Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
I serve as the Vice Provost for Enrollment Management at Virginia Tech. I have been involved in admissions for about 20 years and have been at Virginia Tech since 2007. I completed my undergraduate studies here, earning two degrees. Originally from the DC area, I fell in love with this region, particularly the absence of traffic, and decided to make it my home. Including my time as a student, I have been here since 1999. It is a fantastic place—a great town, an excellent place to raise a family, and a wonderful institution to represent. I grew up in Fairfax County until I was 18, and it's remarkable to think that I have now lived here longer than in my hometown.
Can you share some details about your journey and how you reached your current position?
I have been incredibly fortunate that Virginia Tech has provided me with numerous opportunities within admissions and other areas of the university, allowing me to gain unique experiences. I started my career in admissions at Radford University, which is nearby. I spent three years under Dave Krauss, then the Director of Admissions at Radford, who later moved to Davidson and eventually retired from there. My alma mater, Virginia Tech, attracted me for obvious reasons, and I wanted to represent the institution I attended.
I transitioned to the admissions office as an assistant director and found great satisfaction in the work at a large, prominent institution like Virginia Tech. Working with families was immensely rewarding. Early in my tenure, I had the opportunity to engage with key diversity-related areas. We developed outreach and recruitment programs focused on underrepresented and underserved students, which continue today. This work was significant to me as a first-generation college student and an individual from an underrepresented group. It allowed me to connect deeply with families, many of whom were not initially considering higher education, and guide them toward considering Virginia Tech.
My work in diversity led to further opportunities. Dr. Sands, President of Virginia Tech, appointed me as an Inclusion Coordinator. This innovative model involved five individuals working on the ground to represent the institution's diversity efforts, rather than a single vice president of diversity. Although Virginia Tech eventually returned to a VP model, the grassroots approach provided valuable lessons and successes, fostering a strong sense of community involvement.
In addition to my work at Virginia Tech, I served as President of VALHEN for about eight years, a nonprofit focused on higher education attainment for Hispanic-Latinos in Virginia. One of our significant initiatives is the Hispanic College Institute, a summer residential program recognized by the Obama administration for impacting Latino education. The program, hosted at Virginia Tech, transforms students' perspectives on higher education, significantly increasing their aspirations for undergraduate and advanced degrees.
These experiences led to further opportunities at the state level, where I have been appointed by three Virginia governors as an advisor on issues related to Latino constituencies, focusing on higher education.
At Virginia Tech, I progressed through various positions, from Assistant Director to Senior Assistant, Associate, and Assistant Vice Provost while serving as Director of Diversity. My role included leading international recruitment and significantly increasing international student representation in our incoming class. This work was a career highlight, involving global travel and the opportunity to promote Virginia Tech worldwide.
Most recently, I was appointed Interim Vice Provost for Enrollment Management after my predecessor, Dr. Louisa Havens, moved to UT, Texas. This new role continues my rewarding journey at Virginia Tech.
What’s your main driver?
Impact is what truly drives me. I see myself as an agent of change. Many admissions processes lack significant innovation over long periods. Key benchmarks, like the transition from paper to online, do occur, and challenges, such as the unexpected pandemic, arise, prompting changes in admissions. However, beyond these events, it's fascinating that many schools continue operating as they did years ago.
At Virginia Tech, I saw a substantial opportunity to innovate when I began my tenure as director. I focused on identifying and addressing barriers in the process—obstacles that were not intentionally placed but existed nonetheless. As an underrepresented, underserved student, I encountered many obstacles during my college application process in the late '90s. Surprisingly, some of these barriers remained in place even by 2018. This motivated me to reinvent the process, making it more accessible and unique. The team responded excellently, leading to the adoption of many significant changes.
We’re talking about challenges shared by many institutions today. Some of these challenges were accelerated during the pandemic.
Can you summarize how these challenges have been presented at Virginia Tech? What obstacles have you faced over the last five years?
I think you're referring to what many call the "enrollment cliff." Due to declining birth rates, this was anticipated several years ago, particularly in areas like New England. The pandemic accelerated these trends, creating significant challenges for universities. Some institutions, notably smaller private and liberal arts-focused schools, are struggling more than others. Recent reports indicate that higher education institutions are closing at an alarming rate, averaging about one closure every other week. This creates a challenging environment for enrollment management.
Now, there is talk of a second enrollment cliff. Beyond the birth rate decline, the college-going rates of 17- and 18-year-olds are decreasing. This is partly due to the national conversation questioning the value of higher education. Rising costs and the perceived return on investment are critical factors. Many families and students feel priced out of higher education or are uncertain about its benefits.
The competitive nature of college admissions has intensified post-pandemic. Virginia Tech, like many institutions, is navigating this environment. As a state, Virginia is relatively well-positioned due to its bipartisan support for higher education funding, high mobility, and pockets of high income. As some states experience declines in college-going rates, many universities target Virginia for recruitment. This has increased competition, even for institutions like Virginia Tech, which is often considered to be in a better position than many others.
For example, it’s now common for students who receive admission offers to leverage financial aid packages from other schools, seeking better deals from Virginia Tech. Even as a prominent institution, we feel the effects of this heightened competition in various ways.
Do you attribute some of that to the increased choice that students have? I mean, there are online programs now. You don't have to stay in your own backyard anymore to get an education.
Yeah, I think when you look at the mobility rates by student cohorts across the country, it’s going to vary. Some of this is directly tied to income. Many would argue that you have more limited options if your affordability index for certain schools is at a certain level.
Going back to the example I just gave, we're also seeing that as schools struggle with enrollment, they're becoming more aggressive in their awarding structure and financial aid leveraging process. They've done the math and realized that by increasing their discount rate, they can attract more students versus not increasing that discount rate and missing out on seats. This affects not just one cycle, but also the midterm impact of four-year revenue, since we expect students to graduate from our institution.
So, going back to my earlier comments on this increased level of competitiveness, it’s really challenging to see everyone pursuing a smaller pool of students and acting more aggressively to ensure that students truly consider them their destination.
As you approach this issue of competitiveness and some of the things you've talked about, what’s worked? What’s been effective for you?
The key for us at Virginia Tech has been focusing on access. My background in diversity gave me important insights into how we can truly be accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial background. With the team's help, we looked at what we could do differently to be more accessible to all our applicants. How could we streamline the process, simplify things, and meet students’ needs? This approach was very student-centric.
It also required a lot of institutional reflection to realize that some of our processes weren’t accessible. This wasn’t intentional; it was often due to a lack of perspective and understanding of certain key strategic groups we were trying to pursue. President Sands made it clear that diversity was valued at Virginia Tech. One of his first strategic plans aimed for an incoming class where 40% identified as either underrepresented or underserved. This included students from low-income backgrounds, first-generation students, and veterans.
This goal initially seemed impossible due to the existing systems and processes. We weren’t making much progress with low-income students, and after some self-reflection, we realized that our fee waiver process was a significant barrier. Previously, students had to undergo a tedious process to get a fee waiver, discouraging many from applying. We identified the need to simplify the process and joined common application platforms like Coalition, which removed this barrier. As a result, the proportion of students qualifying for a fee waiver increased from 3-5% to about 25% of our pool.
Another area we examined was the application review process. Previously, 90-95% of the decision was based on GPA and test scores. However, students are much more than just these two metrics. We decided to focus on noncognitive attributes, which are factors based on the student’s experiences and characteristics. We included questions in our application to assess resilience, goal setting, community service, and leadership. Over 200 external readers from our community, including faculty and staff, reviewed these responses. This process ensured that the community was involved in offering admission, making students feel more connected and valued.
Did you enable any strategies that you thought just didn't make the cut?
Oh, absolutely. It was crucial for my staff to understand that failure was part of the process. When we instituted changes in 2018 and 2019, we moved quickly, introducing a new CRM, implementing various programs, and revamping our recruitment strategy and application review process. From the start, I told them mistakes would happen and emphasized that a fear of failure couldn’t exist in a culture of innovation. Initially, it took some time for them to believe me. It's easy for a leader to say, "Don't worry if you screw up," but it's different to see it in action. It took a few failures for the team to realize I was serious about trying new things and appreciating the effort, ideas, and brainstorming, even if they didn't always work.
We held brainstorming meetings where everyone could pitch ideas to tackle our issues. Sometimes, these ideas worked, and many times, they didn't, but we still learned a lot from those failures. Key data points from those failures helped make future strategies more likely to succeed. The level of collaboration and the office culture improved significantly, knowing we were a team doing important work to be more accessible to students. We had to try things that others hadn’t, which meant occasional failures were inevitable. But our motivations were always good, and we aimed to make a lasting impact.
So, can I presume you adhere to the philosophy of "fail fast"?
Yes. Assessment is vital to the fail-fast philosophy. You must recognize when something is failing and have a solid assessment infrastructure to pull out in time. This also reduces staff stress and anxiety, as they are often the first to notice when something isn't working. Once we realize a strategy is failing, we discontinue it, meet to discuss why it didn't work, and focus on what we can do differently. These conversations are future-focused, without finger-pointing. The first question is always, "What did we learn from this?" With each failure, we gained new knowledge and used it as a building block for the next initiative.
It sounds like you have a team that feels comfortable saying, “This isn't working. We need to try something different.”
Yeah, and trust goes both ways. As a leader, you need to listen if someone tells you things aren’t working. I believe each team member is the expert on the ground. They interact with families and students more directly than I do, especially as I became more removed from those interactions. Their feedback is often more up-to-date and critical. Listening and trusting them is essential, and ensuring they feel comfortable speaking up is crucial.
Sometimes, this feedback happens in team meetings where someone might say, “I don’t think this will work, and here’s why.” I constantly challenge them to help us find new solutions. Other times, it happens privately in one-on-one meetings. They might express concerns about spending a lot of money on something that might not work. Trusting your team makes them feel more involved in the process. No idea was rolled out without the team’s input because they provide the on-the-ground intelligence needed to evaluate effectiveness.
We've seen great successes from these changes. We achieved our 40% goal and have had record-high applications year after year, going from around 30,000 to surpassing 52,000. More than 40% of our incoming class is from underrepresented groups, with their representation nearly doubling in both numbers and proportions. This success is due to the incredible team members at Virginia Tech, not just me.
I'm fortunate to have worked with such a talented team across various units within the enrollment management division, including financial aid, the Registrar's office, the Outreach Office, the Communication Team, and the graduate student enrollment management team.
If you had to do it over with hindsight, is there anything you’d change?
Yes. While we were very student-centric and engaged with key populations, I wish we had spent more time with high school counselors. They are important stakeholders, but I don't think they felt as valued during our changes. We should have taken more time to explain the changes to them, allowing them to ask questions and provide feedback. In our urgency to implement changes quickly, this was something I wish we would have done a little bit differently.
Are you planning to do anything different moving forward?
Yeah, the landscape is changing so quickly. This year, we've had some significant developments. There was the Supreme Court case, which, like many other institutions, required us to adjust our processes. The rollout of the FAFSA process also presented its own set of challenges that we continue to navigate and likely will in the near future. It's important to remain adaptable and ensure that, as an institution, we're flexible enough to navigate through any challenges that arise and achieve success. One thing I take pride in is our attentiveness to trends and our data-driven approach. We often identify opportunities that other schools may miss by being aware and proactive. It's a strategy that has served us well.
Do you feel supported by the institution's leadership and other supporting entities?
Yes, absolutely. The institution's leadership, including the President and Provost, has supported our strategic goals robustly. They've ensured that our office and division are well-resourced and positioned for success as we pursue these goals. The support from leadership, the community, and our alum base has been instrumental in our progress.
So, in summary, what's been the impact for students?
I believe the impact on students is evident in the inclusive excellence we're fostering in our classrooms. We're bringing in students with diverse backgrounds, including gains in underrepresented and underserved groups. Beyond demographic diversity, students bring varied experiences from different regions and socioeconomic backgrounds, enriching the classroom environment. This prepares our graduates, known as Hokies, for the workforce and higher education, equipping them with global perspectives and enhancing their overall educational experience. Virginia Tech ensures that Hokies stand out and are well-prepared to make a meaningful impact globally.
Are you sharing your results with peers and other institutions?
Absolutely. We actively share our successes and approaches with other institutions seeking to improve. While our methods may not be universally applicable due to the diverse nature of colleges and universities, we believe each institution's application process should align with its values and mission. Our journey has been complex, but we have no regrets about our efforts to implement effective and successful changes. I'm pleased with our progress since 2017 and where we stand today.
Let me turn that coin on its side. How about gleaning information and success from other institutions? Do you seek that out?
Absolutely. We have a great cohort within the Commonwealth of Virginia of colleagues at different colleges and universities, especially on the public side, that we all lean on for advice. There's also a national network, and due to my international work, an international network that I rely on as well. Although the landscape is competitive, and some see each other as rivals, we're all trying to do what's suitable for our students. The collegiality I've experienced has been very positive and helpful for our success. For instance, when I visited different campuses with my kid, I paid attention to their tours, open houses, and admitted student programs. You're always learning something new, and bringing back different ideas for the staff to consider is always beneficial.
What's next for you and your team?
Our team is strategically expanding into graduate enrollment, particularly focusing on professionally oriented programs. We're exploring innovative approaches to graduate strategic enrollment, which is exciting since our focus has traditionally been on undergraduates. At Virginia Tech, we have the new Innovation Campus in Northern Virginia, at Potomac Yards-Alexandria, which is a billion-dollar project introducing many new graduate programs. We’re also involved in new research collaborations worldwide, including a recent one in Botswana with our vet school and wildlife program. It's an exciting time at Virginia Tech, with a strong focus on research, service, and making the world a better place, which makes our work very fulfilling.
Last question: What is a HokieBird?
The HokieBird is a turkey. Initially, we were the Fighting Gobblers because, way back, our food was notoriously bad. When we attended away football games and ate on their campuses, people called us Gobblers because we were so used to bad food. "Fighting" was added because we were good at sports; that tradition continues today. The turkey mascot became part of the Gobblers' identity. A Hokie is a Virginia Tech student, alum, or supporter. The turkey mascot has stuck around, and our HokieBird is technically a turkey—though it’s an intimidating and lucky charm for our teams.
