Profile: Kimberly Tritton
After working within the International Recruitment office at the University of Kent for several years, travelling to over 15 countries, managing our recruitment activities in over 10 countries including the US and Canada, meeting with numerous students, parents, school counsellors, partner colleges and universities and last but not least our alumni, I recognised, appreciated and wanted to bring all of these groups together to inform, direct and connect Kent students past, present and future.
Together with senior management in the International Recruitment, Partnership and Development offices and the Vice Chancellor and Pro Vice Chancellors office, we envisioned and development a new role which would bring all three arms of the university together along with our academic departments, enrolment services, with the support and funding from the executive group.
The New Role would see the University of Kent base a member of its Recruitment, Partnership and Development offices in the US, our first overseas member of staff. With this role we would be able to visit far more cities, states, provinces and regions in the US and Canada and engage further with students, schools, alumni and partner universities and employers in the US and Canada. The three departments would be able to share knowledge, funding and networks.
In February 2017, I moved over to the US and in the next year I spent 6 months travelling across the US and 8 weeks in Canada travelling back to the UK for the remainder of the year to update, inform and explore new areas and activities.
I was able to meet in person with far more of our prospective students than ever before, including hosting a range of application workshops, networking evenings, welcome dinners, and skype with those in cities we weren’t able to visit. Attended over 40 high school, college and university fairs. Hosted a range of alumni events, as well as taking part in events organised by our alumni chapters such as the Kent Gives Back events in Washington DC and Chicago and met one on one with our alumni across the US and Canada. I was also privileged to attend and present at a number of conference on Further and Higher education, student mobility and global education.
In the first year of the role we saw an increase of just over 26% in student registrations from the US and more than 30% in applications from both the US and Canada. Already this year we can see significant increases in the number of undergraduate application from the US and an increase in the number of offers and acceptances from Canada.
Over the spring and summer we will be attending 35 exhibitions, higher education conferences, and school and college fairs and networking events in the US and Canada compared to 24 the year before, including the East Coast, West Coast, Mid-West, Pacific North West, and the Southern states. So far this year we have been able to spend more time with schools across New England, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Illinois and will be visiting New Orleans, Charleston, Kansas, Denver, Birmingham for the first time this year.
We would like to invite you all to follow our travels and if you are in any of the cities we are visiting to come along to the events and reconnect and assist us by sharing your memories of Kent. Click the link to see where we will be.
https://www.kent.ac.uk/alumni/pdf/travel-schedules.pdf
We will be exploring the transfer and short term study markets through discussions with two and four year colleges, high school summer programmes and through the expansion of our postgraduate and undergraduate summer school provisions at Kent.
We will be looking at new and increasing hubs of alumni activity including seeking and appointing Alumni Ambassadors across the US both within and additionally to our existing alumni chapters and seeking new and distinctive way to engage with, build on and celebrate our alumni networks.
Given the success of the use of Skype appointments with applicants in the last year, we will also look to expand our engagement with Alumni through skype and also to connecting our current and prospective students with our Alumni Ambassadors through Skype.
We will also be employing the assistance of our current North American student body by matching a number of the new incoming students with existing and outgoing students.
We will continue working with high school and two year colleges across the US in the expansion and development of Kent’s recognition of the diverse education offering in the US. We will be looking to update our US schools database and would welcome any assistance from our Alumni.
In Canada we are working with CAST, the Chinese Artist Society of Toronto on a visit and performances by Kent Music as well as expanding our engagement with Alumni through our newest chapter.
We are also exploring and expanding our activity in the recruitment for professionally accredited programmes guiding and assisting Kent School of Architecture and Kent School of Pharmacy in seeking recognition, formal accreditation pathways and building industry networks and contacts.
We welcome any of your thoughts, ideas, networks or links in order to further spread the word about the University of Kent but also are happy to help you in any way we can, so feel free to contact us at:
Development Office
The Registry
University of Kent
Canterbury
Kent CT2 7NZ
E: alumni@kent.ac.uk [1]
E: giving@kent.ac.uk [2]
T: 01227 824346
Or:
k.tritton@kent.ac.uk.