September 2008 Archives

A few weeks into our first full academic year as Missouri University of Science and Technology, we're able to see some signs of success that the name change was the right move.

While it's too early to tell what are the long-term benefits of the name change, we can see some first fruits of the strategy. Some worried that the name change would lead to declines in enrollment and student interest, but eight-plus months since the name change took effect, the opposite seems to have occurred.

Here are a few encouraging signs of success for Missouri S&T:

• The largest enrollment in 20 years, up to 6,355 students with a 4 percent increase over Fall 2007.
• A broader reach beyond the Midwest. This fall's freshman class comes from 34 states, up from 29 states in Fall 2007.
• A 41.5 percent increase in out-of-state inquiries -- to 4,977 in 2008 from 3,382 in 2007.
• A 14.2 percent increase in our academic pre-college summer programs -- to 1,308 in 2008 from 1,144 in 2007.
• A 5.6 percent increase in corporate recruiter interest, with a record 302 companies for this fall's Career Fair compared to 286 last fall.

Are these increases due solely to the name change? Certainly not. Our recruitment, marketing, branding and corporate relations efforts all played a vital role in our success. It's impossible to directly correlate all of these numbers to the name change efforts. But based on this data, one thing becomes apparent: the name change did not hurt our student recruitment or career opportunities efforts.

As to the long-term success of the name change, and the related branding and positioning, only time will tell.