About Navigate Higher Ed
Former college president and enrollment management expert Dr. Vernell Bennett created Navigate Higher Ed, LLC (NHE) to provide postsecondary institutions with enrollment management guidance, both fundamental and cutting-edge. NHE utilizes admissions and retention best practices that she devised and implemented when holding senior executive roles at three different institutions over the past 29 years and that saw remarkable gains through her vision, leadership, collaboration, and execution.
With the enrollment cliff upon us or looming on the horizon (depending upon the region), institutions must become intentional about their strategies to recruit, retain, and graduate students if they are to maintain, sustain, or thrive in the 21st century. When focusing on improving enrollment, recruitment as well as retention must be addressed.
NHE bridges such gaps by developing methods that inspire prospective students and their families to inquire, apply, and enroll—while also keeping the eye on the prize of helping current students to graduate. When formulating enrollment plans, NHE also does a deep dive into the given institution’s strengths and weaknesses, analyzes its data, and incorporates the strategic plan, mission, vision, values, and other institutional priorities. No two plans are the same. Each plan is tailor-made for the client based on its characteristics and proven techniques.
Other consulting services includes: panel representation, strategic planning, relationship-building on and off campus to support student success and institutional advancement, establishing corporate partnerships to offset the budget and support student success, and building recruitment pipelines within K-12 populations and youth-serving organizations.
Are you ready to Navigate your institution to the next level?
Recruitment Expertise
• Comprehensive recruitment plan• Staff hiring and training • Automating office processes• Enrollment marketing and publications• Admissions websites • Admissions website hubs• Social media campaigns• Recruitment pipelines• Rolling registration• Incorporating the campus • Prospect clubs • Counselor/teacher/superintendent relations
Retention Expertise
• Developing intentional retention strategies• Elevating advising • Establishing support systems campuswide• Implementing advising/degree audit software• Establishing learning communities• Pop-up registration• Rolling registration• Incorporating the campus into strategies • Corporate scholarships and internships• Establishing learning communities• Summer Bridge
About the Owner and Lead Consultant
In 29-plus years in higher education, Dr. Vernell Bennett has held executive administrative roles in both the Academic Affairs and Student Affairs sectors. She rose through the ranks from instructor to tenured professor, mid-level administrator to vice president, and, most recently, to college president. She has also served in interim executive capacities and led multiple campus committees. Said another way, she has served on every administrative level in higher education, culminating in the role of president. Those experiences have served her well in building relationships on and off campus to develop enrollment management and student success strategies.
Dr. Bennett served as the 13th president of LeMoyne-Owen College (LOC), the nation’s fifth oldest Historically Black College or University. She led LOC through a cultural, economic, and campus climate rebirth and collaborated hand in glove with the board of trustees in the turnaround process.
Within her first six months as president, her administration resolved a Third Monitoring Report (Standard 13.4 Control of Finances) from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges accrediting board—with no recommendations. That speedy resolution prevented the formal reprimand of the institution being placed on probation. LOC simultaneously prepared for its 10-year reaccreditation; it was reaffirmed through 2033, also with no findings.
In two-and-a-half years as president, Dr. Bennett orchestrated with her administration a renaissance that dramatically increased everything from new student enrollment and retention to scholarships and fundraising. She also reduced institutional debt, raised the college’s brand and increased its profile, and expanded the college’s physical footprint though facilities and land donations. Because of the aforementioned efforts and more, the Memphis Business Journal included Dr. Bennett in its “Power 100” and “Super Women in Business” lists during both years of her presidency.
Dr. Bennett has decades of experience in enrollment management as a college president, vice president for student affairs, and assistant vice president for student affairs at a private liberal arts HBCU, a public land grant HBCU, and a public PWI. In each instance, enrollment management was her direct report.
The numbers speak for themselves. LOC’s new student enrollment increased 49% between her first and second year as president, according to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. During her final year, LOC received more applications for fall 2023 than falls 2020-22 combined. Dr. Bennett also initiated corporate partnerships to increase the scholarship budget by $1.3M and expanded the dual enrollment population by creating long-term pipelines for recruitment.
LOC’s retention rates were at a historical decline when Dr. Bennett arrived. She developed an “intentional retention” mindset on campus to improve retention rates. Retention strategies were developed using student departure data, financial aid data, and campus constituency feedback. Dr. Bennett instituted an Office of Student Success and Retention and restructured the advising process with a focus on first- and second-year students—who historically represented the majority of LOC’s attrition. During her second year, the retention rate increased by 9%.
As vice president for student affairs at Delta State University, within six months of the president adding Admissions to Dr. Bennett’s portfolio, inquiries surged 56%, applications soared 23%, admits shot up 121, and Spotlight Day prospect attendance ballooned from 57 to 1,300 from the previous academic year. Dr. Bennett also started corporate partnerships to underwrite student scholarships and boosted the dual enrollment population.
At Kentucky State University, Dr. Bennett launched an in-state, traveling-college-fair, mobile recruitment initiative, The Thorobred Express, and utilized administration, faculty, staff, students and alumni in recruitment efforts. It was created because the campus needed to see how everyone has a vital role in recruitment. The result was a noticeable increase in in-state enrollment. Dr. Bennett also facilitated a partnership between KSU and the Kentucky state government for state employees to matriculate at a discounted rate partially subsidized by the state.