The Murray State News

Issue date: 10/2/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Misty Hayes Faculty Scholar Constance Alexander addresses prospective Murray State students in Wrather Museum on Wednesday.

Recruitment efforts have stepped up since the 12x12 initiative was put in place, and high schools in Murray State's backyard are helping meet its goals.

In the fall of 2007, 1,467 of Murray State's 10,156 total students were from Calloway County alone. The backyard, which includes Calloway, Marshall, McCracken, Hickman, Fulton, Graves, Ballard and Carlisle counties, contributed 3,794 students.

Shawn Smee, director of the Office of Recruitment, is responsible for recruitment in those counties.

"With high schools in our backyard, we can go into classrooms, to student council meetings and lunchroom visits," he said. "We also have more opportunity to get our faculty into local classrooms talking to prospective students."

Smee, who took over as director of recruitment seven weeks ago, said a major recruiting point for local high schools is on-site admission visits.

"We just finished doing on-site admissions at Calloway County and Murray High," he said. "As long as students had the appropriate paperwork, they were admitted on the spot. Last Thursday we accepted 140 students."

The benefit to this type of admissions is that students will get accepted, get scholarship offers a few weeks later and are more likely to come here in the fall, Smee said

There are similar visits planned for the other backyard high schools.

Another new method Smee outlined for recruiting local high students is to invite student leaders to lunch with the Student Government Association President.

"We're trying to work with Kara Mantooth," he said. "She'll have lunch with these student leaders and talk to them about being involved in student government once they're in college. You've got to get creative."

Outside of the backyard, dessert receptions and college fairs are the main recruiting tools, he said.

"There aren't as many opportunities to do as much for say, a high school in Louisville," he said. "Here, we can run over to the high school and be there in 10 minutes."

Figures for the fall 2008 student body are available at the end of October.

Mia Walters can be reached at mia.walters@murraystate.

edu.

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