Associate Vice President, Enrollment Management

Eastern Kentucky University • Richmond, VA

3d • Onsite

About The Position

The Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management is EKU's senior operating officer for new student enrollment across every population the institution serves. The AVP EM is accountable for delivering new student headcount, net tuition revenue, and class profile targets, and for the operational systems that convert interest into enrolled students. The portfolio pairs recruitment across all populations with financial aid strategy and administration. That pairing is deliberate. At a regional comprehensive serving high concentrations of first-generation, rural, transfer, and adult students, award timing and affordability clarity are yield levers, not back-office functions. Separating them from recruitment produces exactly the handoff friction that loses students between admit and enroll. This is an outcomes role. The successful candidate is an enrollment operations executive who can hold a funnel target and run a Title IV compliance shop with equal seriousness.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration, Student Affairs, Counseling, Public Administration, or a related field
• Five years of progressive leadership experience in enrollment management, admissions, or financial aid, including at least three years supervising professional staff at the director level or above.

Responsibilities

• Own annual and multi-year new student targets across first-time full-time, transfer, adult, online, and graduate populations. Build the goals, defend the assumptions, deliver the number. Translate the Strategic Enrollment Management Plan into an operational plan with weekly execution and named owners. Present funnel performance, variance, and corrective action to the VP's Executive Council on a defined cycle. Lead net tuition revenue forecasting and scenario modeling with Institutional Effectiveness and Research and the Budget Office. Escalate risk early. The institution can absorb bad news in September. It cannot absorb bad news at census.
• Direct undergraduate admissions operations, including application review, decision release, territory design, counselor staffing, travel strategy, and conversion accountability by territory. Direct graduate, online, adult, and transfer recruitment as a distinct operating discipline with its own funnel logic, cycle timing, and conversion standards. These populations do not respond to traditional undergraduate recruitment cadence and should not be run on it. Own the 8Kby28 online enrollment growth trajectory in partnership with Academic Affairs on program supply and Regional Campuses on delivery. Build and maintain transfer pathway and articulation strategy with KCTCS and other feeder institutions, and hold the Registrar to agreed credit evaluation turnaround standards on behalf of transfer yield. Direct dual credit, early college, and college access pipeline strategy.
• Direct financial aid strategy, including institutional aid leveraging, discount rate management, scholarship matrix design, and packaging philosophy. Model and recommend aid strategies that optimize net tuition revenue while advancing access for first-generation, rural, and Pell-eligible students. Own federal and state compliance, including Title IV administration, verification, satisfactory academic progress, return of Title IV funds, and Kentucky state aid programs. Compress time from application to award, and from award to student understanding of what they will actually pay. Partner with Big E Central on aid-related navigation, escalation pathways, and case resolution.
• Direct the Welcome Center and the full campus visit operation, including daily visits, group visits, counselor-led programming, and the visitor experience standard. Own the recruitment and yield event portfolio, including open houses, admitted student programs, transfer and adult information sessions, and regional events. Establish measurable attribution from visit and event participation to application, deposit, and matriculation. Every event carries a conversion expectation or it does not run. Ensure the visit experience delivers on the brand promise made in marketing. Visit is where recruitment marketing either earns credibility or loses it.
• Serve as the primary business owner for enrollment CRM requirements, including application workflow, decision logic, portal behavior, event registration, and funnel communication flows. Submit, prioritize, and defend requirements through the agreed intake process with the Executive Director of Enrollment Systems. Define the enrollment metrics that matter, including funnel stage definitions, conversion standards, source attribution requirements, and territory reporting needs. Enrollment Systems builds and delivers against those definitions. Both parties operate from one agreed set of numbers. Specify data governance requirements from the enrollment side, including source tagging, geographic capture, and student type classification standards, and hold operational discipline within admissions, recruitment, and aid so that data entered upstream is clean. Participate in a standing joint prioritization forum with the Executive Director of Enrollment Systems. Escalate unresolved priority conflicts to the Vice President rather than working around them. Serve as the enrollment-side counterpart to Marketing and Communications, providing audience definition, lead quality standards, and conversion accountability. Brand, creative, campaign, and media authority rests with MarCom and the Vice President. Maintain a working service partnership with the Office of the Registrar covering transfer credit evaluation, registration access for new students, and enrollment data definitions. Partner with academic deans on program-level enrollment strategy, capacity planning, and new program demand assessment. Partner with Student Success and Retention leadership so that recruitment promises match the delivered experience. Manage unit operating budgets and coordinate institutional aid budget planning with the CFO.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director