“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”
That quote from Jack Welch, American business executive and writer, has stuck with Dr. Juan Alexander, associate vice president for enrollment management at Norfolk State University (NSU), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in Virginia.
Dr. Juan Alexander, associate vice president for enrollment management at Norfolk State University.
With that quote on his mind, Alexander jumped at the chance to collaborate with the Partnership for Education Advancement, a nonprofit that works with Minority Serving Institutions, including HBCUs, to find technological solutions to serve and advance their students.
In September 2021, NSU became one of six HBCUs selected to participate in an initiative called the HBCU Digital Transformation (HBCU Dx), which connected the schools with Slate, a customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Slate is a highly customizable software that automates time-consuming practices, improves communication, and de-siloes student information.
Salesforce.org, another CRM company, has found that the use of CRMs in postsecondary education increased student enrollment by 10%. James Runcie, CEO and co-founder of Ed Advancement, said he hopes Ed Advance and the HBCU Dx program shows how CRMs offer a sustainable way to improve HBCU enrollment and retention.
“A lot of these schools have been underfunded for many years,” said Runcie. Discriminatory funding has deprived HBCUs of roughly $12.8 billion in the last 23 years, according to a 2022 study by Hunt Institute, a nonprofit education research group.
