Development of a student ambassador program

The need for colleges to explore alternative methods of increasing enrollment provides new opportunities and challenges in the quest to attract students. These challenges and opportunities can be addressed with the development of a Student Ambassador Program. This work presents the creation of an ambassador program consisting of current and former students who reach out to local high schools, career seminars, and industry related venues in order to both increase awareness of the program while also answering questions and being a point of contact for potential students. The implementation of the program involves a targeted recruitment strategy, coupled with training sessions for the potential ambassadors. Next, the program has performed benchmarking and research studies against other ambassador programs in order to target key strengths, and has also adopted the Gaps Model of Service Quality, which provides critical insight into what the students’ expectations are and how the program can meet them. Several literature reviews were also referenced in order to get a perspective of ambassadors’ experiences, career development needs, and prospective employment opportunities. Finally, the relationships made through the program are invaluable to all parties involved. The ambassadors get valuable personal enrichment and community outreach experience, the potential students gain valuable insight into the program and a point of contact to resolve any issues, and the school gets a needed exposure in the community and a pool of new student