A little reminder never hurt. That’s the idea behind the Calling All Aggies campaign. Established in spring 2007, Calling All Aggies is a campuswide initiative to enhance student retention and graduation success.
“Calling All Aggies is in simplest terms a phone calling campaign, but in reality, it goes well beyond just calling students,” Associate Director of Admissions Nathan Cheesman says. “This is a program that utilizes the personal touch that faculty and staff at the university can have to help students with the business of staying in college.”
Calling All Aggies is designed to catch registration holds and small errors that may have prevented students from enrolling for the upcoming semester. The initiative allows university personnel to set up advising meetings or just remind students that they have yet to register.
During the spring 2025 campaign, 52 Calling All Aggies volunteers made more than 4,500 calls to students who were enrolled in the spring 2025 semester but had not enrolled in the fall 2025 semester. The platform that supports the campaign was developed and is supported by NMSU’s Information Technology-Student Information Management team.
NMSU staff across campus help with the effort, including from the academic colleges, American Indian Programs, Aggie Welcome and Orientation, Black Programs, Center for Academic Advising and Student Support, Graduate School, Latin American Programs, LGBTQ+ Programs, Military and Veterans Programs, Office of Experiential Learning, Student Success Center, TRIO Student Support Services Program and TRIO STEM-H Student Support Services Program.
“The credit has to go to the hardworking staff and faculty who prioritize student support,” says Assistant Director of Advising Technology Freddie Romero ’15 ’20. “It is no small feat to call thousands of students in a matter of weeks, and it can only be done with a dedicated team of student support professionals.”
The hard work has been noticed. In spring 2025, the Calling All Aggies campaign was recognized with the Innovative Program Award in Retention by the Association for Orientation, Transition and Retention in Higher Education Region III at its awards ceremony in Denton, Texas.
The campaign for spring 2026 begins in December.
Volunteers are vital to the success of the Calling All Aggies campaign, which was honored with the Innovative Program Award in Retention in spring 2025.
Assistant Director of Advising Technology Freddie Romero was one of the 52 volunteers who contacted students for the Calling All Aggies campaign in spring 2025.
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