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Saved in year one
Spent on desk sets and cabling
Carolina University's history has positioned the institution to become innovative and transformational within the nation's higher education sector. Although its roots go back over one hundred years, Carolina University is a modern American university that fills existing gaps in higher education.
Defying trends, the institute is setting all-time enrollment records with the help of advanced communications technology.
While other private colleges endure yet another year of sinking enrollment, Carolina University is attracting more students than ever before. The 118-year-old university attributes its growth to innovation, including communications technology.
College admissions have been on the decline for most of a decade, leading to the loss of many institutions of higher education. Carolina University couldn’t leave its future to fate. Declining enrollment was the antithesis of the university’s purpose to widen access to underserved populations. If fewer people earn degrees, they would miss out on a lifetime of greater earning potential and resilience to economic turbulence.
So the university bucked the trend. Just recruiting harder wasn’t enough. It added disciplines and graduate programs to appeal beyond its theological foundation. It enrolled a majority of its students in remote learning. It added eSports to its athletic program. In essence, Carolina University transformed itself into a modern university. That transition included innovation in student recruitment.
Terrill Gilley is the university’s Director of Educational Technology. “We’re an educational institution, so all technology is educational technology,” he explains, and the university has charged him with the Herculean task of bringing it up to date. First up: the phone system.
Today’s students expect to communicate with universities the same ways they connect with their friends,” Gilley says, “but we couldn’t provide that personalized touch.” The university had relied on a legacy Mitel phone system for years, but now it wasn’t making the grade. Staff needed to use text messaging and still keep their personal cell phone numbers private. They also needed mobility to work off campus. “Our modern university was trapped in twentieth century communications technology.”
Carolina University chose 8x8 Work, a cloud-native platform with integrated voice, video meetings, fax and team chat capabilities. 8x8 makes it easier for employees to work from anywhere on laptops or mobile devices. Just three weeks later, Carolina University went live with 8x8.
8x8’s flexibility enabled the kinds of changes Carolina University needed to make in its communications. And the precise control in 8x8’s cloud pricing model made it the right choice for the university’s budget.
“We're not a state school of 40,000 students with a huge budget. So, the dollars and the customization were really key for us,” Gilley says. “The expenses are controllable. We know this seat is costing us exactly this much per month.”
Getting rid of desk phones was a big change, but users embraced it and soon came to love how easy the 8x8 Work app is to use. With it they can work from anywhere on a moment’s notice.
Admissions immediately began communicating with students using SMS text messages for the first time. University staff soon discovered they can be more available to students, instead of being tethered to desk phones. Settings in 8x8 Work hold off calls during meetings or after hours.
In its first year with 8x8, Carolina University avoided $50,000 in expenses to renew Mitel and upgrade on-premises hardware to support it. That savings alone will pay for more than a decade of annual license fees.
8x8 Work sidestepped the expense of cabling offices in the university’s older facilities. Gilley’s team repurposed the old desk phones to another nonprofit to prevent the electronics from going to the landfill.
Just as Carolina University believes that reducing waste is good for the environment, they believe that nimble communications is good for recruiting. And the numbers prove it.
“We actually just had our highest enrollment yet,” Gilley says.“We just set a new record for fall admissions. And part of that is due to our partnership with 8x8.”
