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Idea In Brief
Enrolment strategies stall when academic and administrative decisions remain disconnected
Pairing leaders in a dyad brings academic priorities, student demand, and operational constraints together before implementation trade-offs become barriers.
Effective dyads depend on genuine equity, explicit roles, and shared accountability
They give academic and administrative leaders joint responsibility for shaping recommendations and delivering decisions without displacing established academic governance.
Enrolment management requires ongoing decisions and adjustment
Dyads sustain momentum by monitoring results, aligning enrolment priorities with budget decisions and adapting approaches as student demand becomes clearer.
Many institutions invest considerable time, energy and resources in bringing people together, reviewing data, conducting analysis and engaging their communities to develop thoughtful, evidence-informed strategic enrolment management plans (SEM). Yet, when implementation begins, the momentum developed during the strategy process can slowly erode and translating plans into action falls short. In some institutions, this has happened more than once, with each unsuccessful attempt weakening the community’s confidence in the process and willingness to invest in it again.
The breakdown usually happens when academic priorities and operational constraints have to be reconciled. Questions about program mix, capacity, pathways, scheduling, supports, and financial viability typically span academic leadership, student-facing functions, and enabling areas such as IT, finance, space planning, timetabling, and analytics. Academic leaders are responsible for program direction, quality, and disciplinary priorities, while administrative leaders bring insight into student demand, coordinate the systems and services tied to enrolment, and manage operational and financial considerations. When ownership remains split, institutions can fall into parallel decision-making, academic leadership may have one view of the way forward and administrative leaders have a different perspective. Institutions have tried to address this by elevating enrolment through new executive roles or expanding the mandate of registrarial and student services leadership. While this has increased focus, it has not resolved the core issue. Implementation still depends on decisions that cut across academic, operational and financial domains. Making SEM stick requires bringing these important perspectives into a collaborative mechanism to ensure alignment gets built at every stage of the decision-making process.
A dyad offers a practical way for connecting. We have explored the value of dyad leadership in higher education before, particularly as institutions confront growing complexity and the limits of traditional operating models. In our experience, pairing academic and administrative leaders in a dyad helps institutions navigate the academic governance and operational trade-offs needed to deliver on complex, interconnected strategies. This exactly what SEM needs. Academic leaders ground decisions in academic priorities and navigate the pathways required for lasting change, while administrative leaders bring insight into student demand, operational feasibility and institutional sustainability.
A different way to think about SEM
SEM is often treated as a planning discipline. In practice, it is a test of whether institutions can make and carry through difficult decisions across academic and operational boundaries. What matters is whether institutions have a structure that holds shared ownership for the decisions needed to deliver SEM.
A dyad creates the structure required to enable joint accountability for academic and administrative leaders to moving strategy into action. Unlike a committee or working group, a dyad places shared responsibility with two leaders who have the authority, institutional reach and ongoing accountability to carry decisions through. It does not replace broader consultation or academic governance. Given that the difficult choices that need to be reconciled in SEM do not sit neatly within one part of the institution, they should not be owned in isolation.
Depending on the institution’s needs, that partnership may be permanent or time-bound, but it should be deliberate, visible, and empowered. From our experience delivering this in practice, three factors consistently matter to do this effectively:
- Equity must be real otherwise, the model defaults back to hierarchy
- Roles and decision rights need to be explicit and shared
- Early, visible progress helps build confidence and sustain momentum
It is important to caveat; equity does not necessarily mean identical authority over every decision. While academic governance retains responsibility for decisions within its mandate, the dyad creates equality in shaping advice, identifying trade-offs and carrying implementation, not necessarily equal authority over every formal approval.
What this looks like in practice
In practice, a dyad changes how SEM decisions are made, carried through, and reviewed. Three shifts are key:
1. Connect enrolment priorities to academic and operational choices
SEM becomes meaningful when academic priorities and enrolment strategies inform one another. Directions within academic disciplines help shape choices about program mix, capacity, pathways and modes of delivery. Enrolment evidence helps the institution understand student demand, the policy environment and the implications of different implementation choices. A dyad helps ensure that academic ambition, student demand, delivery constraints, and financial implications are considered together early rather than traded off later.
Example: An academic unit is exploring a new program in an emerging area of the discipline. Faculty are enthusiastic about the opportunity and believe it aligns with the future direction of the field. Through the dyad partnership, academic and administrative leaders assess student demand, program costs, impacts on existing enrolment, and operational requirements. The analysis suggests a standalone program could redirect students from related offerings and create scheduling challenges. Rather than proceeding immediately with a new program, the institution decided to test demand through a limited initial intake. The dyad ensures that this option is academically credible, operationally feasible and connected to broader enrolment objectives before it proceeds through governance.
2. Clarify where decisions get made
SEM stalls when ownership is diffused and decisions move between committees, planning tables, and leadership groups without a clear point of resolution. A dyad provides a decision anchor by bringing academic and administrative authority together to consider choices about growth, stabilization, portfolio, and student experience. It then uses existing governance forums to move those decisions into implementation, align timelines, escalate barriers, and sustain accountability across academic and administrative communities.
Example: During program review, projections show that a program is likely to miss its intake target for a third cycle. Academic leaders see strategic and disciplinary reasons to continue the offering, while administrative leaders identify growing financial and operational pressure. The dyad develops a coordinated recommendation by modelling three scenarios: continuing as is, redesigning the program with different delivery modes, or admitting students every other year. This gives the appropriate governance body a recommendation that has already tested the academic, student, financial and implementation implications, while preserving its decision-making authority.
3. Monitor results and adjust over time
SEM requires ongoing discipline to monitor progress, assess whether institutional objectives are being met, and respond as enrolment conditions change. This means establishing clear objectives and measures, reviewing results over time, stopping activities that are not delivering value, and testing new approaches where appropriate. A dyad brings academic and administrative perspectives together in this process, helping the institution adapt while recognizing that changes to academic programs, policies and delivery models may require longer-term planning and established governance processes.
Example: Aligning enrolment planning with the budget cycle can move key decisions earlier and strengthen the connection between enrolment priorities and resource allocation. As budget development begins, the dyad reviews enrolment performance and determines where to invest, scale back or test a different approach. It then revisits those choices as applications, acceptances and registrations become clearer, allowing the institution to adjust before plans and resources are locked in.
Why this matters now
Strategic enrolment management has always been intended to connect decisions across the student lifecycle, academic portfolio and institutional investment. Yet in many institutions, responsibility for those decisions remains distributed across academic and administrative structures that operate with different priorities, timelines, and forms of authority.
A dyad does not remove that complexity or replace established governance. It creates a formal point of connection through which academic and administrative leaders can develop integrated options, navigate decisions through the appropriate pathways, and maintain shared accountability for implementation. For institutions that have struggled to move SEM from planning to delivery, this represents more than a change in structure. It offers a different way of making enrolment strategy work.
Get in touch to discuss how stronger academic and administrative partnerships can turn your enrolment strategy into action.
Connect with Nathalie Mejia on LinkedIn.
Read Tessa Dehring and Melissa Padfield's earlier piece, 'Leading in pairs: Why dyad models are the future of higher education leadership', here.
