Families don’t care what office sends the email. And they shouldn’t have to. Every outreach from a college should feel like one voice: clear, consistent, and focused on student success.
"It's not admissions, it's not orientation. It's Florida Atlantic." shared Nelson Barahona, Associate Director for New Student Transition & Family Engagement.
That philosophy has reshaped Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU) family engagement strategy. In a recent CampusESP webinar, we were joined by the FAU team including Nelson Barahona, Maura Flaschner, Joel Vander Horst, and Jordan DiPentima to share how they’ve broken down silos, aligned on a unified approach, and seen remarkable results.
Get the blueprint below (or click here to skip ahead to hear it from the panel):
Collaboration families can feel
After receiving well-timed, relevant communications from his own child’s college, FAU’s Vice President of Student Affairs asked a simple question: “Are we doing this?”
The answer revealed a gap. Communications to families were inconsistent, often dropped off after a student deposited, and varied by department. To fix it, leaders in Admissions and Orientation co-pitched CampusESP for Family Communication and Student Enrollment as a shared tool to deliver consistent, coordinated messaging from inquiry to graduation.
From there, FAU formed what they affectionately call the “B Team,” which includes a group of leaders across Admissions, Orientation, Student Success, Financial Aid, and more.
“We don’t think of Admissions as ending once a student deposits,” explained Barahona. “Our job isn’t done until they’re sitting in class”.
FAU’s team meets weekly to align on campaigns and uses an open Teams chat to quickly coordinate, even on individual family cases.
The impact? Families experience FAU as one institution, not a maze of departments. And students with families yield at 45%, compared to just 22% overall.
Summer: When most schools go quiet, FAU leans in
For many institutions, May to August is when communication goes silent. The FAU team does the opposite. Families receive consistent, coordinated messages about transcripts, orientation, and payment plans, resulting in open rates consistently above 55%.
“When families hear directly from us, they don’t have to rely on unofficial Facebook groups for information,” Maura Flaschner, AVP of Undergraduate Admissions and Student Success shared. “That transparency builds trust and action.”
It’s working. When FAU reminded families about registration labs, attendance tripled. Parents didn’t just read the updates, they nudged their students to act.
Orientation: From chaos to clarity
FAU also transformed orientation logistics by moving reservations, check-in, and communication into CampusESP.
“Families already trusted the platform,” Nelson explained. “Bringing orientation into it just made sense.”
The results were immediate:
4,112 orientation reservations in April alone
Check-ins as fast as one every 15 seconds
Over $439,000 in transactions processed (a 44x ROI)
The transformation was clear: confusion dropped, complaints fell, and families walked away confident their students were on track.
What you can learn from FAU
FAU’s blueprint isn’t about having more staff or bigger budgets — it’s about working differently. Their advice for schools starting out:
Start small. Pilot one campaign and scale from there.
Be a good partner. Build trust across departments and leave egos at the door.
Take chances. Innovation means experimenting, even on short timelines.
Align early. As Flaschner shared: “It’s what your leadership believes. If you view families as partners in student success, collaboration becomes the obvious path.”
The big lesson
FAU proves that when institutions commit to family engagement as a full-lifecycle strategy, the payoff is enormous: stronger yield, higher retention, and families who feel like true partners.
Or as Barahona summed it up: “Families notice when departments are aligned. They can feel the difference. And that’s what helps students succeed.”