Velocity Consulting: The Prairie School — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Velocity Consulting: The Prairie School

Name: Sarah Bedore
Major: Accounting and Management
Hometown: Tinley Park, IL
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: SURE
Funding: SURE

Name: James Oren
Major: Psychology
Hometown: Algonquin, IL
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: SURE
Funding: SURE

Name: Miranda Van De Loo
Major: Public Relations and Communications
Hometown: Menominee Falls, WI
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: SURE
Funding: SURE

Abstract

The Prairie School is a private school seeking to enhance its enrollment. A 10 student team, involving the fields of education, geographic information systems, finance, accounting, economics, marketing, and strategy was engaged through Velocity Consulting to suggest ways in which they might enhance their programming, marketing, and financial operations.

How and to what extent can The Prairie School increase enrollment and retain students from the surrounding community? What are the factors that influence the private school selection process? Our research, utilizing secondary data collected from competitors, customers, and potential customers, included field work and surveys (with scale development) that help the school to understand its customer base, determine educational goals, and locate new sources of potential customers.

The data suggests specific zip codes as particularly under-served relative to their needs, key opportunities across disciplines for development, and pricing metrics which may be useful to compete in the modern world. While our findings are specific to The Prairie School, this research process could be replicated for other schools facing similar challenges and wishing to modernize their processes through an interdisciplinary focus.

Poster file