Terry Elam: New Vice Pres­i­dent of En­roll­ment

Have you no­ticed the in­creased num­ber of Pi­lot Pre­view Days? Well, ac­cord­ing to Terry Elam, Bethel’s new Vice Pres­i­dent of En­roll­ment, there is a strat­egy be­hind that.

Elam was born in Lebanon, Mo. He grew up in a min­istry-dri­ven fam­ily with his dad as a pas­tor. Dur­ing Elam’s high school years, he ded­i­cated his life to full-time Chris­t­ian ser­vice. This re­sulted in him be­com­ing a Chris­t­ian school teacher and ath­letic coach. Even­tu­ally, he was asked to fill the role of an el­e­men­tary prin­ci­pal; then, later on, high school prin­ci­pal, teacher and ath­letic coach. Elam and his fam­ily fol­lowed God’s call­ing in their lives to be a part of many dif­fer­ent schools across the coun­try, fill­ing many dif­fer­ent po­si­tions. They moved around from school to school for years un­til Elam was asked to fill the role of a pro­fes­sor at a Bible col­lege. For Elam, this was a gate­way into the world of higher ed­u­ca­tion. He went back to school to get a Ph.D., and even­tu­ally ended up as the Dean of Ad­mis­sions for un­der­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate stu­dents at Lib­erty Uni­ver­sity.  

Elam came to Bethel because he was looking to serve at a college that has a positive outlook on enrollment and was looking to change how they went about fulfilling their enrollment process. He saw a lot of optimism and desire in Bethel to reach the community for Christ and to change how to go about the admission process.  One of the things Elam noticed about Bethel was that the prospective student experience was centered around an older way of thinking about the admissions process. This focuses more on listening than participating. The newer generation of incoming students is wanting more participation than listening.   Therefore, there are more Pilot Preview Days. These specific days are being constructed to be a more interactive and engaging experience. The desired result is for prospective students to understand the culture and community at Bethel, and to make Bethel their first choice.   The more a prospective student is on campus, and the more they can interact, the greater the likelihood they choose Bethel. This is also why there will be a new virtual reality tour of campus accessible on the MyBethel website.   Elam has three main goals he wants to accomplish this year: 1. He would like to get to know students and hear different issues that they may have so that he can work to improve overall life at Bethel; 2. Elam wants to celebrate recent graduates of Bethel and show how they are doing and what they have accomplished in the world. He wants to recognize past students and the jobs they have been able to secure (through posters hung up all over campus); and, 3. Relating to his other goals, he wants to address those things (whether they be issues or alumni deserving recognition) and make changes accordingly.