|
 Recruiting
top-notch students takes institutional agility. Just ask anyone
in the School of Education (SOE). While its 10-month Master of Arts
in Teaching (MAT) program remains one-of-a-kind, the school is making
a bold effort to heighten its profile and appeal among prospective
students.
This is an important move observes Karen Hamlin ’75, the
new director for SOE, because the pool of institutions competing
for next year’s teachers is more crowded than ever. “At
this point, 75 percent of teacher licenses granted each year in
Oregon go to students graduating from MAT programs and 50 percent
of those come from private institutions. We used to be one of a
very few programs of this type in the region, but the number of
competitors has grown dramatically in the past five years.”
 SOE
has responded to this challenge by expanding the strategic focus
of its program. One group the school wants to reach more effectively
is non-traditional students. As SOE and other teaching programs
have discovered, the number of working professionals changing careers
continues to increase. “We see more and more applicants applying
for our program who do not fit the typical full-time student mold,”
says Hamlin.
| “Our
challenge isn’t to make a name for ourselves, but to
remind people that we’ve been doing teacher education
longer and better than anyone.” –
Charlie Bowles |
While the 10-month-long teaching program appeals to this cohort,
SOE is doing more to try and meet its unique work and lifestyle
needs. The school is in the process of developing what Hamlin calls
“Willamette MAT at Night.” The program will provide
evening courses for students juggling work and other full-time commitments.
“MAT at Night” will create a whole new option for non-traditional
students while maintaining the school’s high quality instruction.
“I think this program has great potential to bring a very
diverse element to our student body,” says Hamlin.
Another potential gold mine of MAT recruits that the school has
only begun to tap lies outside the Northwest among highly regarded
national liberal arts institutions that lack teaching programs.
“For
people who’ve gone to liberal arts colleges, they’re
very much looking at Willamette’s MAT program because it has
a liberal arts college at its core, and they like that type of approach,”
notes Charlie Bowles, the school’s new assistant director
of admissions and career services.
| 
Willamette's
School of Education has a strong word-of-mouth referral system
through alumni but is also looking for new ways to promote
the 10-month program to prospective students.
|
In the past few years, SOE has seen a jump in the number of applicants
with undergraduate degrees from top liberal arts institutions. Willamette’s
increasing national visibility, says Bowles, is paying dividends
for all of the University’s academic programs. He believes
that Willamette’s liberal arts community is a huge enticement
for students who enjoyed a similar environment as undergraduates.
“What we are trying to promote is that ‘community within
a community’ that comes from being a graduate school with
the backbone of a liberal arts institution.”
To get the word out about SOE’s growing opportunities, Hamlin
and Bowles are relying on the school’s most potent recruitment
tool – its alumni. As they point out, more than 90 percent
of MAT applicants hear about the school through word of mouth. Often
these referrals come from current teachers who are also MAT alumni.
“We have many working teachers in our alumni base who send
potential applicants our way,” says Bowles.
The current system of referral works well, but Hamlin and Bowles
want the process to become more structured. Through publications
and a newly updated web site, SOE is improving communication with
alumni to keep them better informed about the school’s mission
and goals. In the coming months, Willamette hopes to unveil a web-based
referral system that will improve the school’s ability to
track and manage referrals. In addition, SOE is adding new incentives,
like fee waivers, to ease the application process for referred students.
“I think the steps we are taking now will really help us to
streamline our recruitment process,” says Hamlin.
A lot of planning, organizing and heavy lifting must take place
before the ideas envisioned by Hamlin, Bowles and the other members
of the school become reality. But everyone is confident that a new
and improved SOE will mean that the school’s best days are
still ahead. As Bowles appropriately adds, “Our challenge
isn’t to make a name for ourselves, but to remind people that
we’ve been doing teacher education longer and better than
anyone.”
- Brad Millay ’97
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