Virginia Theological Seminary streamlines
processes, enhances experience for students.

Virginia Theological Seminary struggled with cumbersome manual enrollment
and admissions processes, unable to provide a completely modern experience
for students or staff. Once the team considered the ease of use, customizability,
and robust set of features available through Blackbaud, their decision to
upgrade to cloud-based solutions was clear.

With Blackbaud’s education management solutions—which include enrollment
management, student information management, learning management, and
billing management—the Seminary now manages its entire enrollment and
admissions process online, allowing staff to process applications more efficiently and remotely, while also greatly simplifying and improving the application experience for students.

Director of Admissions and Student Housing Derek Greten-Harrison
explained that when he first joined the staff in 2017, the Seminary
asked students to mail in applications and relied heavily on manual
processes that added unnecessary time and steps to enrolling students.
“Blackbaud’s education management solutions allowed us to streamline
our admissions processes and deliver a much better overall experience,”
said Greten-Harrison. “To complete the application process used to take
upwards of a month. Now, it can be completed within a week if need be.”

A More Intuitive, User-Friendly System

Blackbaud Student Information System™ enables institutions to increase
efficiency and keep students engaged with a single, accurate source
of data and information that’s used for everything from schedules
and grades to course requests and attendance history. As the main
administrator working in the solution, VTS Registrar Rachel Holm said
it’s a much more intuitive and user-friendly system when compared to
the Seminary’s previous system, which was not cloud-based.

“The degree audit functionality and progress tracking has been
really helpful,” said Holm, who joined the staff in 2012. “Students have
more ownership and autonomy over their degree completion.
The conversations we have with them are more intentional and
efficient as a result.”

The Seminary leverages the solution’s capabilities to create a robust
intranet for students, faculty, and staff. Previously, directories would
quickly become out of date, so the staff effort to assemble it was almost
wasted. Now, it’s a much different story. “We created a full student
and faculty directory that automatically populates from within the
system, and users can edit their profiles versus having a staff member
manage it,” Holm said. Likewise, calendar features are more user-friendly.
For example, intranet users can easily export the academic calendar
themselves, instead of having to ask staff for the file.

A Truly Connected Campus

Blackbaud’s education management solutions empowered the team to
streamline processes, saving them time while equipping them with the
tools needed to be more flexible and move faster. “Billing, reporting,
and list building have all been made simple. Now I can confidently build
out advanced lists and share with users directly or simply provide them
access to self-serve,” Holm said.

Using Blackbaud Enrollment Management System™, Greten-Harrison
explained the Seminary has gained a competitive advantage.

“The checklist tool helps guide our admissions process, application,
and interviews cycle. Bringing our application process online and
streamlining the steps has been a game-changer.”

As the Seminary continues to power its mission forward, Blackbaud’s
education management solutions will lay the foundation for helping
it achieve a truly connected campus with streamlined processes.

“Our technology now reflects the high quality of the entire experience
we provide to our students,” Greten-Harrison said