Purdue’s enrollment management team wins Innovation Award

Purdue University’s 2017 Innovation Award from Eduventures sits proudly outside of Hovde Hall. (Purdue University photo) Download image

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University has received a 2017 Innovation Award for an admissions dashboard that dynamically displays progress toward reaching the university’s enrollment goals.

The award was given by the Eduventures Innovation Awards program, which recognizes organizations for achievements and improvements made through innovation.

In 2015, Purdue shifted from a laborious, time-intensive Excel-based program that monitored applications, admissions and enrollment deposits to one using Tableau, a data visualization platform, and became more productive in sharing data and making strategic admissions decisions. The goal was to increase transparency, show progress through the admission season, and provide comparisons to previous years, all in an accessible and attractive dashboard.

To develop the new dashboard, the enrollment team worked collaboratively with the Business Intelligence Competency Center and representatives from across the campus to maximize the power of the new tool, and to ensure the needs of everyone involved would be met. The data are now automatically updated weekly and users see multiple data points e.g. demography, counts, selectivity, yield and academic profile at a glance. Key stakeholders across campus learned quickly to use the dashboard with minimal training required.

Tableau was used because its on-demand transparency engendered a shared governance and responsibility for enrollment. The Tableau admissions dashboard was the first of several management dashboards now implemented, and more are in the pipeline for development.

“We are proud of the improvements and success that Tableau has contributed to Purdue’s enrollment and admissions processes,” said Debasish (Deba) Dutta, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity. “Piloting this tool was a challenge that has shown great reward and provided the university with a user-friendly platform that deans, faculty and others are able to use both efficiently and effectively.”

Pamela Horne, vice provost for enrollment management, played a key role in the innovation and implementation of the new dashboard. With over 40 years of experience in higher education, the last 11 at Purdue, Horne will retire at the end of June. Horne said, “Purdue’s success in achieving our enrollment goals is the result of hundreds of students, staff and faculty working together on the critical institutional goal of a right-sized, talented, diverse and successful student body.  I’m so proud to have provided leadership to these efforts and pleased that our team has been recognized nationally for one of our innovative strategies.”

“Pam’s efforts have been instrumental to Purdue and the enrollment management team,” said Dutta. “We appreciate what she has done for the university and wish her a retirement full of happiness.” 

Writer: Torrie Ward, ward121@purdue.edu 

Sources: Mitch Warren, (765)494-1776, mitchw@purdue.edu

Debasish (Deba) Dutta, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity