Recruiting students
STUART ALLEN (allen@iago.uncg.edu)
Fri, 1 Nov 1996 10:48:40 EST
The Recruitment of Students
The loss of business and economics majors has forced many Economics
Departments to downsize over the past five years and to continue to
be under the cost cutting scalpel of Business School Deans. The
threats to the survival and growth of economics departments appear
to be at an all time high.
At UNC-Greensboro, the number of majors is
going to become more important for funding Departments and Schools at
the university level. There are political initiatives at the state
level to make it more =93seamless=94 for students (with two year
associate degrees) to transfer from community colleges to
state-supported universities. Recruiting majors from our principle
classes is going to be more difficult as the number of students we
service decreases.
It seems necessary that Department Heads must more
aggressively market the economics major to undergraduate students.
At UNC-Greensboro, we have become even more aggressive in marketing
our program. I know that many departments are involved in similar
efforts. I hope this list is helpful.
1. We have a three-fold 8.5 x 11 brochure entitled, =93Why Major in
Economics at UNCG?=94 This brochure lists careers, talks about what
economists do, the importance of statistical skills, the prospects for
internships (often part-time employment) through the Business School,
the steps students should take to look for a job during their last two
years, our degrees, our courses and our MA program. I will send this
brochure out to anyone who sends me their address.
2. We have a twenty page handbook for majors that is updated each
year. This handbook provides the student with information about our BA
degree, our BS degree and our BS degree with a concentration in financial
economics.
3. The financial economics concentration (new in 1994-95) allows a
student to substitute three economics electives with three finance
electives and requires a second statistics class. Our goal is to have
five to ten majors graduate each year in this degree program and
highlight their successes in the job market to future students.
4. Flyers about elective economics courses are sent to other majors
each semester that are attractive to specific groups of students in
areas such as international, environment and health.
5. We are encouraging students to take one more economics course
and work their way towards an eighteen hour minor (three classes beyond
the micro, macro and statistics courses required for business students tha=
t
are taught by the department).
6. We use flyers to market our BA degree to second degree students
who want to earn a second degree in (30 to 36 hours) rather than the two y=
ears
required for a BS degree in another business school major that
requires all of the prerequisite business courses.
7. Letters of congratulations are sent out to every
student in micro and macro principles and statistics (our service
courses) who received an A or a B in these classes. The letter
includes the average GPA in each class so that a B student (and
possibly their parents or significant other) realizes that an A or
even a B in a class where the average GPA (for all of the classes in
the particular course) was a 2.1 is a nice accomplishment. This
effort has been worthwhile in terms of comments received from students
and by our advising center.
8. Statistics students who are earning a
good grade are encouraged to sign up for the second statistics course
during registration because statistical skills sell in the job market.
Taking the course is one good way for a student to distinguish
themselves from many other BS students in the job market. This course
also is fertile ground for recruiting students into our MA program.
9. A one-page flyer that lists corporations and job titles of former
undergraduate economic majors is being updated. This requires more
contact with former majors so a letter is being sent to alumni asking
for their help to provide information about their successes so that we
can recruit more majors.
10. Our home page (http://www.uncg.edu/~econdept/home.html)
provides information about our programs, faculty, and other interesting we=
b
sites. It also has links to twelve job services on the net which we have
advertised to students in the business school.
11. Our Economics Club is less active
than clubs at other schools. One student called himself a member of
FEW (Future Economists of the World). How appropriate.
Stu Allen
Economics Department
UNC-Greensboro
Greensboro, NC 27412
allen@iago.uncg.edu
Stuart Allen 910-334-5463
allen@iago.uncg.edu