Failure Was the Best Lesson Ever

In 1998, I was tasked by an Associate Dean as part of my #doctoral #education to investigate and produce a #graduate student #enrollment program #assessment with the goal of answering two questions: 

1. What is the #marketplace for students in a non-PhD masters program? 

2. What steps could be effectively taken to increase enrollment numbers with a stable financial aid/scholarship budget?

My initial findings, after presenting the report to the #dean, showed the#market was unusually strong for this #professional program. 

*** Next, we shared the results with #faculty members and things didn't go so well; in fact, abysmal was the word I used. 

First, as a relative neophyte, I was unaware and I did not foresee the faculty's concerns: 

1. Was it ethical to bring in students if the market for graduates was too low? 

2. Would we be doing irrevocable #financial harm by beefing up enrollment?

I suggested we pivot to expand the research to talk with hiring directors (employers) and a double the set of alumni interviewed going back 5 to 10 more years.

===> The additional research further proved the excellent marketplace for graduates (and not just the students) and we learned that there was an untapped opportunity for the employers to pay for the training and education.

Here's what I recall of the result: 

The faculty appreciated the amendment to the study and the dean was satisfied there was evidence to support her intuition: increasing the attendance could justify keeping and adding instructors and faculty and for the careful expansion of the program. 

Lessons Learned: Although we could have avoided the drama if the faculty were engaged early on in the #researchdesign, another lesson learned by this former student: by failing and then reevaluating the approach, the utility of the exercise improved significantly as a result.