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Thoughts on the Enrollment Crisis Townhall: Guest Essay #4

In this series, Turner Business is providing space for a series of Guest Essayists to provide their thoughts on the After Action Report townhall that was held on Friday, October 30, 2026, in the University Hall Auditorium. This townhall focused on the enrollment troubles that CSU has been experiencing over multiple consecutive semesters. I want to begin by quoting an earlier essay in this series: "My greatest concern, however, is that the University appears hesitant to make difficult decisions regarding students who are not making satisfactory academic progress or demonstrating a reasonable likelihood of successful completion. If we are to remain viable over the long term, I believe we must be willing to address this issue, even when doing so may be difficult in the short term." I completely agree with this statement.  I suspect there are a lot of individuals in the CSU administration who confuse equal opportunity with equal outcome. Not everyone is well suited to completin...
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Turner College Alum Chelsey Duggar Rising among the Ranks at the FDIC

November 2026 is a big month for Turner College graduate Chelsey Duggar , who   is  starting a new position as an Assistant Regional Director for the Kansas City Region at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Duggar earned a BBA in accounting from the Turner College in 2011. One year later she added at Turner College MBA. In 2018 she was issued a CPA license from the Missouri Board of Accountancy. Duggar began working for the FDIC in 2015 as a Financial Institution Examiner in Jackson, Mississippi, soon thereafter moving to the regional office in Missouri where she became a Senior Examiner for Large Financial Institutions. In 2023, she took the role of Senior Examination Specialist in the FDIC's Washington, D.C., headquarters. While there she rose to Chief of the Accounting Policy Section. " I’ve loved my work with the Accounting Policy Section in Washington, D.C., but I’m looking forward to this new role back in the Midwest," Duggar explained. Prior to enter...
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Thoughts on the Enrollment Crisis Townhall: Guest Essay #3

In this series, Turner Business is providing space for a series of Guest Essayists to provide their thoughts on the After Action Report townhall that was held on Friday, October 30, 2026, in the University Hall Auditorium. This townhall focused on the enrollment troubles that CSU has been experiencing over multiple consecutive semesters.      It was encouraging to see that the administration is carefully reviewing our retention and progression processes at CSU. We do have a number of systems that are outdated, overly complicated, or difficult for students to navigate. At times, faculty members find themselves personally guiding students through multiple, and sometimes conflicting, directions as they work to complete the steps necessary to begin classes. It was reassuring to see these concerns being acknowledged and addressed thoughtfully and thoroughly. It remains to be seen whether the proposed interventions will produce the desired results, but as a faculty member, I ...
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Thoughts on the Enrollment Crisis Townhall: Guest Essay #2

In this series, Turner Business is providing space for a series of Guest Essayists to provide their thoughts on the After Action Report townhall that was held on Friday, October 30, 2026, in the University Hall Auditorium. This townhall focused on the enrollment troubles that CSU has been experiencing over multiple consecutive semesters.      To begin, I would like to give credit to the CSU administration for saying that the townhall was not meant to place blame on anyone. However, t here is a difference between blaming and accepting responsibility.  I don't hear the administration taking responsibility for the polies and procedures that they created and now oversee. If the problems substantially lie within the institutional processes, then a mea culpa from the administration would be nice. With regard to the plan for leveraging Element451 to solve the systems and processes problems, i t is shocking that the University System of Georgia apparently does not use ben...
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Can Element451 Turn Around CSU's Worsening Enrollment Situation?

Attendees of CSU's enrollment townhall meeting held last Friday heard from several speakers that the institution will soon begin using Element451 to address its worsening enrollment situation. According to Google AI, Element451 is an AI-native Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and student engagement platform built specifically for higher education. It helps colleges, universities, and technical schools manage the entire student journey — from first marketing inquiry and admissions to enrollment, student success, and workforce education.  Element451 u ses specialized AI agents ("Bolt") to automate high-volume tasks, answer student questions via chat, SMS, email, and voice, read applications, and guide prospects. Element451 also (1) consolidates data from disparate systems — such as Student Information Systems (SIS) and Learning Management Systems (LMS) — into a single database, (2) replaces multiple legacy tools (like email builders, landing page creators, and eve...
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Turner College Money & Banking Students Visit Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

On Wednesday, Octo ber 28, 2026, Turner College economics professor Wen Shi took her Money and Banking students on an exciting educational field trip to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Joining in on the experience were Turner College finance professor Brett Cotten , Turner College Academic Operations Coordinator  Jennifer Stone , and Turner College IT Support Specialist  Nandor Domonkos .  As one of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta plays an important role in our nation's economy through assistance with monetary policy, banking supervision, economic research, and financial services. The visit provided students with a valuable opportunity to connect classroom concepts to real-world financial systems and gain a deeper understanding of how the Federal Reserve influences interest rates, inflation, and economic stability.  Experiences like these demonstrate the Turner College's commitment to experiential learning, giving stude...
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Thoughts on the Enrollment Crisis Townhall: Guest Essay #1

In this series, Turner Business is providing space for a series of Guest Essayists to provide their thoughts on the After Action Report townhall that was held on Friday, October 30, 2026, in the University Hall Auditorium. This townhall focused on the enrollment troubles that CSU has been experiencing over multiple consecutive semesters.       According to publicly available resources, Georgia’s public high school graduation rate increased from 85.4% for the Class of 2024 to 87.2% for the Class of 2025. This represents an absolute increase of 1.8 percentage points, which is equivalent to a 2.1% relative increase in the graduation rate. Over the corresponding available college enrollment comparison, beginning freshman enrollment across the University System of Georgia (USG) increased from 54,051 in Fall 2024 to 56,020 in Fall 2025, an absolute gain of 1,969 freshmen, or 3.6%. Thus, incoming freshman enrollment grew somewhat faster than the state graduation rate, althoug...
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