Higher Education Administration: Enrollment Management – M.S.Ed.

Studying EM was a unique experience, engaging students in experiences with professionals working in the field instead of sitting in a lecture hall and learning strictly from text.  The program afforded me the opportunity to network with professionals both at UM and institutions nationwide.  I credit my current employment to the program’s hands-on approach to understanding EM and the real conversations about the higher education landscape. In my position, I have been involved in enhancing business processes and developing technological solutions to increase staff efficiency and enrollment numbers.

The HE/EM program gave me the foundation to work in a variety of higher education settings. At the core is the importance of synergy, open communication, coordination, and assessment. Strategic thinking and planning were key takeaways. I gained the ability to assess the big picture as well as focus on the day-to-day factors affecting the students and the institution. Daily, I use the skills gleaned from the program.

I left UM in 2005 to come to FIU in the College of Business as an academic advisor. Without my degree in EM/Higher Ed, I never would have been able to move up the chain at FIU so quickly. By the end of 2006, I was director of advising for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and by 2008, was assistant dean of the Honors College, where I had direct oversight of admissions, recruitment, retention, and graduation. In 2016, I joined the faculty of the Honors College to teach full time. I very much owe my career in higher education to EM. The program and work experience it afforded me are now contributing immensely to my role as a faculty member.

I’m finishing up my eighth year of teaching at Palomar College, where I earned tenure four years ago. For the last three years, I have served as Faculty Senate president. I’m co-chair (with the Vice President for Instruction) of our Strategic Enrollment Management Committee; I helped initiate the committee and worked to draft our college’s first ever strategic enrollment management plan. I use the skills and knowledge I learned in the program every day as I help to break down silos at Palomar and move us forward as an institution that puts students at the center of everything we do.

EM was exactly what I wanted and needed personally and professionally. It was on the forefront of cutting-edge solutions and applications in higher education, and I continually apply the principles learned almost every day. I am the Project Manager/Advising-Transfer Specialist of a five-year, $6 million Title III Grant at HCC, and I began my Doctor of Education degree at the University of St. Francis in Fall 2018. I strongly feel that without the program, my peers, and professors, I would not be where I am today.

What a deserved milestone for the program. For the past four years, I have been at Borough of Manhattan Community College, managing student affairs communications to retain our 27,000 students. I have no doubt that the strength of the program contributed to my hiring, especially having an innovative capstone portfolio to bring to the interview. The two-track Enrollment Management/Student Life & Development degree/certificate options are also noteworthy. I look back fondly on the program as a family of dedicated, knowledgeable professors and a cohort of classmates eager to learn.

Awareness and intentionality are two invaluable qualities that Higher Education program faculty were able to inspire. Realizing what you do, how you do it, and who you involve has made all the difference in connecting the classroom experience to professional practice, and this has been the key to all of my professional successes.

EM taught us principles that the rest of higher education is just beginning to leverage today. The tools the program provided have allowed me to not only fast track my career, but also ensure that I am a leader on which my institution and profession can rely.

Hard to believe it is 20 years!  I’m in my 18^th year at Villanova University as Senior Associate Director of Admission. Needless to say, I use my EM degree on a daily basis and continue to appreciate the degree personally and professionally. The degree is particularly impactful when trying to predict the enrollment for the next year’s class (especially being in our second year of Early Decision). There’s never a dull moment!

For a graduate who works at UM, the greatest advantage of the program has been to build an active network that benefits me in my job. By serving as a judge for the program’s practicum poster presentations every year and participating in other events, I have managed to create connections that have led to fruitful collaborations, which exemplifies EM.

The principles I learned in EM have aided me in both my professional and personal life. I use strategic planning in everything from aiding my clients in reaching their institutional goals to preparing for my next family vacation. Forecasting, program evaluation, the 4 C’s/P’s, all provided management training that continues to serve me well as a business owner, postsecondary education consultant, author, and speaker. I am grateful for the privilege to be part of the amazing 20-year EM legacy!

As an EM student in the Higher Education Program, I was immersed in projects that prepared me for my current role as college recruiter. I’m making informed decisions daily based on data and tools I acquired to be innovative in my recruitment practices. The HE program allowed me to dive into the EM world and led me to where I am now.

How grateful I am for the lessons learned in EM. I’ve had a very satisfying professional career, and it’s all because of the way Paul, Scott, and Carol-Anne prepared us. The case studies, the case study method, readings, papers, and the capstone course fundamentally shaped the way I manage my professional roles. I teach first-Year experience classes using case studies, and I have taught them to use the case study method as an approach to solving problems.

If I had to "do it all over again," I would choose the EM program every single time. I'm convinced today that Paul and Carol-Anne saw the Enrollment Management Geek in me before I even knew she existed, and I've been discovering her and nurturing her in the years since completing the degree. Today, I am humbled to think that I’m in an admissions senior leadership position at Caltech, where I have been a part of materially changing the enrollment demographics of the undergraduate population in my four years here. I am also now in my second year as a Ph.D. student in Colorado State University's Higher Education Leadership Program. All of this has been possible because of my EM foundation built at Miami.

I enjoyed the program’s focus on data-driven decision-making, predictive modeling, and strategic planning. While a full-time student, I also worked full time at UM as an assistant director in admission. I was able to use the knowledge gained to tackle projects and improve several programs in real time. Upon graduation, I became an assistant dean of admissions, and I now work on the Pomona College Access Team (PCAT) and with the Pomona Academy for Youth Success (PAYS), both aimed at increasing enrollment and supporting underrepresented students.

The Enrollment Management Program provided a great blend of theory and practice. I was able to formulate connections between what I was actively learning in the program’s interdisciplinary curriculum and my day-to-day practice in enrollment management; it was definitely worth the investment.

When I started the program more than six years ago, I was an office assistant in UM’s Office of Student Financial Assistance and Employment. I’m now Associate Director of Undergraduate Admission at UM. Without the program, I wouldn’t have progressed in such a short time frame.