Project Management Support
Meetings and Projects
To ensure ongoing collaboration and planning, the PDC Project Management (PM) team schedules and facilitates regular meetings — monthly, quarterly, biannually, or as needed — with PDC programs. The PM prepares the agenda, moderates each meetings, and ensures discussions remain action-focused to help programs stay on track with recruitment, marketing, and other items related to reaching a program's enrollment goals.
During check-in meetings, the team walks through key aspects of the prospective student funnel, including inquiry and applicant trends, marketing efforts (both paid and unpaid), and recruitment strategies. Meeting agendas are customized based on the services a program receives.
Check-in meetings also serve as a checkpoint for project timelines. The PM team reviews action items, tracks progress, and manages any new tasks that arise. Program staff can also use this time to ask questions and get the support they need.
Webinars and Videos
Webinars and videos play a key role in recruiting prospective students for PDC programs. They provide valuable insights and foster engagement and interest. Live webinars cover a variety of topics, such as program overviews, alumni stories, faculty spotlights, career outlooks, and scholarship opportunities. These sessions offer prospective students a comprehensive understanding of program benefits and outcomes. Videos serve a similar purpose but are usually shorter and focused on specific topics or information.
The PDC recruitment team outlines a webinar and video strategy that aligns with a program’s recruitment efforts. Then the PDC Project Management (PM) team manages all of the logistics for holding a live webinar or recording a video, including creating slides, writing scripts or interview questions, recording, editing, and posting the final videos.
Do you want help planning an upcoming webinar to recruit new students? The PM team can set up the pre-webinar logistics such as the Zoom session, Salesforce registration form to track registrants, and schedule email invitations to prospective students. We can also attend live to record the event and assist with editing and sending the recording to registrants after the event.
Please share all event details (date, time, and description) with the PM team at least four weeks in advance of the webinar. For more information, contact your assigned project manager and coordinator.
Visit the Professional Degrees and Certificates YouTube Channel to watch our recordings and videos.
Market Research
The PDC team provides market research to support strategic decision-making for new and existing PDC programs. By leveraging data-driven insights, we help departments and programs assess demand, understand competitive positioning, and evaluate career outcomes to ensure their programs align with industry and student needs.
Our market research services include:
- New Program Development Support: We assist departments considering new graduate programs by analyzing market demand, potential student interest, and employment trends to determine viability.
- Career Outlook and Outcomes Analysis: Using tools like Lightcast, we provide data on career trajectories, salary expectations, and industry demand to help programs understand how their graduates will be positioned in the workforce.
- Tuition and Competitive Analysis: We compare tuition structures and program features across peer institutions to help departments assess their program’s affordability and market competitiveness.
By combining institutional data with external labor market insights, our research helps ensure PDC programs are responsive to evolving market trends.
Reach out to the PDC Assistant Dean Alissa Oleck at alissa.oleck@wisc.edu to inquire about market research services. Requests typically take 2-3 weeks, more complex projects may take longer.
Pre/Post Surveys
Through the use of indirect assessment surveys, PDC works to ensure programs better understand their students' experience and background and how programs can make improvements to enhance student learning. Indirect assessment surveys provide student perception data on how the program met their expectations, whether they were satisfied with the outcome, whether they feel prepared for their career goals, and, in some cases, it can help your program understand the programmatic areas that students feel fell short.
Indirect assessment surveys are administered by DCS and the Graduate School. Learn more about each survey below.
Pre-Program Survey
Program Type: Capstones and degrees
Administered by: DCS
Purpose: Distributed as students enter a program to capture students’ career goals, familiarity with course learning objectives, and career aspirations.
Pre-surveys cover the following topics:
- Student experience
- Program interactions
- Student services
- Career advising/outcomes
- Marketing and recruitment
- Demographic information
DCS shares survey results with participating programs annually.
Post-Program (or Exit) Survey
Program Type: Capstones only
Administered by: DCS
Purpose: Distributed as students complete a capstone program to gauge students’ satisfaction with advising, coursework, and faculty, their next steps, and areas they believe the program can improve in.
Post-surveys cover topics such as:
- Student satisfaction
- Career advising/outcomes
- Program characteristics
- Demographic information
DCS shares survey results with participating programs annually.
Program Type: Degrees only
Administered by: Graduate School
Purpose: Each year, the Graduate School surveys students who are completing their degree to learn more regarding their experiences in our programs and with our campus.
Survey questions address the following topics:
- Program experience
- Campus engagement and climate
- Advising and mentoring
- Career planning
- Professional development
- Postgraduate plans
Access survey results on the Graduate School Data Webpage.
While these surveys are important tools for analyzing student perception, they cannot tell you how well faculty are doing, whether students are meeting course learning outcomes, and other direct measures. Thus, indirect surveys are not meant to be used as a faculty evaluation tool, or to measure student academic progress in their program.
What is shared for reporting?
Programs that opt-in to indirect assessment surveys receive data breakdowns for each of the survey questions in one document. It is important to note that reporting depends on sample size. If fewer than 5 students respond to a survey, a report will not be created. In the event this occurs, a report is created when the program has a large enough sample size.
Surveys are sent to students in the summer, fall and spring terms, and reports are shared with programs annually each fall with reports for the past academic year. Programs can share the survey results in their campus-level annual assessment reports.
Student Learning Assessment
The Office of the Provost is your primary resource for all things related to student learning assessment. You can find information on the following topics:
- Student learning outcomes
- Assessment plans
- Direct Evidence of Student Learning (DESL)
Check out the Student Learning Assessment website to learn more.
Student Testimonial Surveys
Looking for compelling student stories to enhance your marketing and recruitment efforts? The PM team can help build a student testimonial survey, making it easy to gather authentic insights directly from your students and alumni.
We provide a customizable survey that collects responses on key topics, including:
- Why a student chose your program
- How the program supported their goals
- The impact of the program on their career path
- And more!
Programs can share the survey with specific students or distribute it more widely to gather a diverse range of perspectives. The testimonials collected can be used in a variety of ways — webpages, social media posts, emails, and other marketing materials — to showcase the value of your program through real student experiences.
If you’ve already collected testimonials from students, consider submitting them for use in PDC marketing and recruitment materials. Please submit student testimonials via the PDC Program Page Change Form. In the "Optional Testimonial Section," upload the following:
- PDF of testimonial(s) from student or alumni
- Headshot or photo of student/alumni
- PDF of signed UW talent release form
Let us help you highlight the voices that make your program stand out!