The University of San Francisco, a dynamic and diverse Jesuit Catholic university in the heart of one of the most vibrant cities in the world, seeks a Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management to build upon its long history of academic excellence and commitment to social justice.
Reporting to the Provost, the Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management provides visionary, innovative, and highly collaborative leadership to create and execute the University of San Francisco’s strategic enrollment management plan. The Vice Provost is a key member of a dynamic, equity-minded, social justice and student-centered Provost’s team and sits as a member of the Provost Council, Leadership Team, the Council of Deans, as well as the President’s Cabinet, bringing insights and responsibility for strategic enrollment affairs and related matters. The successful candidate must demonstrate progressive experience at a senior level in deploying an enrollment management strategy emphasizing collaboration across the institution.
The Vice Provost serves as the Chief Enrollment Officer. They oversee the dynamic Division of Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM), which includes the departments of Undergraduate Admission, Student Financial Services (Financial Aid and Student Accounts), Registrar's Office, Enrollment Communications, and Enrollment Operations and Data Systems, and encompasses the student experience from inquiry through graduation. The Vice Provost works to support a diverse, cohesive and mission-aligned division of over 70 staff, and to develop the leadership capacity and effectiveness of SEM managers.
In this capacity, the Vice Provost provides vision and strategy to optimize USF’s current and future enrollment and advances improvements to selectivity, yield, discount rates, first-year and transfer enrollment, retention, and graduation rates. The Vice Provost works with the Provost and senior leadership to identify and articulate strategic enrollment priorities, and to ensure broad based understanding and knowledge about the enrollment context, as well as strategic priorities and opportunities among university stakeholders. The Vice Provost collaborates closely with the Global Education team on international admissions. This position will also consult and coordinate with the academic deans and graduate enrollment leaders on graduate admissions.
The University seeks to be innovative–entrepreneurial and nimble in every phase of the enrollment process–using recruitment efforts with wisely leveraged financial aid to build academic excellence, while further strengthening and retaining a diverse and multi-talented student population. As a university that prides itself on excellence in teaching and research, USF is committed to developing students as whole persons. The Vice Provost embraces the essential nature of the Jesuit mission and demonstrates Ignatian leadership principles and values related to social justice, inclusive excellence, servant leadership, holistic education and open dialogue. In overseeing and coordinating enrollment functions for undergraduate students, and collaborating with the graduate admission offices on enrollment functions for graduate and working adult students, the vice provost always keeps student welfare in the forefront, including anticipation of and responsiveness to matters that influence retention, and works to broaden the reach of the University nationally and internationally.
Essential Duties and Job Responsibilities:
The essential duties and responsibilities for the Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management include the following:
- Develop a comprehensive and forward-looking enrollment strategy that is aligned with the University’s academic and strategic plans.
- Engage the entire campus community in the University’s enrollment management vision and strategy, fostering a culture of openness, inclusion and participation.
- Unify, mobilize, and direct the organization, working with leadership in different areas to create synergy and collaboration that advances enrollment possibilities.
- Work collaboratively across the University to enroll a highly talented and diverse student body.
- Regularly monitor and leverage data analytics and market research to drive informed decision-making and enhance enrollment strategies in all phases of the recruitment process.
- Contribute to institutional retention efforts.
- Promote the distinctive mission of the University of San Francisco and the welfare of its students.
- Lead the University’s enrollment function with vision, integrity, inclusiveness, sound judgment, managerial finesse, wisdom, and energy, engendering a team approach across its integrated functions.
- Engage as a partner in continuously reflective, analytically-rigorous, and technically-sophisticated dialogues with senior leadership about enrollment opportunities and challenges.
- Inspire, motivate, develop and support a strong strategic enrollment staff that achieves operational excellence and is optimistic, adaptable, innovative, analytical, results-oriented, and student-centered.
- Routinely analyze data to shape strategic direction and make appropriate adjustments to an integrated marketing plan that clearly identifies and defines historical University enrollment patterns and forecasts trends in new student markets; regularly reassess effectiveness of recruitment activities and financial aid programs and make appropriate adjustments so as to lead an effort that is continuously proactive and responsive to market forces and University needs.
- Further the development and implementation of the University’s comprehensive enrollment program including market segmentation, brand marketing, promotional strategies, and recruitment tactics to meet the University enrollment goals. The goals include continuing to increase academic quality in the incoming classes; growing enrollments in specific programs and departments; growing geographic, socio-economic and racial diversity, and managing the discount rate while enhancing undergraduate retention and graduation rates.
- Ensure the delivery of quality, student-oriented financial aid and enrollment services by developing and implementing efficient, effective, and integrated policies, systems and procedures.
- Present enrollment analysis and reports to University leadership.
- In collaboration with the Center for Institutional Planning and Effectiveness, develop enrollment targets to meet University goals.
- Establish strategic direction, priorities and goals for the overall enrollment division and for each office within the division, making data-informed proposals and decisions and linking budgets and expenditures to measurable outcomes while pursuing both standard and creative ways to achieve enrollment goals.
- Ensure compliance with federal and state laws, regulations and guidelines, and external reporting requirements in the areas of responsibility.
- Effectively manage teams to set clear expectations, build upon the strengths of individuals, and develop strategies to overcome deficiencies.
- Use technology to enhance recruitment, admissions, and enrollment processes. Deliver enrollment, registration, and financial aid services in a manner that reinforces efforts to recruit and retain students and produce improvements in the University’s four- and six-year graduation rates.
- Experience with appropriate information technology and the use of sophisticated data analysis to inform strategic decisions is critical, as is familiarity with marketing and financial aid leveraging for recruitment and retention.
- Listen to and partner with academic stakeholders, to include deans and faculty, in order to understand the complexities of the needs of varying programs and schools and to develop specific student pipelines that reflect the needs of a range of academic opportunities.
Qualifications, Skills and Characteristics:
A bachelor’s degree with qualifying experience is required; an advanced degree is preferred. A minimum of eight years of higher education experience, especially in progressive senior leadership experience in recruitment, admissions, strategic enrollment management, data analytics, financial aid, retention, and marketing at an institution of higher education is required. In addition, the Vice Provost should demonstrate the following skills, qualifications, and abilities:
- Experience and success at change management efforts in a complex organization embedded within a tuition-dependent institution of higher learning.
- Strong analytical capacity with the ability to engage in constant strategic analysis of opportunities and challenges; to produce forward-looking, transparent strategic plans and budgets that link expenditures to outcomes; to assess the effectiveness of how unit funds are employed to achieve enrollment goals; to produce regular and systematic comparative reports that detail month-to-month as well as annual progress toward enrollment goals.
- Knowledgeable in contemporary recruitment and admission practices, and able to pay attention and speak to important external market trends facing prospective and current students and their families.
- Excellent communication skills: strong speaking and writing skills with the ability to articulate a vision effectively to all constituencies including members of the President’s Cabinet, enrollment staff, key campus stakeholders, faculty, deans and staff, alumni, trustees and the public.
- Knowledge of California, national and international trends and developments in recruitment, admissions, retention, and financial aid.
- Strong and demonstrated understanding of current and emerging technologies, techniques, strategies, and practices in enrollment management, including effective use of CRM (Slate), performance marketing, search optimization, lead acquisition, and social media.
- Demonstrated ability in creatively marketing a selective institution so as to achieve superior levels of enrollment performance; proven success in innovative thinking and risk-taking combined with excellent execution of both complex and routine marketing strategies; ability to carry out marketing functions with close attention to the needs of the University and the match between it and its potential students; an ability to think creatively and to leverage technology with a sensitivity to, and understanding of, the human/cultural impact; an understanding of new modes of educational delivery and how to market online and continuing education programs.
- Team-oriented with a commitment to efficiency, effectiveness, and excellence.
- Commitment to an organizational culture characterized by trust, integrity, ethics, inclusiveness, professionalism, and respect for diversity in all of its many forms for students, staff, and campus colleagues.
- Commitment to shared governance and partnership with faculty leaders; experience working within the context of a faculty collective bargaining agreement is preferred.
- Must demonstrate a strong equity lens, cultural humility, and proven ability to work well in a diverse context.
- An understanding of, and commitment to, promoting the mission of the University as a Jesuit Catholic, urban private institution that strives to instill a global perspective in its students as well as the desire to become leaders who will fashion a more human and just world.
- Appreciation of the richness abounding in USF’s multitude of programs and the urban, gritty location.
- Proven ability to function with minimal supervision and a high degree of autonomy in establishing priorities, making decisions, and carrying through tasks on deadline.
- Experience preparing professional reports, proposals and presentations.
University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco is a premier Jesuit university that inspires students to create a more humane, just, and sustainable world. One of the most ethnically diverse universities in the nation and a leader in international education, USF enrolls about 9,000 students in its five schools and colleges: the School of Law, the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Management, the School of Education, and the School of Nursing and Health Professions. Approximately 60% of USF students are undergraduates, and 40% are graduate students. Founded in 1855 as St. Ignatius Academy, a one-room schoolhouse on a cow path that would become Market Street, the University of San Francisco now offers more than 65 majors and minors in the arts and sciences, management, and nursing and health professions, plus more than 60 graduate and certificate programs in management, law, arts and sciences, education, and nursing and health professions. In addition, students can earn both a bachelor's and master's degree from USF in five years, achieving a distinction known as a “Double Don”.
University of San Francisco’s curriculum is included among the "Best in the West" according to Princeton Review 2024. Cura personalis - care for the whole person - is at the heart of its core curriculum. This principle has guided graduates’ minds, bodies, and spirits for generations. The core curriculum, a collection of six required areas totaling 44 units, is required for all undergraduate students pursuing a bachelor’s degree.
Central to the mission of the University of San Francisco is the preparation of men and women to shape a multicultural world with generosity, compassion, and justice. This mission permeates all aspects of the institution, including student learning and faculty development, curriculum design, program and degree offerings, alumni relations, and a host of other institutional features. The University at large is committed to bettering the community, and a strong global education and study abroad program ensures students experience and contribute to the world outside the United States.
Mission Statement
Since 1855, the University of San Francisco has dedicated itself to offering a daring and dynamic liberal arts education in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition. As a community, we empower and hold accountable our students, faculty, librarians, staff, administrators, alumni, and community partners to be persons for and with others, to care for our common home, including the native lands on which our campuses reside, and to promote the common good by critically, thoughtfully, and innovatively addressing inequities to create a more humane and just world.
We seek to live USF’s Mission by nurturing a diverse, ever-expanding community where persons of all races and ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, genders, generations, abilities, nationalities, occupations, and socioeconomic backgrounds are honored and accompanied. We are committed to educating hearts and minds to cultivate the full, integral development of each person and all persons; pursuing learning as a lifelong humanizing and liberating social activity; and advancing excellence as the standard for teaching, scholarship, creative expression, and service. Inspired by a faith that does justice, we strive to humbly and responsibly engage with, and contribute to, the cultural, intellectual, economic and spiritual gifts and talents of the San Francisco Bay Area and the global communities to which we belong.
Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Ranking #1 in ethnic diversity among national universities (U.S. News & World Report 2024), the University of San Francisco is a learning community committed to diversity. At USF, students from around the globe learn from each other, inside and outside the classroom. This variety of perspectives, experiences, and traditions offers a rich learning opportunity, one that is especially important in an increasingly interconnected world. Whatever one’s creed, culture, color, country, identity, and orientation, they are welcome at USF.
USF Inclusion Statement
The University of San Francisco strives to promote safe, affirming, and inclusive communities for all students, faculty, and staff to learn and work together in alignment with the University's mission. These communities are enriched by the presence of people of different abilities, ages, colors, creeds, cultures, races, ethnicities, family models, gender identities, gender expressions, health statuses, nationalities, political views, religious, spiritual, and philosophical beliefs, sexual orientations, socioeconomic statuses, educational backgrounds and veteran statuses. We welcome, expect, and encourage the continued pursuit of knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to build a more inclusive community which celebrates diversity and works toward justice.
For more Information about the University of San Francisco, please visit: https://www.usfca.edu/
Leadership
The Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management will report to the Provost and play a pivotal role in the leadership team of Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Eileen Chia-Ching Fung, Ph.D. Provost Fung has dedicated over 26 years to USF, including significant time in academic leadership. Read more about her many contributions and progressive achievements.
https://www.usfca.edu/faculty/eileen-fung
Location
Campus
The main campus of the University of San Francisco, "the Hilltop" is located in the geographic center of the city. Its hilltop campus is divided between two adjacent plots: Lone Mountain and lower campus. Spread across 55-acres, separated by Turk Street in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood, the campus is home to five schools and a vibrant community of students inspired to change the world. From campus, students have easy access to everything San Francisco has to offer, including 27 distinct neighborhoods, recreation in Golden Gate Park, internships in the Financial District, and music and museums south of Market Street.
In addition, the University offers classes at a number of Northern California branch campuses (Sacramento, San Jose, Santa Rosa, and Merritt College, Oakland Kaiser, San Jose CC, and San Leandro), at a Southern California branch campus, and in downtown San Francisco. At the center of one of the world’s most dynamic cities, students have countless opportunities to connect with people, organizations, and employers who are working to shape the world. A community dedicated to translating thoughts into positive action, for 160 years USF has served the citizens of San Francisco and enriched the lives of thousands of people. The institution has graduated students who have gone on to become leaders in government, education, business, journalism, sports, the sciences, nursing and health care, and the legal and medical profession. Among its alumni, the university counts three San Francisco mayors, a United States Senator, four California Supreme Court Justices, a California Lieutenant Governor, two Pulitzer Prize winners, three Olympic medalists, several professional athletes, and the former president of Peru.
San Francisco
San Francisco, the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California, is a hilly city on the tip of a peninsula surrounded by the majestic Pacific Ocean and picturesque San Francisco Bay. The University of San Francisco reflects the world-famous city that surrounds it, a 7 x 7 mile community of 34 neighborhoods and nine ecosystems. Long known for its scenic beauty, its multicultural communities, and a vibrant business culture, San Francisco is a unique and breathtaking metropolis. Over the past two decades, it has become a world center for technological and life science innovation. Culturally rich, the city offers music, art, theater, museum and literary events year around. In addition, the city is close to nature with spectacular beaches, 3,500 acres of green space as well as easy access to miles of hiking and bicycle trails in some of the most beautiful parts of the West Coast.
Known for the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, Fisherman’s Wharf, Victorian houses, Alcatraz, and first-rate food scene, San Francisco is iconic and a popular tourist destination. But it also ranks highly on world livability rankings with the city’s colorful neighborhoods providing distinct and unique areas to enjoy culture and arts events, food, and shopping. Many localities feature a mix of businesses and venues that serve both residents and visitors and contribute to the city’s lively atmosphere. San Francisco also has a very active environmental community, and has been at the forefront of many global discussions about our natural environment. With sweeping views from every hill, an entrepreneurial spirit, year-round free cultural activities, some of the best food, art and music in the country, it is easy to see why San Francisco scores top rankings for being one of the fittest, healthiest and happiest cities in America.
Salary and Benefits
University of San Francisco provides a competitive and sustainable compensation and benefits package designed to help recruit, retain, and recognize a qualified, diverse, and mission-driven workforce. Compensation for this position is expected to range from $280,000 - $320,000.
To learn about University of San Francisco’s employment benefits, please visit the website: https://myusf.usfca.edu/human-resources/benefits. NES Search Consultants would welcome candidate questions and conversations about all facets of the position including compensation, benefits and university leadership.
To Apply
NES is assisting the University of San Francisco with this search for Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Management. For more information or to nominate someone for this position, contact Mary Napier (mary.napier@nessearches.com), Laura Robinson (laura.robinson@nessearches.com) or Suzi Nam (suzi.nam@nessearches.com) for a confidential conversation. Interested candidates should submit a résumé along with a cover letter expressing interest in this position. Candidates should provide the names and contact information of at least three professional references; references will not be contacted without permission. All application materials should be submitted electronically by December 2, 2024 for best consideration to usfca@nessearches.com. The search will remain open until the position is filled.
The University of San Francisco is an equal opportunity institution of higher education. The University does not discriminate in employment, educational services, or academic programs on the basis of an individual’s race, color, religion, religious creed, ancestry, national origin, age (except minors), sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition (cancer-related and genetic-related) and disability, or any other basis prohibited by law. The University reasonably accommodates qualified individuals with disabilities under the law.