Enrollment management and strategic planning: Resolving a classic tension in higher education

Enrollment management in higher education is an important tool to operationalize strategic planning. The ever present danger, however, is that short-term concerns will dominate enrollment management decisions and in turn postpone attainment of strategic planning objectives. This article describes three models of enrollment management and explains how each is supposed to be incorporated into strategic planning. It uses classical growth theory from economics to explicate the dilemma of long-run and short-run objectives in conflict and develops an integrated model for strategic planning and enrollment management. Finally, some ways in which this analysis might apply to other nonprofit institutions are suggested.     

An analysis of the type I error in the one sample Student t-test

In the one-sample Student t-test, the occurrence of a type-I error is dependent on the estimates of the mean and standard deviation for a fixed sample size, n. The statistic can achieve significance either by the sample mean being too different from the hypothesized mean or by the sample standard deviation being too small. The critical region is partitioned to determine the characteristics of samples in the critical region, assuming the null hypothesis is true. As might be conjectured from the use of the t-statistic, mis-estimation of the mean is shown to be the predominant characteristic of samples in the critical region for sample sizes larger than 20 and significance level greater than 0.01. Underestimation of the variance, unless accompanied by a misestimation of the mean, is a far less frequent characteristic of critical region samples.     

Tables of confidence limits on the tail area of the normal distribution

Tables are given of confidence limits on tail areas, γ, of the normal distribution, where γ = P{Y ≥ L}, and where L is a given number, and Y is normally distributed with unknown mean, μ, and unknown variance, σ².     

Panel discussion by journal editors

The smooth PL quantile estimator is proposed and the analog of Bahadur-Kiefer type process is constructed based on the PL estimator and the smooth PL quantile estimator when the data are subject to censorship. Pointwise and uniform strong limit theorems for this process are established, The theorems are sharp and give the exact convergent rates of Bahadur type representation for the smooth PL quantile estimator.     

A Unified Approach To The Myerson Value And The Position Value

We reconsider the Myerson value and the position value for communication situations. In case the underlying game is a unanimity game, we show that each of these values can be computed using the inclusion--exclusion principle. Linearity of both values permits us to calculate them without needing the dividends of the induced games (graph-restricted game and link game). The expression of these dividends is only derived in the existing literature for special communication situations. Moreover, the associated inclusion--exclusion decomposability property depends on what we have called the graph allocation rule. This rule is the relative degree (relative indicator) for the position value (Myerson value).     

End of life care and reactions to death in African-American and white family caregivers of relatives with Alzheimer's disease

Family caregivers for relatives with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) often experience significant stress-related problems in mental and physical health. Patients with AD often survive for protracted periods of time, placing an extensive burden of care on the caregiver prior to the patient's death. The present study addresses ethnic differences in the experience of AD caregivers around the time of their loved one's death, including life-sustaining treatment decisions and reactions to death. The results showed that, in our sample, more patients died in their homes than has been reported for deaths in the United States. African-American and White caregivers differed substantially in their reports of end of life care and subjective reactions to the death. Compared with White caregivers, African-American caregivers were less likely to make a decision to withhold treatment at the time of death, less likely to have their relative die in a nursing home, and reported less acceptance of the relative's death and greater perceived loss. Results suggest that death after AD caregiving deserves further study, and that ethnic differences in end of life care and bereavement may be of particular importance.     

Effects of a stage-based alcohol preventive intervention for inner-city youth

The purpose of this study was to examine first year outcomes of an alcohol preventive intervention within inner-city middle schools. Subjects consisted of 650 sixth grade students from one neighborhood inner-city school (n = 262) and one bused school (n = 388). At posttest, chi-square analyses showed that significantly fewer neighborhood intervention students initiated alcohol use, used alcohol during the past seven-day and thirty-day periods, drank heavily during the past thirty days, and drank over any period of time, compared to control students (p's < .05). Significant group x prior alcohol consequences interaction effects were found for bused students, showing those with past alcohol consequences who received the intervention had less intentions to use alcohol and less frequent use of alcohol (p's < .05). These results suggest that a brief, stage-based preventive intervention may result in significant reductions in alcohol initiation and consumption among some inner-city youth.     

A neighbourhood-based classifier for landsat data

A classifier is developed which uses information from all pixels in a neighbourhood to classify the pixel at the center of the neighbourhood. It is not a smoother in that it tries to recognize boundaries. and it makes explieite use of the relative positions of pixels in the neighbourhood. It is based on a geometric probability model for the distribution of the classes in the plane. The neighbourhood-based classifier is shown to outperform linear discriminant analysis on some LANDSAT data.     

Uses of Probabilistic Exposure Models in Ecological Risk Assessments of Contaminated Sites

Food web models have two uses in assessments of environmental contaminants. First, they are used to determine whether remediation is needed by estimating exposure of end-point species and subsequent effects. Second, they are used to establish cleanup goals by estimating concentrations of contaminants in ambient media that will not cause significant effects. This paper demonstrates how achievement of these goals can be enhanced by the use of stochastic food web models. The models simulate the dynamics of PCBs and mercury in the food webs of mink and great blue herons. All parameters of the models are treated as having knowledge uncertainty, due to imperfect knowledge of the actual parameter values for the site, chemicals, and species of interest. This uncertainty is an indicator of the potential value of additional measurements. In addition, those parameters that are responsible for variance among individual organisms are assigned stochastic uncertainty. This uncertainty indicates the range of body burdens that are expected when the end-point species are monitored. These two types of uncertainty are separately accounted for in Monte Carlo simulations of the models. Preliminary monitoring results indicate that the models give reasonably good estimates of heron egg and nestling body burdens and of variance among individuals.