teaching full time, did anyone in admissions ever ask you to help with recruitment? Kevin laughed. Not once. I mean, I showed up at the occasional open house and stood next to a poster about the English department. But nobody asked me to actually talk to prospective families in any meaningful way. That's exactly the problem, Danielle said, turning her screen toward him. Look at this. Our inquiry to application rate is fine, but our yield, the families who get accepted and actually enroll, has been slipping for three years. And when I dig into the exit surveys from families who chose other schools, do you know what keeps coming up? Tell me. They say things like, we never got a sense of what the classroom experience would actually be like, or, we didn't feel a personal connection to the academic program. They're choosing schools where they met a teacher who made them feel something. Kevin sat down and was quiet for a moment. That actually hits close to home for me. When my daughter was applying to high schools, the school she ended up choosing, it wasn't the one with the fanciest campus. It was the one where a history teacher sat down with her for 20 minutes at an open house and asked her what she was reading. He talked about a project his students had done on oral histories in their community. My daughter got in the car afterward and said, Dad, I want to go there. One conversation with one teacher. Danielle nodded. That's it. That's exactly what we're missing. We have incredible faculty. Mrs. Alvarez runs that bioethics seminar that kids talk about for years after they graduate. Mr. Tanaka's robotics students won regionals last spring, but prospective families never hear from these people. They hear from me and my team, and we're good at what we do, but we can't replicate what a passionate teacher brings to the conversation. So what are you thinking? Kevin asked. I want to build a real program around this, not just dragging teachers to open houses, but training them, partnering with them, giving them specific roles in the recruitment process, guest workshops for prospective students, personal outreach to families interested in their department, faculty written content for our website. I want them to be part of the admissions team, not in name only, but in practice. Kevin took a sip of his coffee. I love the idea, but I'll be honest with you, Danielle, you're going to get resistance. Most of my colleagues didn't become teachers to be recruiters. Some of them will hear this and think you're asking them to sell something. I know, Danielle said, and I'm not asking them to sell, I'm asking them to share. There's a difference. When Mrs. Alvarez tells a prospective family about the time a student in her bioethics class changed their mind about going into medicine after a unit on healthcare equity, and then that student came back two years later to say they're now pursuing public health instead, and it was the best decision they ever made. That's not selling. That's storytelling. That's the most authentic thing we could put in front of a family. Kevin was quiet again. Then he said, You know what? I think the reason some teachers resist is that nobody's ever framed it that way. Nobody's ever told them that sharing their classroom stories is one of the most powerful things they can do for this school. Will you help me? Danielle asked. I need someone the faculty trusts to help me frame this the right way. Kevin smiled. I'm in. But I have one condition. We start with the teachers who are already doing this naturally, the ones who light up when they talk about their students. Build some early wins, and the skeptics will come around. Follow-up dialogue. A week later, Danielle, Kevin, and Dr. Patricia Simmons, the head of school, gathered around the small table in Dr. Simmons' office. Rain streaked the windows as Danielle walked them through her proposal. I appreciate the thinking here, Dr. Simmons said, reviewing the one-page plan. But I want to raise the concern, I know is on every department chair's mind. Our teachers are already stretched. Grading, advising, coaching, committee work. Where does this fit? Kevin leaned in. That's fair, and honestly, it's something I wrestled with too. But here's what I keep coming back to. We're asking teachers to do something they already do naturally, just more intentionally. Mrs. Alvarez already tells those stories. Mr. Tanaka already geeks out about robotics with anyone who listen. We're not adding new work. We're channeling what already happens. Still, Dr. Simmons said, I don't want this to feel like one more thing. How do we protect against that? Danielle spoke up. Two things. First, we start with seven or eight volunteers. Teachers who are already enthusiastic. No one is drafted. Second, we count this toward their professional development. One recruitment activity per semester can substitute for a traditional PD obligation.

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Dr.

Speaker 6:25

Simmons raised an eyebrow. I like that. It signals that we value this work. There's something else I want to be transparent about, Danielle said, pausing. When I first started in admissions, I thought recruitment was my department's job. Period. I didn't want teachers involved because honestly, I was worried they'd go off message or say something that didn't align with our marketing. It took me a while to realize that their unscripted honesty is actually more persuasive than anything my team produces. I had to let go of controlling the narrative. Dr. Simmons smiled. That kind of honesty is exactly what makes this work. And it's what we need to model for the faculty. If we're asking them to be authentic with families, we need to be authentic with them about why this matters. Kevin nodded. I'll talk to the department chairs individually before the faculty meeting. And Patricia, if you could speak to this at the all school meeting, not as a mandate, but as an invitation. It would carry weight. I'll do more than that, Dr. Simmons said. I'll share my own story. When I was a chemistry teacher, a family chose our school because I spent 30 minutes after an open house talking with their son about catalysts. That boy is now a chemical engineer. I still have his graduation announcement on my bookshelf. If I can remind our faculty what that kind of impact feels like, the sign-ups will take care of themselves. And recognition matters, Danielle added. Faculty spotlight in our admissions newsletter, acknowledgement in evaluations, and I'd like to fund a small professional development stipend for our most active participants. Done, Dr. Simmons said. Let's launch the pilot next month. Seven volunteers, clear guidelines, and we reconvene in 90 days to see what the data tells us. Three key questions for the head of school to consider. Now here are three questions this story should raise for your school. How are you currently leveraging your faculty's authentic classroom stories and subject matter passion in the enrollment process? And what would change if every prospective family had a meaningful conversation with a teacher before making their decision? What structural barriers, workload concerns, lack of training, or a culture that separates teaching from recruiting are preventing your faculty from becoming your most compelling enrollment ambassadors? If your best teachers are already the reason families choose to stay, what would it take to make them a central reason new families choose to come?

Speaker 1 9:13

Thanks for listening to EM Chronicles. Every school has stories worth telling. We're here to help you find yours. I'm Claude Anderson. See you in the next episode.