The University of Puerto Rico, Central Administration has created a new guide for the implementation of Certification #33 of the Governing Board (2022-2023) where all institutions of the UPR system have to implement it. The University of Puerto Rico in Aguadilla already constituted an institutional committee to work with the recruitment of students in the different academic programs. The Department of Education and Physical Education is part of this committee. According to this new guide we already have one enrolled in our department for the academic year 2023-2024. Although we are working with the creation of a new recruitment plan, the current recruitment plan for 2020-2021 & 2021-2022 establishes the following goals as it serves to attract more diverse and academic talented students: To focus on college bound high school students, transfers and reclassification as well as other majors seek teaching licenses. The face-to–face strategies consist of open house, school visits, expos, and career fairs. Recruitment events provide a forum of interchange include activities with our alumni association and university organizations.
We continue working with the creation of an online presence through our social media website, a virtual open house, virtual catalogues, QR videos directed through university channels, where we actively target a larger geographical base. Additionally, we include PowerPoint, brochures, flyers, and banners which can help generate greater and broader interest to a diverse audience. These goals would diversify the candidate pool by disseminating information to a broader audience through more direct varied virtual channels. Extending our offerings to online courses further reaches students from outside our region to event that can include off island candidates. Baseline and progress data are now available through statistics gleaned from the Department Dashboard files. Working together with the Office of Planning and Institutional Studies (OPEI), we can track the student enrollment, race, ethnicity, and retention rates by gender and from year to year.
Recruitment Strategies
- Involve teachers from all academic programs in the development of recruitment activities.
- Share information in the schools of the towns bordering our institution.
- Participate in the cultural activities of the bordering towns of our area.
- Visit the public squares of our area in the cultural activities that take place.
- Email campaign with the leads of the activities that were carried out either ours or Central Administration to send them a virtual card of our institution.
- Make phone calls and send correspondence to students who participated in the open house but did not enroll in our institution.