Tarleton State University believed in the power of family engagement early. Here’s where they are now.
Kei Bermea and Lathes Towns from Tarleton State University holding up their ESP MVP award!
CampusESP has come a long way since it was founded: 50 employees,450+ customers, over 5 millions family users every year.
One thing that’s been a constant throughout CampusESP’s growth? Having Tarleton State University as a customer.
Since their first year of having CampusESP, Tarleton has also come a long way. Case in point: they increased their family user base by 10x and FERPA connections in their portal by over 8x. As they’ve expanded, they’ve introduced more creative content to support their families, which has played a part in decreasing their phone calls from families by 95%!
So let’s take it back to customer #1 and look at how they’ve expanded their reach and created engaging content to reach goals over the years.
Tarleton predicted the power of families engagement
Kei Bermea and Lathes Towns pose with Leslie Gale and Tess Jenkins from the CampusESP team (center) during a campus visit. (We adore Lathes’ purple hard hat!)
When Tarleton joined CampusESP in 2015, few institutions were talking seriously about family engagement. But Tarleton saw what was coming: parents and families would soon become a driving force in enrollment and retention.
“I knew that parents wanted to be involved, but not intrusive – that was my favorite go-to word back then to help the university understand how important parents were and how much we needed to start valuing them,” said Lathes Towns, Transition and Family Relations Director at Tarleton.
Lathes was right — 72% of prospective families expect weekly communication, and 77% of current families want the same, a 7% increase from last year.
From the start, their goals were clear: communicate better, reduce call volume, and build a stronger connection with families. CampusESP provided the all-in-one platform to make it happen and the personalized support to help Tarleton take the leap as the first university to partner.
“A big selling point was that CampusESP would provide as much of the content and support services as possible,” said Becky Gray, former CIO at Tarleton.
Building trust through communication
A few years later, Tarleton grew their department and brought on Kei Bermea, who is currently their Assistant Director of Student Involvement and Family Relations. Bermea hit the ground running by incorporating new ideas in the portal to keep families informed and help them feel more involved with the university. One unique initiative, coined “Texan Talks,” offers virtual events that let families connect with campus leadership and ask questions. Tarleton has created over 15 announcements about Texan Talks, which translates to over 160,000 emails delivered to families.
When the COVID pandemic hit, CampusESP became the go-to place for families to stay updated on all things related to how Tarleton was navigating the pandemic. When things were unpredictable, families continued to build trust with the institution. Tarleton’s campaign focused on providing COVID updates received 38,000 total impressions from families!
“In the beginning, when fear and anxiety was really high, our parents had the groundwork to express themselves and really feel like somebody was listening to them,” said Bermea. “They could see a face with the name.”
Tarleton modernizes FERPA and strengthens retention
Before CampusESP, Tarleton’s FERPA process ran on paper and frustration. Parents were violating FERPA by using their student’s credentials to log in just to find answers, a clear sign that the system wasn’t working for anyone.
“FERPA Management was really vital for us as a university because we didn't have one set place for parents to access information,” said Towns. “We were receiving so many phone calls from parents and had to look in multiple places to get the information we needed before we could even talk to them.”
CampusESP’s FERPA Management tool, built directly into the family portal, changed that. Families can now see approved academic and financial information securely, all without burdening staff or risking compliance.
Since then, Tarleton has seen a positive impact on retention when families receive updates on their student’s progress:
CampusESP conducted a study with Tarleton and found that student retention rates are 9% higher among students with more engaged parents.
The number of Tarleton families who are receiving academic and financial updates continues to rise each year – since their first year with CampusESP over 8,000 FERPA connections have been made.
And the phone calls from families? They went down – drastically.
“We used to receive 5 to 10 calls a day,” said Towns. “Our parent call volume has gone down around 95%, and now we’re only getting a few phone calls from parents per week.”
Driving parents to a reliable family portal (NOT Facebook)
Tarleton is taking a bold but necessary step: phasing out its Facebook page for parents and driving all communication through the Tarleton Parent and Family Experience, their CampusESP-powered portal.
The results speak for themselves. In their first year, about 1,500 families joined the portal. Today, that number has surpassed 15,600, marking 10× growth in their family user base.
“We're phasing out Facebook for our parents and driving parents to the portal instead because that's a place where we have more control,” said Towns.
It’s a good move for Tarleton, considering 78% of families find a portal for families valuable, only 48% value Facebook groups — a gap that’s widened as families seek more reliable, centralized communication.
By promoting the portal at Orientation each year, Tarleton ensures new families start with a trusted source for every update, deadline, and announcement.
Tarleton’s story doesn’t end here.
A decade later, their partnership with CampusESP continues to grow and evolve.
👉 Read where they are today: A decade of partnership, purpose, and promise.