Spotlight On: Jayson Boyers, President, Rosemont College

Spotlight On: Jayson Boyers, President, Rosemont College

2022-07-15T07:28:58-04:00May 16th, 2022|Education, Philadelphia, Spotlight On|

Jayson Boyers3 min read May 2022 In an interview with Invest:, President of Rosemont College Jayson Boyers spoke about the college’s provision of free mental health services to all their students in an effort to both raise well-being and combat any declines in student performance. Though institutions across the country struggle in attendance and student performance, Rosemont has found creative ways to transcend many of these challenges with their enrollment, recently achieving their highest first year class in the last 10 years.

In the past year, what have been some major milestones for Rosemont College?

In fall of 2021, we rebuilt our team and were able to recruit our largest first-year class in a decade. We’re very proud of that. Over the last year, we have reconstituted our adult education and have signed partnerships to provide online education with the Federal Academic Alliance, which exclusively serves the two-million individual federal workforce. For a small college, getting that relationship was a big deal for us and has led to other national relationships. We have a national relationship signed with National FOP along with some corporate relationships that we’ve signed on to in different sectors like healthcare and business services. We call our corporate program Rosemont Momentum and that’s a big initiative to help diversify our revenue stream. We have committed to and are in the process of redoing our Mayfield dorm, our second oldest building. We had a 90% occupancy rate, the highest the college has had in a decade, and we’ve seen many students excited about being back.

Where have you seen some of the greatest shifts in what students expect of their college experience?

Regarding student expectations, they’re still trying to figure out what they expect. What we’ve done is implement what we call the “whole person philosophy,” which is free mental health services to help students cope with stress and re-engage them in the community. Any of our students, regardless of age, can access our mental health counseling center free of charge. The better we can equip our students with coping skills, the more successful we can position them to be. Our recent class, the largest class that we had in over a decade, was an opportunity to really focus on retention and retain them at 91% from fall to spring. Focusing on socialization was a very important aspect of this effort as well as support services.

How does student activity today compare to 2019?

From an enrollment perspective, we fortunately are doing much better than we were pre-pandemic. Part of that is because we’re really focused on our mission and who we were. We’ve narrowed our marketing through the channels of communication to increase enrollment. That has helped us develop an enrollment strategy that is paying dividends for us. As a Catholic institution, we are grounded in purpose and ethical behavior. So for us, those are two common themes regardless of what field you’re in and that’s been a winning combination as we remerge into a global economy. 

What have been the impacts of the HESAA Program?

This program is an example of how to lead with purpose and mission. Coming back from the pandemic we couldn’t hire to the level of serving all of our students’ needs. We needed to increase our bandwidth. Higher education also needed leaders from different aspects to support students moving forward. Our provost came up with a great program to help students become leaders in all the different functions of higher education. Before funding, we asked students to give us 15 hours of work a week. These students get hands-on experience and work in all different functions of the college. This increases our ability to serve our students and really meet their needs while giving these students in the program hands-on experience to graduate debt free. It has made a huge difference with our students, giving them a bridge and a new perspective.

What are some of the strategies being implemented to ensure that overall attendance costs are lowering?

We have one of the lowest tuition board rates in the Greater Philadelphia area, and I would compare us as one of the most affordable private colleges you will find across the U.S. One of the things we have done is look at our financial aid strategies. We are focusing on financial literacy with students and letting them know of their qualifications for aid. Financial literacy is key to a student’s success. We also want to make sure our students are lowering their lending. We’ve been data-driven in getting to students earlier before they struggle and making sure that the students have a clear idea all the way through of where they’re at and how far they are from graduation. We’re ranked No. 7 nationally on social mobility, which is a result of these strategies. All of this is about educating the students on the journey and not just the degree. 

For the coming three to five years, what is your outlook for Philadelphia’s higher education sector?

With institutions being very clear about their impact and who they need to be to make their vision reality is most important. We’re celebrating 100 years this year. As long as we’re clear about who we are and who we best serve, we will find our students. You don’t attract what you want; you attract who you are. If you don’t like the results, it’s time to look inward and decide where you want to go. 

For more information, visit:

https://www.rosemont.edu/

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