CHALLENGE II: Strategic Planning

II.A. Response to concerns about projected enrollment growth and diversification of the revenue base and the retention of students:

A major goal of the strategic plan focuses on enrollment growth through the recruitment and retention of students.  Miller College is committed to recruiting students from various Community Colleges (CC) in southwest Michigan such as Kellogg CC, Grand Rapids CC, Kalamazoo Valley CC, Glen Oaks CC, Lansing CC, Jackson CC and Southwest Michigan College.  Kellogg Community College is the College's main feeder school. The College takes various actions to ensure this matriculation; we do admissions table set- ups at every Kellogg CC Campus during peak times every semester (these campuses include; the Main campus in Battle Creek, Eastern Academic Center in Albion, Grahl in Coldwater, and Fehsenfeld in Hastings). Additionally, the College does classroom presentations at Kellogg CC and provide counselors meetings to explain and answer questions about our programs.

II.B. The Enrollment Management Committee has identified the following  three-year plan to address these enrollment initiatives for Student Recruitment and Retention moving forward:

1. Offering additional  Miller College Weekend Courses for  the  Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Applied Science Business Program and a BAS General Studies Program  began in the summer of 2012.   The weekend courses for the BS or BAS program are designed to allow community members who work  full time jobs to have more options for completing  their bachelor’s degree by attending some all-day classes offered on Saturdays.
2. Maximizing Kellogg Community College Opportunities-Kellogg Community College (sharing the same campus with Miller College) had 14, 500 total unduplicated head count for the fall 2011. Of Miller College’s Fall 2011 enrollment of 367 students, approximately 81.2% attended KCC right before entering Miller College.  Other institutional data includes:

Although Miller College and KCC do not solely engage in a joint recruiting plan, both organizations actively participate in SWAHEN (South West Association of Higher Education Networks) which is a consortium of local colleges that works together to provide education fairs for local employers. Miller College does have an Enrollment Management Committee that continues to work on a "long-term” admissions strategy.

II.C. Clear interim measures to help gauge movement toward each goal:

1. Miller College is very intentional in its efforts to recruit, admit, and retain a diverse student body. The objective of the Miller College Admission Plan is to increase the total number of leads, prospects, applicants, and students at The Robert B. Miller College. The admission team will accomplish the task in accordance with the Strategic Plan Document, the Miller College Mission Statement, and the resources and personnel presently at Miller College. The Miller College Admissions Team continues to be visible and has been able to double its highest lead count. It has been in every regional community college (on multiple occasions), MACRAO event, transfer fair, and community event to which Miller College has been invited.

2. Miller College Enrollment-Actual to Date

3. Fall Enrollment Pattern 2005-2012

(Students and Semester Hours)

Enrollment, Credit Hours - Future Projected Enrollment with 2.5% Increase each semester

2009-2010 Actual and 2010-2011 through 2014-2015 Projected Enrollment.

Miller College Enrollment and Tuition Projections based on prior year enrollment

2.5% enrollment increase beginning 2013-2014 through 2014-2015: (Please see Executive Director of Finance)

5. Marketing

The College has spent the last few years refining the process for external communications with the communities it serves in regards to recruitment and information dissemination. It has expanded its media to now include:

•  A newly revised website (Spring 2012) that will be more user-friendly.
• Miller College has also taken a green approach by using mass mailings to targeted students. We no longer mail catalogs, but send post cards that have more targeted information about the institution. These mailings direct students toward one-on-one meetings with the College's advisors to obtain the information they need to make an informed decision about which college to attend. The College is no longer producing as many hard copies of catalogs, and has reduced that number to less than 50 internal copies.
• One of the reasons Miller College’s tuition increase could be held to just a single digit is that changing marketing strategies have saved money in printing and mailing costs.
• All Miller College catalogs are available on the Miller College website for the convenience of its students.
• One of the major revamps in our marketing, advertising, and public relations has been through the student-driven interactive college website.

 Evidence:

• Miller College Website
• Marketing Plan  (204 KB, PDF)

6. Planning to Address Issues    

In 2010 and 2011, The College met (Retreat), with all faculty, staff, Board of Trustees, and local stakeholders/funders to measure the progress of the Strategic Plan and to do a Strengths, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat (SWOT) Analysis. Clear interim measures to help gauge movement toward each goal were also identified in this discussion.     

II.D. Financial support for the attainment of the goals was evident in the discussion at the Board Retreat, since the Miller Foundation immediately invited staff members to the next Board of Trustees Meeting to talk about the plan for a new Miller College Masters in Nursing Program and potential funding from the Foundation to support this program.  The School of Nursing was identified as the School with the highest number of students and semester hours generated by the College (41% of total enrollment in the fall of 2011, +16% from fall 2010, 36.8% of total semester hours in the fall of 2011, +25.3% from fall 2010).

Evidence:

• Board Retreat August 19, 2011  (137 KB, PDF)

The presentation was well-received and the Miller Foundation unanimously supported the plan to move forward with the Masters in Nursing Program.  Financial support will be provided by the Miller Foundation.

II.E. Time and Attention

Follow-up sessions with the President’s Council and College Forum provides adequate time and attention to creating a planning process, and continuous focus on the strategies identified in the Retreat.  The inclusion of donors in the Strategic Planning discussions helps with the support of the long term plan for sustainability of the college to increase the asset base.

Response to:

II.F. G. H. The Miller College President has taken on the leadership of the Fund Development Committee to generate Individual/private gifts, corporate contributions, grants, an Endowment Fund, scholarships, etc. A President’s Dinner was successfully implemented May, 2012 for fund raising. On August 7, 2012 David Harris resigned as President of Miller College.  The College Board of Trustees was faced with a need for leadership change at the most inopportune time.  Dr. Paul R. Ohm, retired president of Miller College was asked to come out of retirement and lead the College through the 2012-13 academic year and until a new president was in place.

Additionally, the founding president of Miller College Dr. Art Angood, volunteered to come forward and work to continue the development of the College's fund development efforts.  President Emeritus Angood will work to complete, revise, and implement a fund development strategy for the College.  This will involve his meeting with the Fund Development Committee, along with President Ohm, and newly appointed Director for Institutional Advancement, Jenny Andrews.  Additional support has been received from the Binda Foundation to assist in the area of development.

Evidence

• Miller College Endowment/Scholarship Brochure (741 KB, PDF)

II.I. Succession plans

Dr. Paul Ohm was appointed President at the August 16, 2012  Board of Trustees Meeting. President Harris resigned as of August 7^th, 2012 to pursue a consulting opportunity. Dr. Ohm served as the College’s Vice President upon the development of the College and then later as President after Dr. Art Angood retired in January 2006.  Dr. Ohm has worked as a public school teacher, college faculty member and administrator; served as President of Kellogg Community College for 18 years and Belmont College in Ohio for eight years.  Dr. Ohm retired from Miller College in July 2009 but was asked to come back after the resignation of Dr. Harris. The College Board has asked Dr. Ohm to develop a Succession Plan and meet with it privately to review the document.  The Succession Plan is under development and will be available for confidential review by the visiting team.

II.J. Resource acquisition to support increased student enrollment in degree programs.

Sufficient Funding is available for programs. Fiscal resources sufficient to resolve annual operating deficits have been made available through the Miller Foundation and the Binda Foundation.

Through on-going tuition revenue, relationships with community foundations and local businesses, Miller College has successfully acquired the resources it projects and needs to sustain its activities and provide the educational services promised to students for the future.

Expense Management and Tuition Increases

The College is managing costs by placing a ceiling on expenses.  Each year, the College is monitoring the financial situation of the College and placing limits on all expense categories.  For fiscal year 2012-2013, the College will not increase the college expenses by more than 1%.  All faculty and staff provide input to our budget decision making process and have access to all budgetary categories except for individual salary information.

The College recently increased tuition by 4.8% annually to increase revenues.  Some state institutions are increasing tuition by 8% for next fall.  Although Miller College is a newer private institution, tuition is very competitive compared to in-state public institutions.   The tuition rate for 2012-2013 is $353 per credit hour and increases to $370 per credit hour in 2013-2014. 

Miller College is owned by the Miller Foundation, a family foundation located in Battle Creek, Michigan. In developing the College, the Miller Foundation was aware that deficits would exist until such time as the revenue met the expenses. A commitment to support the College during the development period was made by the Miller Foundation with assistance for student scholarships from the Binda Foundation.

Miller College strives to keep the Miller Foundation well aware of its progress. A representative of the Miller Foundation is a member of the Miller College Board of Trustees. Agendas and documents for Miller College board meetings are provided to the President of the Miller Foundation and shared with all Miller Foundation board members.

At least once each year a financial projection is prepared that presents the past year, current year, and two years into the future. The projection is reviewed with the Miller Foundation. Financial projections are reviewed with the Miller Foundation annually as part of the audit with Plante-Moran. The following information is provided to show budgets for 2010-2011, 2011-2012, and projections for 2012- 2013, 2013-2014 2014-2015: (See Executive Director of Finance)