“Looking ahead, our strength gives us the enviable opportunity to dream big, act with confidence and create excellence.” – President Darrin Good
THE OPPORTUNITY
Nebraska Wesleyan University seeks a forward thinking, community minded leader as their next Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing. The Vice President will offer leadership and oversight for the division of enrollment management composed of approximately 30 professionals within Undergraduate Admission, Transfer and Graduate Admission, Financial Aid, and Marketing, Communications and Public Relations.
Reporting to the President, Dr. Darrin Good, the Vice President will serve as a member of the University’s executive leadership team, the Administrative Council. Through an effective combination of traditional and innovative strategies, the Vice President will enable Nebraska Wesleyan to achieve its enrollment and marketing goals as outlined in the University’s multi-year strategic plan.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Enrollment Management
- Leads the development, implementation, and monitoring of a strategic, multi-year enrollment plan for domestic undergraduate, transfer, international, and graduate enrollment goals.
- Analyzes current admissions, marketing, and retention trends locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally to guide planning.
- Promotes initiatives to achieve diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility goals in terms of the recruitment and retention of students.
- Manages and mentors five experienced direct reports who are enrollment and marketing leaders in fostering a future oriented team able to translate goals, strategies, and aspirations into tactical plans.
- Partners with the Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management and Vice President for Finance and Administration to set overall enrollment goals; then works to model, test, propose and implement financial aid strategies to reach the optimal mix of head count and tuition, fee, and auxiliary revenues for new and continuing students.
- Establishes training and evaluation protocols for all enrollment management staff with the goal of developing and retaining a team of committed, results-oriented recruitment professionals.
- Serves as the administrative liaison to the Board of Governors’ Enrollment and Marketing Committee.
- Participates in NWU’s shared governance, including serving on the Program Development Committee, which analyzes data and identifies market opportunities for academic program expansion and growth of existing programs.
- Serves as a member of the Retention Team to develop, implement, and monitor initiatives designed to increase student persistence.
- Serves on a variety of campus committees including Archways Magazine Committee, Academic Standards Committee, and the Budget Advisory Committee.
- Develops strong cross-departmental and divisional relationships to support the enrollment, retention, and success of an increasingly diverse student body.
- Represents the University at activities and events on and off campus.
Marketing and Communications
- Ensures that the University has a proactive marketing and communication plan that serves the goals and priorities set through the strategic plan.
- Oversees the creation of a comprehensive marketing and communication plan based on trends, target markets, data, and analytics to meet undergraduate, transfer, and graduate objectives.
- Leads a dedicated marketing and communications team in meeting the complex priorities of serving multiple audiences, and demonstrates expertise in evolving consumer expectations and behavior and changes in channels of communication.
- Provides leadership in crisis communication and public relations, fostering and enhancing public perceptions, knowledge and appreciation of the University for a variety of audiences.
- Offers leadership to develop, support, implement, and evaluate comprehensive marketing communications strategies to address the specific interests and needs of unique student, parent, alumni, and community populations.
QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS, AND CHARACTERISTICS
The successful candidate must have a bachelor’s degree (an advanced degree is strongly preferred), a minimum of eight years of progressive experience in enrollment management in higher education, and significant experience in a leadership and managerial role. In addition, the Vice President should demonstrate the following qualifications, skills, and abilities:
- A proven track record in successful outreach and recruitment of prospective students including undergraduate first-year, transfer, graduate, international, and historically underserved populations.
- Success in developing and communicating a positive, compelling strategy and motivating teams in executing actionable, cutting edge, and creative initiatives toward that vision.
- Demonstrated experience in strategic research and planning, data analysis, reporting, budgeting, and supervision.
- Data savvy, strategically deft, with the ability to analyze, interpret, and articulate information in a manner that educates, informs, and engages others.
- Skilled in the application of best practices and use of technology to improve efficiency and improve the experience of students and families.
- An active commitment to advancing diversity, inclusivity, and belonging for both the recruitment and retention of students, as well as staff.
- Possess an understanding of NCAA regulations for Division III athletics and the ability to build partnerships with coaches and athletic administrators to facilitate the strategic recruitment and retention of student athletes.
- Demonstrates fiscal responsibility for the planning, allocation, and tracking of budgets and strong practical experience in pricing and discounting strategies.
- An advanced level of familiarity with integrated media approaches to reaching audiences including web-based admissions and digital marketing tools.
- Demonstrated ability to build, lead, support, motivate, and retain an outstanding staff with an open mind and creative and generous spirit.
- Exhibit extremely high standards of integrity and honesty, and a passion for higher education.
- Possess an intense interest and ability to collaborate across campus with a desire to develop authentic, trusting relationships with campus partners as an engaged member of the community.
- Ability to be bold, creative and visionary while also being collegial, collaborative, and inclusive.
SALARY AND BENEFITS
Nebraska Wesleyan University offers a competitive salary based on the skills and experience of the selected candidate, and a comprehensive package of benefits. NES search consultants will discuss the expected range of compensation. The selected candidate will need to reside in or near Lincoln, Nebraska in this visible campus and community-based leadership position.
NEBRASKA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
Nebraska Wesleyan University is a thriving, growing comprehensive, liberal arts-based institution with approximately 1,600 traditional and graduate students. Its academic programs are rooted in an enduring commitment to excellence; a belief in the power of personal attention, teaching, and learning; and a strong tradition of shared governance. It has a long history of producing remarkable results with modest resources. Chartered by Methodists in 1887, Nebraska Wesleyan has an ongoing, beneficial relationship today with the United Methodist Church.
ACADEMIC LIFE
Nebraska Wesleyan offers five baccalaureate degrees—Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Science in Nursing—and four master’s degrees—Master of Business Administration, Master of Science in Nursing, a joint MSN/MBA, and Master of Social Work and will launch a Master of Athletic Training in 2025. Traditional students generate 95 percent of tuition revenue and essentially all auxiliary revenue. Graduate students account for 2 percent of tuition revenue.
The University is known for a rigorous and nurturing learning environment, enhanced by the faculty’s deserved reputation for exceptionally effective teaching and mentoring. Students choose from over 100 majors, minors, and pre-professional programs. The general education Archway Curriculum ensures that every student has an experience-rich education through internships, research projects, service learning or study abroad. The curriculum integrates learning across disciplinary boundaries, enhances learning through non-classroom experiences, and weaves skill development throughout the academic program. The Archway Curriculum has been nationally heralded within higher education as a progressive model of liberal learning for the 21st century.
NWU’s emphasis on experience yields extraordinary student outcomes: two Rhodes scholars, 61 Fulbright awards, six Truman scholars, and eight Goldwater scholars. Two-thirds of all NWU graduates go on to graduate or professional school within five years of graduation. NWU celebrates an 85 percent medical school placement rate and a 91 percent dental school placement rate, and an even higher teacher placement rate. The theatre program has 100 majors and offers a new main-stage production opening every two to three weeks during the academic year. NWU’s commitment to academic excellence and personal attention to students is consistently reflected in the strength and accomplishments of its gifted faculty, including three who have been named the Carnegie Foundation “Teacher of the Year” in Nebraska.
Nebraska Wesleyan has received favorable recognition in U.S. News & World Report, which has placed NWU in the Regional Universities-Midwest category since 2016, following its recent growth as a comprehensive university. NWU is in the top 15 percent of colleges and universities named to this category and is the top ranked Nebraska independent university. Nebraska Wesleyan has also been recognized favorably by The Princeton Review, Forbes, Colleges of Distinction, Washington Monthly, and Money Magazine, as well as being named a military-friendly school.
CAMPUS & STUDENT LIFE
Minutes away from downtown Lincoln, Nebraska Wesleyan’s 50-acre suburban campus is home to a rich campus life. The community fosters students' learning and personal development through engaging and purposeful community involvement and leadership in co-curricular and residential experiences. Among first year students, 80 percent live in one of four traditional residence halls. Sophomores, juniors and seniors may choose suite or apartment style accommodations, or live in one of the University’s fraternity or sorority houses. As a residential campus, traditional undergraduate students reside in approved on-campus living units for three years or six semesters.
Student Life offers a broad range of educational, social, and recreational programs, services, and facilities for Nebraska Wesleyan students. The Nebraska Wesleyan University Theatre offers all students opportunities to act, sing, direct, design and work in many genres. NWU Music provides numerous opportunities for students to both perform and enjoy the community's many performance groups including the Symphonic Band, Jazz Ensemble, Pep Band, University Choir, Men’s Glee, and Women’s Choir.
Among more than 70 student-run organizations are six fraternities and sororities, known for fostering academic excellence and national leadership. Nearly 20 percent of the student body take part in the Greek community. Global Service Learning is the nation’s only entirely student-led group of its type. Through the Student Affairs Senate, two students are identified each year who serve as full members of the NWU Board of Governors.
Nebraska Wesleyan’s Prairie Wolves athletic program has a rich tradition of excellence. Twenty-one varsity sports are offered (11 for men, 10 for women). About 39 percent of traditional students compete in intercollegiate athletics. NWU student-athletes compete in NCAA Division III. In 2016, NWU joined the American Rivers Conference (formerly Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference). The Prairie Wolves have celebrated many conference championships and two national championships: men’s basketball in 2018 and men’s golf in 2006. The University is a nationally recognized leader for combined excellence in academics and athletics, ranking 12th in the nation (among all divisions) with 187 Academic All-American awards and sixth in the nation for NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships. Many students participate in an intramural program with 22 individual and team options.
UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP
Dr. Darrin Good was appointed 17th President of Nebraska Wesleyan University effective July 1, 2019. Prior to his current appointment, Dr. Good served as Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the faculty at Whittier College, one of the country’s most ethnically and racially diverse private national liberal arts colleges with an enrollment of 1,700 students. Prior to Whittier College, Dr. Good served as the Associate Provost and Dean of Science and Education at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota (2012-2015). Prior to that he was a biology professor at his alma mater, Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, where he assumed administrative roles including Director of Service Learning and Leadership Initiatives, Director of Summer Academic Programs, Director of Nicaragua Medical Service-Learning Program, Chair of the Division of Natural Sciences, Chair of the Governing Board of the Pre-Health Professions, and Admissions Coordinator for Biology and Pre Health Professions. While at Augustana, Good was chosen by the graduating class six times to present the year’s Last Lecture Address, among the school’s highest teaching and mentoring honors. Dr. Good earned his bachelor’s degree with a major in biology from Augustana College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in biology from the University of Kansas.
In concert with President Good, the University is led by the Administrative Council which offers leadership of institutional strategy implementation; development and monitoring of the annual budget; staffing of Board of Governors meetings; care for the well-being of students, faculty, and staff; and stewardship of the physical plant and other institutional resources.
CORE VALUES
The core values remain at the heart of Nebraska Wesleyan University, upheld by the community and impacting the student experience:
Excellence: Nebraska Wesleyan University is committed to excellence in all aspects of academic endeavor; in the curriculum, educational facilities, residence halls, and all programs available to students; in the hiring and professional development of faculty and staff; in all administrative policies and procedures; and in the processes which ensure the continuing renewal of the academic community.
Liberal Arts: Nebraska Wesleyan University is an academic community committed to the centrality of the liberal arts and to “those habits of the mind” which derive from the liberal arts: intellectual curiosity, critical and rational thinking, creative and artistic expression, respect for history and traditional values, independent analysis, and effective communication—in short, an academic community dedicated to the joy and freedom of intellectual inquiry and learning. Nebraska Wesleyan also affirms the importance of professional programs validated and enriched by the traditions of the liberal arts.
Personal Attention to Students: Recognizing that each student is a unique individual, a person of dignity and sacred worth, the faculty and staff of Nebraska Wesleyan University are committed to providing encouragement and opportunities for all students to develop maturity, personal responsibility, and a sense of values and to enhance their intellectual, spiritual, physical, emotional, and aesthetic resources.
Diversity: Nebraska Wesleyan University affirms its commitment to provide programs, resources, and policies that broaden perspectives on humanity and its diverse cultural expressions locally, nationally, and internationally.
Community: As an academic community that “cultivates the desire for learning and nurtures the growth of the whole person,” Nebraska Wesleyan University affirms its commitment to collegiality and to a community which unites students, faculty, staff, board members, alumni, parents, and friends in an “environment of Christian concern;” a learning community whose members respect the dignity and worth of all members of the University and who seek opportunities to serve the wider human community.
Stewardship: Recognizing the University’s distinctive United Methodist heritage and the values which derive from that heritage, Nebraska Wesleyan is committed to the careful stewardship and wise use of the human and financial resources needed to accomplish the mission of the University; at the same time, wise stewardship of resources also requires creativity and boldness in addressing the challenges which face independent higher education.
STRATEGIC PLANNING
The University is guided by its multi-year strategic plan, which launched in fall 2021. The plan affirms an unchanging commitment to deliver an outstanding, student-centered, transformative education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences. At the same time, the plan underscores the necessity of investment in new and enhanced facilities, the latest technology, and the faculty and staff whose skills and dedication make student success possible.
COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
Nebraska Wesleyan University works towards the creation of a campus community that is inclusive. All diverse worldviews belong in its Wesleyan community. Diversity encompasses the range of human differences, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, social class, physical ability, or attributes, religious or ethical values system, national origin, and political beliefs. Inclusion is involvement and empowerment, where the inherent worth and dignity of all people are recognized. An inclusive university promotes and sustains a sense of belonging; and it values and practices respect for the talents, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of living of its members. Diversity and inclusion are core values of Nebraska Wesleyan University’s mission, and it embraces diversity as a source of strength.
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
As the capital city, Lincoln is known as one of the best places to live in Nebraska with a reputation for its high quality of life, low unemployment, and safe neighborhoods. Often ranked among the best cities in America, Lincoln enjoys a low cost of living, short commute times, and lots of hometown pride. Lincoln is a refugee resettlement city and its residents represent 150 countries and speak 125 languages. Nestled in the rolling hills of Lancaster County, Lincoln offers its 300,000 residents and Nebraska Wesleyan students the amenities of a city with a dense, suburban feel including access to employment, experiences, and entertainment. Lincoln is known for its growing craft beer and foodie scenes, access to over 120 parks, top-rated schools, and community pride. The city offers five major hospitals, a thriving sports industry, a growing high-tech sector, numerous dining, theater, and music venues. Home to nine colleges and universities, Lincoln is a welcoming and inclusive city that is accessible via major highways, air, bus, and rail.
To Apply
NES, a higher education search firm specializing in enrollment management searches, is assisting Nebraska Wesleyan University in their search for a Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing. To arrange a confidential conversation or to nominate someone for this position, please contact Suzi Nam, Catherine Capolupo, or Mary Napier.
To apply, send 1) a resume, 2) a detailed letter regarding your interest in the Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing position at Nebraska Wesleyan University, and 3) contact information for five professional references by email to: nebrwesleyan@nessearches.com. For best consideration, submit materials by May 20, 2024; the search will remain open until the position is filled. Candidates who are selected for a preliminary interview will be asked to provide a diversity statement prior to their conversation with the search committee. The expected start date will be in mid to late summer of 2024. All applications and nominations will be considered confidential, and notice will be given before references are contacted.
Nebraska Wesleyan University provides equal educational and employment opportunities to qualified persons in all areas of university operation without regard to religion or creed, age, genetic information, gender identity and expression, sexual identity and orientation, veteran status, disability, marital status, race, or national or ethnic origin, in compliance with state and federal laws, including but not limited to Title XII, Title IX, and the ADA. E-Verify, EOE.