Beyond Borders: Caleb Bennett on Building Global Enrollment at East Tennessee State University

This episode is sponsored by Student Growth Partners, your trusted partner in helping universities grow their enrollments. If you enjoy this podcast, please like, subscribe, and share it with friends who might find it valuable. Your support helps us reach more listeners and continue bringing you expert insights from the world of higher education. Welcome to the latest episode of the Enrollment Clinic podcast. My guest today is Caleb Bennett. Caleb is the director of international enrollments at East Tennessee State University. Welcome, Caleb. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation. Awesome. It's good to have you here. I know we've talked a little bit about this and we have been both in the trenches and I know we've talked about a year, year and a half on the phone just talking about a certain agent there. So I think we're going to have a really interesting conversation just diving deep into the trenches and talking about some of the work that you've done there, some of the solutions that you and your team were able to come through and maybe some of the difficulties that you're kind of scratching your head and going, "What do we do now?" So I saw the latest results that you had posted and congratulations. You know, 5% rise in enrollment, 8% in undergraduate, international enrollment. Those are very good numbers. One of the questions that I had is I've seen a lot of these numbers come through from a lot of universities. And I was looking at some data from the student clearinghouse that said basically on average for fall 2024, everybody's up on average 1.8%. Do you think what you're experiencing is really just the tide taking all the boats up, lifting all the boats or is something that you guys work on strategically that you can pinpoint and say, "You know this is it." Yeah, well, that's a, I've not seen the clearinghouse on numbers, so that's fascinating. I think, I hope the answer's a little bit of both, honestly. I mean, I think that as things really begin to recover and again, the overall student numbers are growing across the country. Regardless of institution type, I think we're certainly benefiting from some of that tide rising. But also last three years, our institution has really invested a lot in organization and financially and just time and kind of re-evaluating and taking a new local international enrollment. And so I'd like to think that some of our changes, some of our partnerships, our scholarship changes have also really aided in that growth this fall and hopefully moving forward. Yeah, I know that you've been very proactive in your recruitment efforts. I mean, obviously you've had some recent trips right to India. But now I'm not sure where anywhere else that you've been at. Tell me a little bit about kind of the international student climate while you're in that country. What are you hearing? What are you seeing? Because a lot of the problems that students are running into, for example, in Vietnam, not necessarily much of Vietnam, but in India is long visa wait times, very limited slots. Tell me a little bit about some of the feedback that you've been receiving. Yeah, I mean, the feedback just, I mean, since 2021 really, I mean, is the interest in education abroad has really just grown and grown and grown as we've been out and about on the road. And several of the countries you mentioned, I mean, Nepal, Canada, China, I mean, the different places that I've been and our team has been, I mean, studying the United States seems to be more and more attractive. I mean, if you look at the changes that some countries are making, whether that's Canada, Australia, some of the restrictions that are tightening a little bit when the policies that are changing, the US is definitely an attractive option. The students are trying to be ahead of the game. I mean, you said the visa wait times are probably the biggest concern that were asked about that and then safety. So that's a question that I've heard and just on any increasing numbers of questions about safety about are you in a large city, you in a small town, how safe is your campus? So those are some of the bigger questions that I think were not as prevalent five years ago that are just increasing and students and families are more concerned about that or at least asking more about it. Yeah. But I think also how do university policies, how are we policies and timelines, how are we hoping with students getting visa interviews, not that we can directly help, but are we getting their I-20s in a timely manner? Are we in making an admission decisions quickly? I think that is something that students are interested about. They have different university choices who's going to be able to help them quickly so they can get in that long visa interview wait time. And it's something that we're looking at and trying to adjust to accommodate as best we can. Yeah, that question of safety was really interesting to me as well. I want to say maybe about a year, a year and a half ago, I was in Azerbaijan and went to a few of the schools. There's a chain of schools called Selt schools there. So I went there and just kind of introduced the university that I was working at the time. And all of the questions were about safety, which kind of made me really puzzled and I started asking them, why do you think safety is an issue, that much of an issue? It wasn't really, is it expensive, is it this, is it that, was the quality of life like whatever, it's safe, is it safe. So I'm wondering what it is, what image of the US, these students and parents have, that safety is their number one concern. I don't know, did you, were you able to kind of dive into it, ask or not, not deeply. I mean, the things that are mentioned are what they see on social media, what they see on the news. I mean, again, as you watch the news in the US, I mean, there's unfortunately a lot of negative publicity. I mean, we have some real challenges in this country and I think safety is one of them is in certain locations and certain policies and all of that. That's certainly important, but the worst is what is publicized and so that's what students and families are seeing and that's what they're facing a lot of other questions and decisions on. And so that's something that has been interesting and how to navigate back those conversations that are, say, these important, we don't want to dive in places, we also don't want to not push back a little bit and say, well, that doesn't describe all the US, that doesn't describe every single institution, every single city, and so hoping to reframe those conversations a little bit, but a while also acknowledging their importance. Yeah. And how do you answer that from an East Tennessee state standpoint, right? How do you answer that safety question? Yeah. And so I mean, one of the benefits of Johnson City's Tennessee, I mean, low cost of living, we're not in a large metropolitan area and so we kind of live in that mid-size town of 70, 1000 people, so there's still a lot going on. But all that's considered, it's a very safe region, very safe country, our very safe state region city. And it's something that, I mean, we have the statistics kind of back that up and our public safety. And again, it's just one of the benefits I think of a small mid-size regional public institution. And so not only getting outside of some of the city that may have the worst reputations, whether or not it's true, they at least have the worst reputations. I mean, in a smaller community that is relatively safe has definitely, you see the students and their families kind of perk up a little bit when talking about that. And so it's been an interesting thing to kind of talk through. Yeah. One interesting thing about, when I was thinking about this podcast and I was thinking about some of the guests we've had in the past is it's so easy to sell New York. It's so easy to sell LA. It's so easy to sell some of these big cities, Miami, where some of these universities are. But it's not as easy to sell Eastern Tennessee. Right? What are some of the advantages that students, international students, for example, have been able to see being there at Eastern Tennessee and saying, you know what? This is great. This is a great place to come because a lot of that also leads to word of mouth, right? A lot of students bring their friends. Well, tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, I think I mean, it's kind of the best and the worst kind of all at once there. Again, it's some give and take with what you read is described as safety. And again, I think the big city, the well-known names are well as students know and people are often familiar. They're more comfortable with what they know. And so they know New York. They probably know someone who's gone there before, maybe same with California or Florida. It's only the larger cities and the states. But with things that we really highlight here, I mean, the diversity across the state of Tennessee is incredible. You have mountains, you have big cities, you have just so many business businesses, again, from Memphis to Johnson City here on the other side of the state. There's just so much diversity in geography and in people and everything. But specifically here at East Tennessee, we are located in, I think the most beautiful area in the country and the Appalachian Mountains. It's really hard to beat. I'm not from here originally and I love this region and students seem to think so as well. And that and the low cost to living. Again, it was within the last five years. I mean, our area has been ranked in the top five in the country as far as the cost of living in this region and our communities are growing rapidly right now. Even from US citizens that are moving here because of the cost of living. And so that's attractive. And then I often quote a survey that we did a few years ago at ETSU. If you could describe a university in one word, what would you do? What would you call it? and students say home. Home is the most common thing that they say. And like, yeah, because-- That's what students feel when they're here. They may not have heard of jobs in city Tennessee before applying into ETSU, but once they're here, it's home. And that's true, I think of a student from West Tennessee, that's the same with a student from Nepal or China. Students feel that home away from home type of feel. And so, that's really what we talk about a lot. We talk about why Tennessee, why should I not go to New York City, or why should I not go to LA? Wherever else they may have heard about. I think Tennessee is a special place. - Yeah, you don't have to sell me on it. Full disclosure, I actually graduated from Newovel from grad standpoint. And I did work a little bit in Chattanooga, obviously it's a little bit on the other side, but I'm right with you. The Appalachian Mountains region is just so beautiful. And it's really kind of a hidden treasure, specifically if you're an international and you're coming over there. Now, I wanna switch gears a little bit. I was obviously doing some research. I read about Bucky's road trip. And I wanna hear about it. So, what was the idea, what were you trying to achieve with it? What was the outcome? It just sounded very interesting. So, yeah. - Well, so Bucky's road trip was something we really launched in 2020. When everything started closing down, I mean, we didn't have the same, I don't want it to domestic lens on. We didn't have the same access to high schools or community colleges or other places around our state and around our region. And so we developed a program called Bucky's Road Trip. And so we went on the road, and sitting and setting up and parking lots at different places to allow students to come to us. - So, Bucky is obviously the mascot, right? - Correct, yeah. So that's a fabulous question, 'cause we get asked about that a lot. So, Bucky and Ears are our school mascot. Bucky is the specific mascot. That's also often something we're talking with international students. Like, for non-nated English speakers, Bucky and Ears may not be a word that they know, but often students know pirate. And so, talking about a very similar word there. But yeah, Bucky's Road Trip. So each SU, we went out on the road, trying to allow me students where they were. Again, we couldn't go into high schools. Many students couldn't come visit campus, but we could go in to set up an outdoor, we went in the set up parking lots in different places to meet with students in a safe environment, a little out in the open. Really trying to meet students where they are, which I think is just part of the mission of our institution is, again, helping students, helping the people of this region. And helping students kind of realize their dreams and we wanted to go to students as best we could. So yeah, that was really, 2020-2011, when we rolled out the Bucky's Road Trip, kind of around the region. - And, you know, what do you think was the outcome of that, is that mostly to generate kind of media/content or really it worked as almost like a grassroots, you know, awareness and enrollments campaign? - Yeah, I think it really helped. I mean, the students and families that we met with, really seemed to appreciate being that we were willing to make those efforts, to be out there, to be willing to do more than a Zoom call, even if we just had a conversation in the parking lot, next to our van. And again, we're in safe places, at an outside certain restaurants and things that we'd arranged. But families really seem to appreciate being able to meet someone and have a face-to-face conversations that we're really challenging. I mean, through the pandemic and everything, I think we were one of the few institutions that we're out and about. Again, outside, we took a lot of precautions on that and we're safe as we could be. But, definitely there's more than a marketing. I think there was part of that. We tried to market it. We tried to make sure that people knew about it. But we're an institution that values that face-to-face interaction and really helping students one by one explore their opportunities. And Buggies Road Trip allowed us to do that in a way that was really challenging there for a couple of years. - Yeah, since we're on that topic of campaigns, and this is a very interesting creative campaign, what are some of the key types of marketing vehicles that you use at ETSU that are very productive for your team? - Yeah, so marketing, I mean, we do a lot of different things. I mean, it varies based on, if you're looking at domestic students, you're looking at international students, international markets, I mean, it changes. I mean, domestically, we do a lot from print to build boards. We've done partnerships with even pizza boxes and putting images, which I think was a really creative way to look at this, creative way to go about marketing and letting students see their opportunities. On the international side, we've done a yearbook, advertisements, graduation advertisements, and social media campaigns were about to start a digital marketing campaign looking at some of our programs and our business technology. And so how do we leverage some of that? We have partnerships across the globe that also help us push out advertisements, and again, marketing, I think in person is really important. And so that's why we travel where we're present in the markets that we want to recruit students from. I think that's really important. And for students and families to be able to see someone, not just a logo, not just a sign, but to be able to put that logo in that sign that they saw with a person, and be able to talk to that person in person when possible. And what is your strategy, for example, when you go into a new country that is not developed as just a new area you think I'm just going to throw Vietnam as a name there. Let's say, hey, Vietnam could be a great source for us. We've never done recruitment there. What's your strategy in terms of timing and kind of dollar amount that you attribute to that market before you say, it's effective or it's not effective, we got to pull out. Oh, man, that's a fabulous question. I mean, you picked a good market because that's something that would be accurate for Vietnam right now for us, something we're really looking at. And something that we're, I mean, everything you see and we've seen play out here, is it really takes three years to be able to really get a good gauge on, what is that return going to be? And so that's something that I'm tracking on my end. How much are we putting in and are trying to travel and our partnerships in marketing? Where are the dollar amounts that we can identify that are going towards these efforts? And then what does that enrollment look like? Where are students enrolling, scholarships, our partners, we're looking at all these things. But that three-year mark for us comes up next year. And so I'm putting the pieces together. I really haven't done a deep dive yet. Because again, now being in that third year, we're starting to see some of the traction. We're starting to see those applications following. We've started to see if you knew students on campus this year. And so I'm excited to see that. I think the investment is going to be a good one. But yeah, it's kind of trying to track all that as you go instead of getting to your three, say, and then trying to figure out what have I spent, what have I done? Trying to track that all along is something that I was important for us as we entered the Vietnamese market in 2022. Yeah, it's so interesting because that magic number three pops up. Anybody I ask, it's been, which is obviously the sweet spot there. Now, we've also talked a little bit about agents in the past. And I know that you work with agents as well. What do you think your overall experience has been working with agents? It's been a huge learning curve. I mean, we hear the institution. We're-- I don't know how long I can say this, but we're still relatively new to working with agents. I mean, it was them until 2021 when we really signed our first recruitment partner abroad. And so we've tried to be very intentional with how we do that. We never wanted to be in a place where we had 100 agents all across the globe. We really wanted to be a little bit more cautious and intentional and not just have agents that we didn't have relationships with that we didn't really invest in. Because I think it's unfortunate how many institutions-- it's just an investment for them. There's no relationship. They're really just hoping to get from the agent, not to give, and not to have a really good partnership. And so we've learned a lot. I mean, we've learned some things that don't work. We've learned how there's the different ways to work with different agents based on their model. Are they a small-- we've always called the mom and pop type company that they've got one office, they've got two offices at the country, kind of a small shop, or these large companies. The aggregators, you should say, or however you want to describe that. There's-- you work with different partners different ways. And I think that's something that we're still learning. I would love to say that we had to figure it out. We've learned a lot. I had to reevaluate how we partner, how often do you meet with a partner? How often do you visit in person? What does that investment look like? And again, we've learned a lot. Hopefully we'll perfect that soon. Yeah. So Caleb, I'm going to put you on the spot. What are one or two things that don't work? I think not-- no, not having a personal relationship with the company that is talking to this student is-- doesn't work. Again, I think that those relationships are so important. And so when you're having those conversations, I'm almost student. I'm talking to someone who they know someone who knows the institution. It's not my student or family, why would I trust that person? Same as an institution. How many of the layers do there need to be between the institution and the student? I think that's unnecessary and it makes it really hard for the institution to know the student and for the student to know the institution. There's a lot of challenges in that kind of model. If I were to kind of distill this, it would be aggregators may not be kind of the best way to go, right? Not always. I think there's challenges. I think there are challenges and I think the aggregators are still learning and still trying to figure out how they best work in the space. I think there's certainly a space for that. I think they can fill a need that can really help institutions and help smaller agencies and students and parents. I don't want to totally write that off. I think there's a lot of challenges there that makes it hard to partner and hard to know the students. I think relationships are important. At least for us, the ETSU relationship is really important and the aggregator model brings about some challenges to that. Do you have a limit, for example, in terms of we're only going to work with 10 recruiting agents or it doesn't matter just, hey, as long as you bring one student to us, you're good. We're going to keep you on the books. Great question. When we first started out, the staff on our team would laugh at me if they heard me speaking right now because we said, hey, we're going to go four or five agencies, really leaned in. We're about triple that number right now. I think we got 10 to 12 agents that we partner with, which seems like a huge jump from where we first started in 21. But I do think it's we still been trying to be very intentional with who we partner with and make sure that we have the capacity to support well. I think we've overstepped a couple of times, we're overreached and so we've had to step back a little bit and kind of make sure that we partner well because we don't want just quantity, we want quality, but also trying to figure out what works the best. Yeah, it's funny because of work in institutions where the list was over 100 and some of them had not been productive for like four years. They're just there all the time. You're willing out the reports and you're like 140 of them and you start cutting, cutting, you go down to 60. Then you go, yeah, but this agent sends maybe one or two students a year, why would we want to get cancel them out. But then I think you made a really good point that at the end of the day, you want to strike a balance between being able to have a personal relationship with them. Right? And also not dedicating all of your time to that one agent, right? Because there's so many things that you've got to cover in agents, this is just one of them. I'm just out of curiosity. So do you have a team or a person specifically working with the agents or is that something that you handle directly? So I've been pretty involved in it for the last couple of years. We do have an international group manager. He's pretty new to the team and really leads out on a lot of our agent relationships. And really, we're trying to drive all that towards him. I really like to manage the agent relationships. His new relationships come on board. But again, I was in that seat when we first started all this. And so I'm still kind of the main contact for some of our partners. And which I think is important. I think some of our longstanding partners, longstanding being through years are our partnerships that we really value. So yeah, we do have someone on our team who has not his only role working with our agents, but it's certainly a significant part. And we're kind of getting close to the end of this. But I had a couple of questions more on the on the programmatic side and on the message side. So when you're out there, when you're in fares or when you're whether it's international or domestic, what types of messages do you lead with? Do you lead with more kind of brand arching messages like ETSU is this? And that, or do you go with, hey, here are certain degrees that are very important to you as an audience, whether if you're talking to high school students, for example, or if you're talking to international students, like what's been working best for your team? Yeah, so I mean, it really depends on the setting. Again, if there are one-on-one conversations that we try to start out with, what they're looking for, and go more than programmatic route. Because I mean, East Tennessee State University, we don't have the same brand name that is some larger institutions have. And so that may not be the first conversation starter with the students. They're really trying to be like, hey, what are you interested in? But when talking about the larger groups, I always start out with some kind of introduction to the institution, to the region that kind of gives students a place marker on the map where they can kind of give a frame of reference to, okay, East Tennessee, here's a, here's what that is on the map. And again, that can be done in 30 seconds. Just giving some frame of reference, because we can talk about programs all day long within the day the students say, I don't know where that's at. I think that leaves so many questions unanswered. And so it's kind of a little bit of both. But not so much the name of the institution, I think, as much as where are we, what are students kind of placed that and then see how that connects with their academic interest, their career, long-term career goals, ultimately. Yeah. So last question for you, what are two or three countries that you think are going to be hot in the next one or two years specifically for you guys from a strategic standpoint? As I had the opportunity to visit India back in February with a group of other leaders from around the country, and we had an opportunity to visit with multiple different institutions. We got to meet with the Ministry of Education and really seeing the incredible growth that's going on in India. And I mean, it's very clear that there's not enough higher education institutions in the country to meet the demand that aligns with their new plan. And so there's students that are going to have to go abroad. And so I think that India is certainly a market and any institution that doesn't have a plan on how they're going to engage with India, whether it's, again, faculty exchange, student exchange, student mobility. I think for an institution not to have a plan that's unwise. And so that's something that we're working on specifically looking at India and then Vietnam's another one that's pretty high up on our list. And we're still, again, evaluating that three-year investment. But we're excited about the initial numbers and where things are headed. But those are the two that really jump out. I think there's some other interesting opportunities in Latin America too that we're still very early on our exploration. But India and Vietnam are up there. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you, Caleb. It was great to have you here. And hopefully we can do this again soon. Absolutely. And that makes it up to me.