Innovative efforts by Henderson State University’s Office of Enrollment Services and Admissions has earned the university top honors at the annual EMAS Pro national conference.
EMAS Pro is a customer relationship management system used to process applications for admission, merit scholarships, and to communicate with prospective students at all stages of the enrollment process. The award is given to an institution that modifies the system in a new way through custom programming and logic to improve a process.
“Our office designed the logic for a scholarship algorithm that automatically identifies students eligible for merit scholarships (based on their ACT/ACT score and high school GPA) and then assigns them to the appropriate scholarship tier,” said Brandie Benton, associate provost for Enrollment Services and Admissions.
“A student’s tier may be adjusted if his or her test score or GPA improves,” she said. “Once the award is approved in EMAS, the student is contacted via email and mail by the system.”
The Office of Enrollment Services and Admissions also uses EMAS to text, email, call, and automate letters and other print pieces.
“Previously, we were evaluating scholarship eligibility manually and also assigning notification letters manually,” Benton said. “This was extremely time consuming, and could lead to data integrity issues because of human errors.”
The process is now automated and the communications are auto generated.
“This saves the office hours of time each week in identifying, processing, awarding, and communicating with students regarding their awards,” Benton said.
The EMAS Innovation Award is given annually to an institution that demonstrates innovation by improvements in an area related to admissions and recruitment, and should be transferable to other institutions. Peer institutions vote on the finalists and choose the overall winner, which receives an award, a conference registration fee waiver for the next year, and two hours of professional development and additional training at no cost.
“Our team has worked exceedingly hard over the past year to ensure that we have a state-of-the art communication system,” Benton said. “The scholarship algorithm, which is what led to this award, is only one component of the work the Admissions team has accomplished. We are very proud of their work.
“Focusing on relationships and effective communication with prospective students and their families was our focus last year and will be for the coming year. We want students and families to have all the information they need when choosing to attend Henderson State. This system helps us better serve our students, and that is what’s most important to our office.”