With a low budget and the struggles of the Illinois economy, Eastern is continuing to market itself across the country.

Eastern incorporates many ways to recruit and obtain higher enrollments, along with putting itself out there for potential students. Those marketing strategies revolve around finding the best possible fits for incoming students.

Christy Kilgore, the assistant director of marketing and creative services, emphasized on the marketing strategy with creating connections with students. “Eastern is like your extended family and then your major is like your close family, brothers and sisters,” Kilgore said.

Even with the Illinois economic struggles, Eastern finds ways to utilize its marketing strategies to their best ability. As of now, Eastern has strict budget restrictions, however, and continues to find ways to market itself.

Eastern has to use its money wisely, especially considering the lack of funding, and with it, a lower budget means less resources.

“Having fewer resources makes you focus a lot more,” Kilgore said.

Kara Hadley-Shakya, the interim director of admissions, also had comments on how Eastern uses its money wisely.

“Every single dollar that we spend, we want to make sure we are using it to the best of our ability,” Hadley-Shakya said.

Along with the budget struggles, there are rumors that have been heard on campus revolving around Eastern remaining open for the rest of the academic year.

“I hear crazy rumors about Eastern closing down,” Kilgore said. “Campus is like a little small town.”

Kilgore said having to deal with the public perception of Eastern and dealing with the rumors as a whole has been a challenge as well.
A marketing strategy that is commonly used by Eastern is the involvement of admission counselors across the nation.

“All of our 50 states and territories are assigned to an admission counselor,” Hadley-Shakya said. “There are four full time admission counselors recruiting in Chicago.”

Eastern is able to primarily market itself across Illinois and manage to cover the United States.
Eastern has had struggles when it comes to the ratio of students enrolling to students graduating.

“We were actually up two percent enrollment from last year,” Hadley-Shakya said. “Our enrollment goal is to increase our enrollment two percent each year.”

By increasing enrollment yearly by two percent, Eastern’s enrollment will be balanced with incoming freshman and outgoing graduates. When the states economy bounces back, Eastern will then be able to market more alongside the hopeful increasing student enrollment.

Eastern is doing all it can to market and make the university look attractive through the tough economic struggles.

“We have some real strengths, we are an outstanding institution,” Hadley-Shakya said.

At the end of the day, Eastern will continue to thrive on as a home to thousands of students in the face of economic turmoil.

Adam Shay can be reached at 581-2812 or acshay@eiu.edu