Vice President for Enrollment Management at Goucher College

Goucher College, an innovative liberal arts college that prepares students with a broad, humane perspective for a life of inquiry, creativity, and critical and analytical thinking is seeking a collaborative, energetic and forward-thinking leader to serve as the Vice President for Enrollment Management. Reporting to President Kent Devereaux, the new VP will serve as a member of the President’s Cabinet and oversee the strategic planning, policy formulation, and management related to the recruitment and retention of students. The Vice President oversees Admissions (undergraduate and graduate), the Registrar, Retention and Student Success and Student Financial Services.  The VPEM directly supervises three professional staff: Associate Vice President of Enrollment, Associate Vice President for Retention and Student Success, and Director of Student Financial Services. By developing visionary, strategic and innovative student-centered initiatives that advance the mission of the College and ensure the quality and effectiveness of all programs, the Vice President will promote and demonstrate the values of the institution.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The primary duties and responsibilities for the Vice President for Enrollment Management are as follows:

• Develops, implements, and monitors a visionary, multi-year strategic enrollment management plan that sets forth recruitment and retention goals and strategies for both the undergraduate and graduate programs offered by the College;
• Analyzes current admissions, marketing and retention trends locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally to guide planning;
• Establishes recruitment, enrollment, and retention goals in conjunction with the President and Cabinet and ensures that the goals are met;
• Promotes initiatives to achieve diversity, equity, inclusion and justice goals in terms of the recruitment and retention of students;
• With the CFO, Vice President of Student Affairs and others, establishes annual tuition and fee rates;
• With the CFO and Director of Student Financial Services, establishes financial aid awarding strategies to maximize enrollment and net tuition revenue goals;
• Collaborates with the Provost, the Vice President of Student Affairs, and other members of the leadership team to provide and enhance the academic and co-curricular support available to all students;
• Promotes a student-centered approach; continually evaluates existing support systems and implements improvements;
• Provides regular reports to the Board, senior management and the community at large;
• Fosters a “continuous improvement” approach to actively engage input on ways to increase student enrollment;
• Serves as an ambassador for the College with prospective students, students, families and counselors;
• Proposes and monitors annual budgets for personnel and operating expenses pertaining to the Enrollment Management division;
• Evaluates third party partners and seeks out new vendors as needed;
• Participates in professional associations. Remains current with issues in the field through self directed reading and the development of professional contact with others; 
• Establishes training and evaluation protocols for all enrollment management staff with the goal of developing and retaining a team of committed, results-oriented recruiting professionals;
• Oversees Admissions (undergraduate and graduate), the Registrar, Retention and Student Success and Student Financial Services;
• The VPEM directly supervises three professional staff: Associate Vice President of Enrollment, Associate Vice President for Retention and Student Success, and Director of Student Financial Services.

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS, AND CHARACTERISTICS
The successful candidate must have a master’s degree (a terminal degree is preferred) and at least 10 years of experience in a leadership and managerial role in a higher education setting. In addition, the Vice President should demonstrate the following qualifications, skills, and abilities:

• Proven expertise in strategic enrollment management, including a track record of success in growing enrollment;
• Demonstrated experience in strategic research and planning, data analysis and reporting, budgeting and supervision;
• Strong project management, organizational, and analytical skills, and the ability to draw conclusions, develop recommendations and clearly communicate them orally and in written form;
• Exhibits extremely high standards of integrity and honesty, and a passion for higher education;
• Demonstrated and active commitment to advancing diversity, inclusivity, and belonging;
• Leadership experience at a small liberal arts institution is preferred;
• Advanced level of familiarity with web-based admissions and marketing tools;
• Significant skills in database management and analytical experience; familiarity with Slate and Power Campus is preferred;
• Excellent interpersonal, written, and oral communication skills with the ability to communicate clearly in both individual and group settings;
• Able to develop and communicate a positive, compelling, distinctive vision and related goals to motivate their team to execute actionable, cutting edge, and creative actions toward that vision and related goals;
• Even-keeled, thoughtful temperament with impeccable integrity, appropriate transparency, excellent judgment;
• Exceptional work ethic; excellent organizational and delegation skills to manage multiple tasks simultaneously and handle highly confidential information;
• Deep commitment to collaboration and collegiality;
• Dedication to and embodiment of the highest standards of professionalism and quality; high standards for accuracy and attention to detail;
• Exceptional organizational and management skills; highly self-motivated critical thinker with advanced problem-solving abilities and creativity;
• Proven ability to work with diverse constituencies, both on and off campus; propensity to serve as an ambassador for the College and to engage effectively with prospective students and families, current students and families, high school counselors, faculty, staff, alumni, community-based organizations, and other external audiences on behalf of the institution.

GOUCHER COLLEGE
Goucher College is a small, private, residential liberal arts institution in Towson, Maryland, serving approximately 1,100 undergraduate and 900 graduate and post-baccalaureate students from across the United States and 28 countries. Goucher’s scenic 287-acre campus is conveniently situated in the Baltimore suburbs, approximately one hour by train from both Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, and two and a half hours from New York City. Goucher’s long-standing commitment to social justice, innovation, and global education is the foundation of its distinctive liberal arts education that prepares students within a broad, humane perspective for a life of inquiry, creativity, and critical and analytical thinking.

Since its founding in 1885, Goucher has been firmly committed to providing access to and excellence in liberal arts and sciences education. Originally named the Woman’s College of Baltimore City, Goucher was founded by a group of influential Methodists led by the Rev. John Franklin Goucher, who, with his wife Mary Fisher Goucher, deeded the land for the College’s original campus in downtown Baltimore. The College, which offered women the then-rare opportunity to pursue a comprehensive and rigorous college degree, was renamed after Rev. Goucher in 1910 and relocated its campus to its current location in 1954. Goucher has been coeducational since 1986.

LEADERSHIP
On July 1, 2019, Kent Devereaux was announced as Goucher College’s 12th president. He served previously as President of the New Hampshire Institute of Art. A seasoned senior executive with experience in both the non-profit arts and for-profit technology sectors, President Devereaux has worked in higher education for 35 years as a faculty member, department chair, and dean. He previously served as Senior Vice President, Dean of Curriculum at Kaplan University, as well as Senior Vice President of Editorial and Product Development at Encyclopedia Britannica, where he was instrumental in transforming the venerable educational publisher from a print to online business in the late 1990s. Since arriving at Goucher, President Devereaux has been successful at recruiting a highly qualified and diverse leadership team, leveraging Goucher’s reputation for innovation, social justice, and global learning to build a cabinet motivated to help the College reflect those values in everything it does.

STRATEGIC PLAN 2021-2025 — CULTIVATING GLOBAL CHANGEMAKERS
Planning for the future is essential. In thoughtful yet decisive ways, the Goucher College Strategic Plan 2021–2025 acknowledges, anticipates, and integrates the needs and aspirations of the entire community. The plan is a bold step into the next historical chapter of this storied institution’s legacy. Concentrating on Goucher’s programs, people, and resources, the strategic plan articulates what the institution will be working toward throughout the next five years. Key elements of the plan include enhancing student success, expanding global education, emphasizing inclusivity, and ensuring a solid financial position. The strategic plan is guided by the College’s community principles of respect, inclusion, communication, service and social justice, and responsibility. Using the lens of Goucher’s mission and vision, the strategic plan sets forth an ambitious and aligned agenda for students, community, and the institution to continue to thrive for future generations.

ACADEMICS
Relationships are at the heart of the Goucher experience. Over its long history, Goucher has built a strong, innovative tradition of liberal arts education that offers more than 40 undergraduate programs and five distinct advantages:

• National reputation—One of the select Colleges That Change Lives, Goucher is also listed as a top institution by The Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Report.
• Top-tier academics—Goucher offers more than 40 majors, minors and professional programs, a 10-to-1 student-faculty ratio, and opportunities for high-level undergraduate research.
• Welcoming community—Goucher’s campus welcomes all.
• Global perspective—100% of Goucher undergraduates travel internationally before graduating, acquiring employer-sought skills, such as adaptability and cross-cultural awareness.
• Excellent outcomes—Goucher students master the skillset employers demand: 96% of recent graduates are employed or in graduate/professional school within one year.

Goucher offers all undergraduate students a distinctive academic experience called the Goucher Edge, which provides students with an Individualized Student Success Team that supports students and guides their self-discovery through the following:

• The Commons: Innovative core curriculum focused on solving complex problems, including social and environmental injustices
• Academic Major: 29 programs, each with a capstone experience or project
• Global Experience: Universal study abroad at no additional cost, as part of a global education
• Internship Accelerator: Four years of career-relevant experiences

A striking highlight of Goucher’s unique liberal arts curriculum is the requirement that all undergraduates must study abroad at least once before graduation, making the College one of the first in the nation to make such a bold move in global education. Goucher’s coursework reflects the core values of a liberal arts education: proficiency in English composition and another language, and solid foundations in history, abstract reasoning, scientific discovery and experimentation, problem solving, social structures, and environmental sustainability.

Goucher also offers students a rigorous liberal arts education on an accelerated degree timeline for students motivated to pursue an accelerated undergraduate degree or accelerated graduate pathways. Goucher offers three-year tracks in five of its current majors: Business management, computer science, data science, economics, and psychology. Four of these five majors offer accelerated graduate degree programs. Goucher has also partnered with several other notable institutions to provide students with accelerated graduated pathways; depending upon the student’s undergraduate major, accelerated graduate programs are available from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, Loyola University, Middlebury College, and the University of Maryland Baltimore.

Finally, since 1990, the College has added several graduate programs and now offers master’s degrees in education, teaching, historic preservation, arts administration, cultural sustainability, digital communications, applied policy analysis, environmental sustainability and management, and nonfiction, plus a post-baccalaureate premedical program.  Designed to align with life experiences, values and passion, Goucher graduate programs add another lens to how students view their life, career, and community, and will facilitate deep connections with those around them. Through Goucher’s hybrid and online learning options, students have the opportunity to earn a graduate or professional degree in a format that fits a student’s learning style, life, and goals.

STUDENT LIFE
Goucher offers more than 30 student-run clubs, well-established opportunities for community-based learning and leadership, and a wide-ranging internship program. Nearly thirty percent of Goucher’s students compete in the Landmark Conference in 20 NCAA Division III sports, national equestrian events, and intramural sports.

Goucher strives to educate the whole student and promotes a broad education over narrow career training. This gives graduates a wide range of personal and professional options and increased ability to take advantage of new opportunities in developing fields—and even the capability to change careers. Goucher students master a breadth of knowledge, including the communication, critical thinking, and quantitative reasoning skills that U.S.  – and global – employers overwhelmingly say they want job candidates to have.

MISSION
Goucher College provides an innovative liberal arts education that prepares students with a broad, humane perspective for a life of inquiry, creativity, and critical and analytical thinking.

VISION
A top-100 national liberal arts college known for offering a transformational education that delivers graduates who can solve complex problems within a diverse, global community.

COMMUNITY PRINCIPLES
While working, studying, and traveling on behalf of Goucher, we recognize that we represent the Goucher community, and we will conduct ourselves in a manner that reflects the following community principles.

Respect: We will treat everyone within our community with respect and learn from our differences. When conflicts arise, we will work together to come up with mutually beneficial resolutions. We also commit to respect and protect the environment on our campus and in the world.

Inclusion: We will acknowledge and embrace the unique gifts and differences of our community members. Furthermore, we seek to include those who may feel excluded.

Communication: We will communicate with the intent to listen and learn from others while placing a premium on maintaining a safe space for those involved. We will create opportunities for dialogue so that a variety of voices can be heard.

Service and Social Justice: We value active participation in bettering the Goucher community as well as those communities beyond the College where we live, work, and serve. In addition, we seek to understand the issues of privilege and oppression that exist in these communities.

Responsibility: We understand that we are accountable for our own actions, opinions, and beliefs, and for ensuring that our actions are conducive to the safety and well-being of others.

IDEALS
The College’s principal objectives are to help each student master significant areas of knowledge and skills while developing an appreciation for individual and cultural diversity, a sense of social responsibility, and a system of personal and professional ethics.

Goucher believes these goals are best achieved in an environment that responds to students both as individuals and as members of multiple groups. Accordingly, education at Goucher is based on an expanding sense of community—a community where discourse is valued and practiced, students attend small classes and interact closely with faculty and one another, and students can participate in and lead extracurricular programs. In undertaking this mission, Goucher recognizes the centrality of four curricular and extracurricular themes:

1. Scholarship and academic excellence in traditional disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences/mathematics, and the arts.
2. An interdisciplinary approach to important areas that cross or transcend the boundaries of traditional disciplines, including world peace, the environment, and the nature of knowledge.
3. An international outlook extending liberal arts education beyond Western cultures to encompass the perspectives and achievements of other members of the world community.
4. Commitment to experiential learning on- and off-campus as well as abroad, requiring students to apply and extend what has been learned in the classroom.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION & JUSTICE
Goucher College has intentionally prioritized a focus on diversity and inclusion in its recently completed strategic plan. It is imperative as an institution to embrace inclusion, social and racial equity, a culture of respect, and accessibility, in who the community includes, how it acts, in what they teach, and in how they prepare our students for life.

Goucher College Diversity Statement
We at Goucher College are dedicated to social justice, diversity, and multiculturalism as fundamental components of our mission and ethos. We champion an inclusive community, embrace and respect different perspectives, and value diversity in all its forms and intersections, including ability, age, culture, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, nationality, race, religious and spiritual belief, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Understanding that power, privilege, and other forces of inequality play a role in shaping our individual and collective experiences and identities, we are committed to productive dialogue and meaningful action in addressing our differences. We approach this ongoing work with courage, integrity, care, and respect.

LOCATION
Baltimore County is a great place to live, work, and play. With nationally recognized public schools, 20 colleges in the region to provide a skilled workforce, abundant recreational opportunities, and tight-knit communities, Baltimore County has something for everyone. Located in Maryland’s geographic center, Baltimore County surrounds the city of Baltimore, which was split off as an independent city in 1851. The county is the largest jurisdiction in the metropolitan area, with a population of more than 800,000. Baltimore County and its county seat, Towson, form a diverse business community located centrally along I-95 and the East Coast market. With 612 square miles of land and a deep-water port, Baltimore County has the third-largest land area, the third-largest population, and the second-highest number of jobs in Maryland. The county consistently receives AAA bond ratings from Moody’s Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s. Less than 1% of all jurisdictions in the nation receive the highest rating from all agencies. Baltimore County is just a short drive from Baltimore City’s famed Inner Harbor as well as Washington, D.C.

Towson and Baltimore County and city: goucher.edu/explore/location

Baltimore County Government: baltimorecountymd.gov

Baltimore County Tourism & Promotion: enjoybaltimorecounty.com

Visit Baltimore: baltimore.org

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS
The range of compensation for the position is expected to be between $175,000 and $185,000.  To learn about Goucher College’s outstanding benefits, see the website: https://www.goucher.edu/human-resources/benefits.

TO APPLY
To arrange for a confidential conversation or to nominate someone for this position, please contact Suzi Nam (suzi.nam@nessearches.com), Laura Robinson (laura.robinson@nessearches.com) or Mary Napier (mary.napier@nessearches.com)

To apply, send 1) a resume, 2) a detailed letter of interest regarding your interest in the position of Vice President of Enrollment at Goucher College, and 3) contact information for five professional references by email to: goucher@nessearches.com. The search will remain open until the position is filled. The expected start date is Summer 2024. All applications and nominations will be considered confidential, and notice will be given before references are contacted. 

Goucher College is an Equal Opportunity Employer