Submit your written policy proposal. It should be a complete, polished artifact containing all of the critical elements of the final product. It should reflect the incorporation of feedback gained thr

Running Head: MILESTONE THREE 1

Milestone Three

Deanna Buchanan

Southern New Hampshire University

Milestone Three

Internal and External Stakeholder

Universities rely on public funding, and they must account for activities to the government and broader society. Increasingly, it is a requirement for universities to show more extensive benefits with the value for money (Gonon & Maurer, 2012). Therefore, universities are accountable to their stakeholders. Stakeholders are actors who have an interest in an organization’s performance and who gain or lose from the activities of an organization. Stakeholders can directly or indirectly take part in performing an organization by influencing an organization’s objectives. In higher education, these stakeholders include university staff, students, customers, and partners. It is the responsibility of universities and colleges to meet the needs of various stakeholders. Often, universities seek external stakeholders when public funding decreases, forcing institutions to look for external funding from international and domestic sources (Gonon & Maurer, 2012). Thus, institutions end up having many stakeholders. Quality assurance audits and accreditation institutions consider stakeholder relations. Therefore, it is essential for quality assurance systems to include stakeholder relationships.

The admission policy plays an integral role in the success and performance of the university, which depends on the retention and completion outcomes. It is, therefore, essential to identify the stakeholders involved in crafting the policy. The internal stakeholders include faculty members, administrative and support staff. The faculty of business school will play an integral role in the crafting of this policy because the policy is for the admission of students in the business school (Seres et al. 2019). They will actively rely on the system during the admission process. The registrar of the university will help ensure that we align the policy with the overall goal and vision of the university (Gonon & Maurer, 2012). The school board will oversee the crafting of the admission policy. The external stakeholders will include government regulators; Ministry of Education to ensure that the policy follows the ministry’s guidelines. This will help in achieving adherence. Competitor private and public institutions will provide a framework for this policy. Their admission policies will help guide the crafting of the policy. Last, the federal government will fund the entire process and ensure the availability of all necessary resources to craft the policy. 

The stakeholder’s relations describe the existence of the institution. These relations are linked with the mission and future success of the institution. A stakeholder helps communicate the strategic plan. Stakeholders mapping identifies the target groups and pulls enough information about them (Kettunen, 2014).

Stakeholder power interest grid.

Higher Education Professional Perspective

According to professional perspectives, there are external impact perspectives that influence policy. These perspectives affect the decision of policymakers. External impact perspectives comprise strategic partners like alumni, media, and student’s union. The university will use media to invite students’ applications. The perspective also includes private people and communities who may be potential and core customers (Gonon & Maurer, 2012). Students seeking to join the university come from these communities and people. Therefore, the admission policy should target all these stakeholders. 

According to the professional P.N Saskena from Winthrop University, next year, the incoming freshman class's most significant issue is uncertainty about how onboarding and the first year will go, since orientations are online, and they are unsure about how courses will be offered during fall 2020 and spring 2021. Also Mr. Saskena advised another issue he foresee is the students making the transition from high school to university, without the benefit of being in the classroom and taking advantage of face-to-face interaction, and Inability to ‘connect’ with faculty, staff, administrators, and campus if we offer remote instruction in the fall. Winthrop University also plans to expand its enrollment next year. Mr. Saskena advised expanding is done in a variety of ways. He stated, they expand by marketing and admissions efforts to communicate the value of a Winthrop education, by hosting students and families as well as K-12 student groups on campus, since that is a significant selling point, by offering state-of-the-art programs and stackable credentials to increase our value proposition, and by expanding our ‘customer’ base through offering an adult completion program, non-credit classes and certificates, and through partnerships with school districts and companies. From the professional’s perspective, the current admission process is fair and equitable for all students. they make sure to benchmark against other institutions that are also known for being fair to all student groups. However, improving the process to make it better would help in the process. To enroll in the school for any program, students need to have completed high school for a degree course. Postgraduate students should come from an accredited university or college. The professional states, that the most important skill a student need to have good communication (written and oral) skills, quantitative skills, time management skills, and a positive outlook. Students with this skill have a higher chance of completing their program. When asked about Transfers it was reported the numbers or transfers have decreased recently, and they are working with partners to work through bottlenecks to increase the number of transfer students. The university does not have any diversity issues because its current admission process has embraced diversity. Mr Saskena stated, they are very proud of the diversity of their student population in the College of Business Administration. In fall 2018, 47% of the students were female, 46% were minorities, 42% were classified as low income, and 31% were first generation college students. Mr. Saskena stated, he finds that students take a while to adjust from high school to university life. And, for many of them, the first semester gets away from them which can have a huge impact on their ability to continue, and/or graduate with a good GPA and relevant experience. He would like to institute a mandatory six-week summer boot camp that helps students experience college life. Students would take for-credit courses that would give them a chance to acclimatize to college life. This is policy shift that the professional would address.

Action Plan

Stakeholder's response to this policy is important for the successful adoption and crafting of the policy. An action plan will help increase the response from both internal and external stakeholders. This policy seeks to improve the admission rate in the university while admitted applicants who qualify for a specific area of study through the fair and just process (Higher Education Standards Panel, 2018). The policy seeks to use diversity and inclusion to achieve it. The long-term results will be the successful completion of the study and the increased retention rate. This is beneficial for both the students and the university. To achieve this, the faculty seeks the support and response of all internal and external stakeholders. Using a team of experienced faculty team members will ensure the successful crafting and implementation of the policy. 

The university registrar, the media community, government agencies, and the Ministry of Education will form a team to oversee the crafting. Thus, the first step is forming a team comprising members from all stakeholders. This will help ensure the formulation of a policy that meets all requirements by state and federal regulations, the university mission and vision and the needs of all stakeholders. The next step is gaining all the resources. It will involve the faculty team in the admission of students in the school. The government agencies will provide funding and ensure the policy follows the legislations and regulations. The communities are potential customers or applicants. The crafting process will rely on funding from the government and other funding partners within the school (Higher Education Standards Panel, 2018). Communication will be through email and during a formal meeting. The intended completion time of the policy crafting is three months. After the implementation of this policy, there will be a yearly review and updating of the policy to keep it up-to-date.

Additional Resources 

Crafting and implementing this policy requires resources from both internal and external stakeholders. The additional resources from both internal and external stakeholders include more time for the crafting process. Stakeholders need to dedicate extra hours to complete the process within the targeted time (Kettunen, 2014). Also, there is a need for money for the crafting process. The institution needs to provide the institution guidebook, the terms and conditions, the code of practice manual, and previous admission policies. These resources will help stakeholders in decision making. It will also provide a reference point to ensure the policy follows all the stipulated guidelines.

Institutional Impacts

It is important to understand when students enroll and exit the institution without credentials when crafting policies and interventions meant to support them complete their degrees or certificate (Coley et al. 2016). This policy seeks to increase enrollment, completion, and retention. Implementing this policy, therefore, will affect institutional operations. The university will have a larger number of students to handle, more funding, more stakeholders, and the need for more interventions to retain students. An increase in enrolment means the number of students will increase in the faculty. Therefore, the faculty members will be tasked with admission, student orientation, need for more teaching staff and more staff to handle the students. This will lead to the need for more funding. The school administrator will oversee the successful admission of the students. The school will need to seek additional funding from the university, which comes from the federal government. Also, the funding will come from the increased number of students. The funding will help in the additional resources needed to cater for the additional students (Coley et al. 2016). 

Another impact is the increase in stakeholder responsibility. The community and private people partners will also increase with the increase in retention. These partners will also play a role in funding the institution. More student enrolment means a need for more policies and interventions that will support student retention and complete success. Therefore, the policymakers and decision-makers in the institution will be tasked with crafting and implementing these policies (Higher Education Standards Panel, 2018). The institution might need to hire additional personnel to meet the needs of increased enrolment. Also, it will need to incur additional costs in training staff in ways that foster students’ retention and completion. Therefore, the financing department will be tasked with ways of meeting these costs. To sum up, implementing this policy will affect some institutional operations, but an increase in students’ enrolment, retention and completion are beneficial for the institution. It will improve the institution's reputation and attract more stakeholders in the long-run.

References

Coley, C., Coley, T., & Lynch-Holmes, K. (2016). Retention and student success: Implementing strategies that make a difference. White Paper Series: Ellucian.

Gonon, P., & Maurer, M. (2012). Educational policy actors as stakeholders in the development of the collective skill system: The case of Switzerland. The political economy of collective skill formation, 126-148.

Higher Education Standards Panel. (2018). Improving retention, completion and success in higher education.

Kettunen, J. (2014). The stakeholder map in higher education. International Proceedings of Economics Development and Research, 78, 34.

Seres, L., Maric, M., Tumbas, P., & Pavlicevic, V. (2019, Nov). University Stakeholder Mapping. International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation. Doi: 10.21125/iceri.2019.2174.