December 5, 2010

Small College Goes Big in Research for Recruiting

A Small University Embraces a Big-Business Formula for Recruiting 1

Patrick Murphy-Racey for The Chronicle

Cindy Skaruppa, vice president for enrollment management and student services at Lincoln Memorial U., helped run an admissions experiment there that tested 22 strategies for attracting more applicants.

Enlarge Image
close A Small University Embraces a Big-Business Formula for Recruiting 1

Patrick Murphy-Racey for The Chronicle

Cindy Skaruppa, vice president for enrollment management and student services at Lincoln Memorial U., helped run an admissions experiment there that tested 22 strategies for attracting more applicants.

By Eric Hoover

Lincoln Memorial University is small, but its leaders have big plans. Located in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the private institution opened the state's first college of osteopathic medicine in 2007. Last year the university established a law school in nearby Knoxville. Pete DeBusk, chairman of the Board of Trustees, has described his hope of making Lincoln Memorial "a little Duke or a little Vanderbilt."

To raise its profile, the university also set a familiar