Defining Enrollment Management: The Structural Frame

According to Bolman and Deal (1991), the structural frame refers to organizational structure, processes, and policiesthe skeleton upon which the enrollment management enterprise is built. The shape of an enrollment organization’s skeletal framework often determines, or at least influences, the organization’s method of operation. Enrollment strategies, student service delivery, staffing patterns, and even the culture itself are among the many facets of the operation affected by the structural frame. The father of the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement, W. Edwards Deming (1986), claimed that eighty percent of all customer dissatisfaction is caused by faulty structural systems, not employee behavior. Assuming Deming is correct, enrollment managers would be imprudent not to devote themselves to the continuous improvement of structural systems. Kemerer, Baldridge, and Green (1982) describe the roots and early evolutionary stages of enrollment management organizational structures in their book, Strategies for Effective Enrollment Management. According to the authors, enrollment management structures are often created to address an institutional problem or crisis, yet ironically, such structures tend to produce their own inherent problems. Many enrollment management organizations function