Who Owns Your City? Enrollment, Retention, and Community Impact at Scale

Every institution is asking: how do we recruit more students and keep the ones we have? At UC, we added a bigger question: who owns our city? By breaking silos between recruitment, retention, and community partnerships, we turned belonging into a growth strategy. This session shows how—and challenges you to rethink your city’s role in enrollment and student success.

Committee Group: Group I: Admissions and Enrollment Management

First Learning Outcome: Break Silos – Learn strategies to unify recruitment, retention, and community engagement into one integrated student success system. 

Second Learning Outcome: Own the City – Identify practical tactics for building citywide partnerships (schools, employers, civic leaders) that drive persistence and equity.

Third Learning Outcome: Apply the Lens – Develop an “own your city” framework to reimagine your office’s role in boosting enrollment, retention, and community impact.

Core Competency: Collaborative Decision-Making

Proficiency: Enrollment Management Proficiencies

Presenter(s): 

DeRecco Lynch University of Cincinnati

Tara Warden University of Cincinnati