Interview with CDU Interim Provost Dr. Sylvia Manning( continued)
Did you feel that there were areas within your responsibility that needed to be changed or at least reinterpreted?
That takes us to the enrollment issue. We had admissions and financial aid and registrar in separate not quite silos, but almost, and they were not integrated. You really need to bring them together because there are synergies they need. For example, if you’ re going to recruit transfer students successfully, you need the registrar to make sure that students can have their transcripts evaluated early. If you’ re a private institution competing in what is arguably the state with the best public higher education systems in the country, you need your financial aid to be right in sync with your admissions, because telling a student they’ re admitted doesn’ t tell them anything that they can act on.
We started undergraduate programs with people who think in graduate student terms. I think that was the reason we were not successful initially, but ultimately, we’ re going to be successful with those programs. First of all, we were recruiting nationally, and we were recruiting freshmen, and we don’ t have dorms. As a mother of an 18-year-old, I am not sending my kid 2000 miles away to a city, which if I know nothing else about it, I know that it’ s very expensive and no one’ s going to make sure that my kid is living in a safe place. Kid may not care, but I do.
And the other thing is, you bring in medical students, you bring in 60, they’ re drawn from a lot of places, but they are around the same age and have similar values. There, you’ ve got a cohort. We were bringing in very small numbers of undergrads and students were in different programs; three here, four there. It’ s too small, you don’ t have critical mass, right?
So, we did something that I think is going to pay off. We said,‘ Okay, let’ s create a pre-health program for all undergrads who come to CDU with less than 40 credits of transfer from a community college. It’ s a co-curricular program. We will add value, we will also bring them together so that they won’ t be in such a small cohort, they will be a larger group’. That’ s one of the things that we did. The other thing we did was shift our focus to not recruiting at high schools so much, although we’ re still doing it, but recruiting out of community colleges, which we previously weren’ t doing. And we weren’ t setting up pathways, and we didn’ t have articulation agreements, but we are building those now. When you build it that way, you bring in a bunch of juniors and seniors, and they’ re older, and if you are recruiting from the several community colleges in our area, they already have a place to live and the parents have let go.
Have you identified as some of the University’ s core strengths that your successor can build upon?
I think the biggest strength is the mission and the dedication of people to the mission. We have a new kind of program that is getting off the ground really well, that can serve as a model for growth and reflects the essential communityfocus of our mission. And that is the 3-year baccalaureate program with Compton College and Dominguez High School. The kids start in 11th and 12th grade, they take courses from Compton, and then they graduate and go to Compton College for a year. And by that point, they have an associate’ s degree. Then they come to CDU for two years, and they have a bachelor’ s degree. And it’ s all mapped. We have the first cohort now that’ s completed a year. We’ re recruiting the second cohort, and the principal tells us that everybody in the school knows about it. This is not something we’ re having to sell. It is really working, and the kids are loving it.
Last question: what do you take away from this experience that will guide you in the future?
This opportunity has been transformative for me. When I interviewed for the position, I was not sure I was ready for any position. It was just a time in my life when I thought No, not now. And then I agreed to interview because the consultant was urging me to. But I thought, I’ m not gonna get this position anyway. I’ ll interview and that’ ll be it. And I got the offer. And I was bowled over. But I didn’ t know until I got here how coming into a place like CDU and working inside it, how much I would come to learn. And yeah, I know a lot about how to manage and about how to do processes in universities. But at CDU, I learned a lot about life.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 13