Abstract:

San Diego State University established a government-funded STEM campus in Tbilisi Georgia in 2014. This project is intended to improve human capital in the Georgian labor force by increasing the number of qualified scientists and professionals for the companies operating in Georgia, contributing to economic growth, and enhancing employment in companies requiring market-driven skills. SDSU approached this project in partnership with Ilia State University, Tbilisi State University, and Georgian Technical University – the three premier public universities in Georgia – to provide Bachelor’s degrees in the country of Georgia. Using the facilities of these three universities, SDSU-Georgia provides STEM education to train an advanced workforce to meet the growing needs of Georgia.

Demand for STEM education declined significantly since Georgian independence in 1991, while the demand for the non-STEM subjects (such as international relations, marketing, business, law, etc.) has grown over the years. When SDSU started its operations in 2014, an initial estimation of demand for STEM subjects among the graduating class of a typical public high school was less than ten percent. Ninety percent of the kids opted for non-STEM subjects. The high demand for non-STEM subjects is typical for the FSU republics in the post-Soviet era.

To promote STEM education, SDSU employed a rigorous STEM education awareness campaign coupled with a comprehensive recruitment strategy. The three pillars of the recruitment strategy developed by SDSU were:
1) Identifying and signing memoranda of understanding (MOU's) with public and private Feeder Schools (mostly private schools);
2) Creation of a STEM Database for Georgia which can then be used for CRM activities to have continuous communication with prospective students,
3) Early application and early recruitment of Georgian students.

Since Georgia has a unified university entrance exam with the central placement of students into higher education institutions, recruitment activities of most universities were limited to just advertisements. SDSU’s innovative early application and early requirement strategy and the “one-day STEM Academies” prove to be very effective. As a result of the work SDSU has conducted throughout Georgia, awareness of STEM has grown significantly. This was due to an effective community engagement campaign, which fostered several mechanisms: school visits, media relations campaigns, and conducting the one-day STEM Academies.

In five cohorts (since 2015-16 academic year), SDSU recruited close to 780 students to its programs. Every cohort had the highest scorers on the Georgian national exams. Currently, students study at the Georgia campus in six-degree programs: B.S. Computer Engineering; B.S. Electrical Engineering; B.S. Chemistry/Biochemistry; B.S. Computer Sciences, B.S. Civil Engineering; and B.S. Construction Engineering. SDSU Georgia graduated its first cohort of 55 students in 2019 with the total graduates exceeding 400 in June 2022.

The paper presents the innovative recruitment strategy designed by SDSU in Georgia to allow for early application and early recruitment of students to STEM programs in a country with a central university entrance exam with central placement. The statistics from the recruitment of five cohorts using the early application/early recruitment campaigns are also presented along with the experiences and the challenges faced in early recruitment processes.

Keywords:

San Diego State University, SDSU, STEM, Georgia, Recruitment, Outreach, Awareness.