Student Affairs & Enrollment Management

Each year all of us are given an opportunity, through the annual performance evaluation process, to think about how we do our jobs, what we want to change for the next year, and how we might be able to go beyond what is expected of us. Evaluations give us all a chance to have some say in the direction of our careers and how we serve NMSU.

We also have that chance, through the strategic planning process, to contribute ideas to the directions that Student Affairs and Enrollment Management will take over the next 3 to 5 years. We are looking to develop a new strategic plan now because NMSU’s institutional strategic plan, Building the Vision, is almost complete, and we can align our with work with institutional priorities. In addition, the previous strategic plan is now due for update.

In March, when we first started talking about creating a new strategic plan, the SAEM Leadership Team agreed on several points:

• Every SAEM staff member needs to have a chance to contribute their ideas and expertise to our strategic plan.
• The strategic plan needs to be visionary: its goals should require that we stretch to reach them and should not be ones that we achieve just in the course of doing our jobs.

Between now and August, we will work not just on our plan but how we will implement our ideas. Watch for the following elements as part of this process:

• An invitation to reflect: We will be using web tools to launch a discussion about the work we do. This will be a general discussion about different aspects of our work.
• Open Forums: These are scheduled for June 12 and will continue the discussion begun on the web.
• Brainstorming: All offices will hold a brainstorming session to collect ideas for the strategic plan. These ideas will be prioritized, and used as the foundation for each area’s strategic plan.
• Staff input: All staff will be invited to comment on items under consideration for inclusion in the strategic plan. These input sessions will be help on July 18 (10 am) and July 24 (2 pm) in the Dona Ana Room of Corbett Center.

Watch for more details.  I welcome your comments!

AWO 2011

All SAEM staff are invited to attend one of two Open Forum sessions on June 12, Corbett Center Student Union Doña Ana Room. The sessions will begin at 1:00 and 2:30, and refreshments will be served.

I am planning to spend some time sharing updates with you as well as my plans for the coming year.  In addition, I will provide time for you to share your thoughts and feedback with me.   Hearing from you — each of you — helps me to stay in tune with what is happening in your areas, and helps me to better explain our issues to the larger campus community. Our perspective is important: we represent not just our own concerns but we have a unique perspective on the challenges and successes of our students, too.

At these sessions, I will also talk about our planning process for SAEM. Again, we will be seeking the input of every member of the SAEM staff for help in deciding where our priorities should be. You are the experts in how to do your job, and we need your thoughts to help us improve.

As always, offices need to stay open during these sessions. This is why there are two sessions, so staff can take turns and keep offices open. I am hoping you will take an hour out of your busy day and let me know what you are thinking about.  I look forward to see you there!

Please join me in welcoming Janie Merchant as our Director of Financial Aid!  Janie has been appointed to begin her new role on Monday, May 7^th.

Janie Merchant has an extensive background in management and has worked in Financial Aid in the NMSU system for over 10 years. She started out as a Financial Aid Processor at Doña Ana Community College and also served there as a Financial Aid Advisor I and II and as Assistant Coordinator of Financial Aid. She started at NMSU in 2006 as Financial Aid Compliance and Quality Assurance Manager before becoming Associate Director then Interim Co-Director of Financial Aid and Scholarship Services. Janie holds a Bachelors of Family and Consumer Science.

Thanks to all who participated in the search process and who provided feedback in helping me with this decision.  I anticipate that each of you will support Janie in this very important role!

Please join me in welcoming Trudy M. Luken as the Director of Student Accessibility Services.  Trudy will begin her service with us on June 18th.

Ms. Luken has an extensive personal and professional history in the field of disabilities that includes having family members with disabilities; teaching special education students in Columbia, Maryland, Las Cruces, and Canutillo; and being employed for over seventeen years as the disability services provider at Doña Ana Community College. She is a member of AHEAD (Association on Higher Education and Disability), is the Treasurer of NM-AHEAD, and is a member of the Las Cruces Sister Cities, Nienburg, Germany Affiliation.

Trudy was raised in New Jersey and St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands and has lived in Las Cruces since 1982. She earned an associate’s degree at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland and completed a bachelor’s degree in Special Education/Elementary Education at the University of Maryland. In 1994, Ms. Luken earned a master’s degree in Special Education Administration and Educational Management from New Mexico State University. Ms. Luken is the mother of two adult sons, enjoys traveling with her husband, knitting, walking the family dog, baking and cooking German cuisine.

Five candidates for the position of Director of Financial Aid and Scholarship Services will be on campus the week of April 2. SAEM staff are encouraged to meet the candidate and provide feedback at the links below.

Virginia Tucker, 4/2/2012 (Tucker Resume)
Open Forum: 2:00-3:00 pm, Otero Room (126), Corbett Center Student Union
Provide feedback

Gladys Chairez, 4/3/2012 (Chairez Resume)
Open Forum: 10:45-11:45 am, Doña Ana Room (312), Corbett Center Student Union
Provide feedback

Ron Martinez, 4/3/2012 (Martinez Resume)
Open Forum: 2:00-3:00 pm, Otero Room (126), Corbett Center Student Union
Provide feedback

Janie Merchant, 4/4/2012 (Merchant Resume)
Open Forum: 2:00-3:00 pm, Doña Ana Room (312), Corbett Center Student Union
Provide feedback

Bill Bloom, 4/5/2012 (Bloom Resume)
Open Forum: 10:45-11:45 am, Doña Ana Room (312), Corbett Center Student Union
Provide feedback

Three candidates will be on campus the week of March 12th to interview for the position of Director, NMSU Student Accessibility Services Office. The campus community is cordially invited to Meet & Greet events at the Dean of Students Office, Corbett Center, 3rd Level, Room 317 (Conference room) to meet the candidates.

Monday, March 12, 2012: Rebecca Matter, 4:00 PM-5:00 PM

Tuesday, March 13, 2012: David Esquibel 11:00 AM-12:00 Noon

Tuesday, March 13: Trudy Luken, 4:00-5:00 PM

Attendees will have the opportunity to give feedback on these candidates.

Give feedback on these candidates at the links below or on the right:

• Rebecca Matter
• David Esquibel
• Trudy Luken

The feedback surveys for these candidates are now closed.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending some time at two events that reminded me of the special role that Student Affairs and Enrollment Management plays in the ultimate success of our students and of our University.  I attended our annual Career Fair, sponsored and planned by our Career Services Office, and our Welcome Back Program, sponsored and planned by Chicano Programs.  While at the Career Fair, I had the pleasure of meeting with some of the employers who recruit graduates from NMSU.  One employer, in particular, shared that her organization, the U.S. Forest Service, invests in sending her on a 1500 mile one-way trip to attend this event for two main reasons:  the high quality graduates that NMSU produces, and the warm welcome that she receives from NMSU.  Employers and students that I spoke with were pleased with the event, and it was wonderful to receive the positive feedback from both.

I also spent a short time at the Chicano Programs Welcome Back event held on the International Mall.  It was wonderful to see the collaboration of many of our offices from within SAEM involved, and it was even better to see the enthusiasm of both the staff and students who were there to enjoy and learn from those present.

As I returned to the office, I reflected on how critical we all are to the success of our students, and to the success of our University.  The academic and social  support programming we provide, the health and wellness programs, the financial support, the guidance, the sense of community, the encouragement to attend our University are just a few of the things we provide.  I know that we do so much more, and that we often aren’t recognized for it.

Our last day of registration was Monday, our census date is Friday, and so begins another semester!  All of us in SAEM are working hard to make this the start of another successful, happy, healthy semester for our students, while others are focusing on Fall 2012 recruitment, and others working on details for Commencement, which is only a few short months away.  We have so much going on, and I hope that each of you are feeling as hopeful as I am!

Please take some time to reflect on the important role that you play at NMSU.  I look forward to many more positive interactions with you and with our students during this semester.

The spring semester will involve filling many key positions within Student Affairs and Enrollment Management.  The most current positiions we are seraching for include directors for Financial Aid and for Student Accessibility Services. After the search committees identify finalists for these positions, all staff will have an opportunity to interact with the candidates and provide feedback through various opportunities.

Search committees for each of these positions must have at least 3 members. The job of the search committee  is to sort through the applicants, eliminate those who do not meet the job qualifications, and forward a list of the top four to six candidates to Bernadette. When the finalists are invited to campus, there will be events for any interested staff to meet the candidates. As always, I will seek feedback from everybody who meets the candidates via a confidential web survey.

Both of these areas require a high degree of specialized knowledge, so we sought search committee members with expertise and experience in these areas. The committee for the Student Accessibility Services search is being chaired by Terry Cook; she is currently working on staffing that committee with Susan Waldo.

The Financial Aid Director search committee is being chaired by Dacia Sedillo and will be staffed by:

• Darlene Duvall, NMSU-A Financial Aid Director
• Gladys Chairez, DACC Financial Aid Director
• Jill Hall, Financial Aid Advisor, Financial Aid and Scholarship Services
• Sandy Byhower, Senior Fiscal Assistant, Financial Aid and Scholarship Services
• Preema Chinnasami, Systems Analyst, Student Information Management
• Norma Noel, Associate Controller, Sponsored Projects Accounting

I will share more news about these searches and news of other open positions as it becomes available.

Thank you for your continued support, and I look forward to your further involvement as these searches get underway.

Bernadette

Here’s a way to warm up the February cold: start planning now for Aggie Kindness Day, on Thursday, February 9.

You can act as a group, a whole office, or alone, in a little way or a big way. Julie Weber, Director of Housing and Residential Life, had suggestions: an office can take up a collection and buy coffee for the first 25 students at Einstein’s. They can show up at Taos and clear tables for diners. The ideas are endless: collect canned goods for a food bank. Buy a lottery ticket for a stranger. Start a scholarship collection. Pick up trash around campus.

Housing and Residential Life started Aggie Kindness to honor Emily Lein, an NMSU student who died in November. Lein was an Aggie “superfan” who showed kindness and enthusiasm to everyone she encountered.

“Emily’s death was a reminder to a lot of people that our opportunities to be kind come in many forms,” said Michelle Bernstein, Assistant Director of Residential Education and Assessment. “We wanted to give students the opportunity to spread kindness throughout NMSU and the community.”

Participants are requested to submit photos, quotes, and feedback from their Aggie Kindness Day experience on the Housing and Residential Life Facebook Page at http://www.facebook.com/NMSUHousing.

Contact Michelle Bernstein (6-5590 or michbern@ad.nmsu.edu) for more information, including how to get Aggie Kindness Day buttons.

All of us hit the ground running on our return from the holiday break. I wanted to give you a brief update on some of the things that are currently at the forefront for our area:

• Enrollment: We are still working on our campaign to call students who are not registered for classes for spring term. Volunteers have made hundreds of calls, but enrollment numbers suggest that students could use some help in signing up for classes.
• Loan default: Following last fall’s news about NMSU’s loan default rate, we will continue to work on how to best address this issue and decrease the number of our students who default on their loans.  We are exploring options for getting some outside assitance in this effort.
• Recruitment and retention (HED Funding Formula): The state has changed how money for universities is distributed from the former model, which emphasized student credit hours. This change is expected to shift more focus toward  recruitment, retention and graduation.  This is also part of the Building the Vision Goal for NMSU!
• Legislative Session: This year’s Legislative Session starts January 17 and will last for 30 days. The Legislative Session can seem like a remote event, but decisions made in the Legislature can have a tremendous effect on our students and their access to higher education, as well as how we might approach the work we do.
• Transfer Students:  There will be a lot of focus in the coming year in recruiting of transfer students to NMSU, both from within our NMSU system Community Colleges as well as from other two-year institutions in our State.  Our Transfer Center is now open, and we will share more details about that office with you soon!

Because of our role in serving students, every employee in SAEM is a part of these efforts, especially those involving  recruitment, retention and graduation. Our emphasis on  serving student helps make NMSU a welcoming place to learn.  I know that each of you will do your utmost best to ensure the highest level of service!

I want to take this opportunity to share some information with our Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Staff related to recent news articles related to our student loan default rates.  Please be aware that NMSU is not at risk of any financial aid penalty, nor are we are risk of losing Title IV funding because of our default rate. Our default rate of 9.9% is a concern, and we are addressing this through a variety of means. The November 28 article in the Albuquerque Journal has led to some concerns on this account.

Default Rate Calculation

Our official default rate of 9.9% was calculated under a set of rules that expired on October 1, 2011 and represents the 2-year repayment history for students who left NMSU or graduated in 2009. The new calculation will represent a 3-year payment history; students have more opportunities to default in three years than in 2, and so we expect numbers to increase under the new calculation rules. The Department of Education increased the threshold for penalties to 15%, which offsets the expected increase in the cohort rate.

Under the new rules, our 3-year trial default rate is 13.7% (called a trial rate because this calculation is not the official one yet). The penalty mentioned by the Journal article requires that we delay loan disbursements for first-time borrowers (not freshmen, as stated in the article) for 30 days after the semester starts. The threshold for losing funding is 30%.

Several items will help us stay under the 15% default rate:

• Counseling for students before they receive a loan each year (federal regulations require this only for first-time borrowers).
• Counseling by NSLP for students who are in their grace period before entering repayment and for students who are delinquent and at risk of defaulting.
• New Department of Education Income Borrower Repayment Plans that limit some students to loan payments that will not exceed 10% of their disposable income.

NMSU has been working with an outside firm, NSLP, on this issue. Preliminary results from NSLP indicate that students who withdraw from NMSU early in their college education have default rates higher than students who earn a degree or even students who withdraw later. Consistent with this data, NMSU community colleges have higher default rates than the Las Cruces campus. Overall, default data mirrors retention data in that students with the lowest family incomes, test scores, and GPAs have the highest default rates, just as they have the highest drop-out rates.

How can you help?  Each of you can help by supporting retention efforts for all of our students.  In addition, you are encouraged to refer students to the Financial Aid Office so that students can benefit from the expertise of the staff who are versed in the loan rules and regulations. 

Thank you!

In an effort to maintain our enrollment at last year’s level, Student Affairs and Enrollment Management staff began calling students this week who are eligible to register for spring but who have not yet done so. This calling campaign provides an opportunity for SAEM staff to volunteer in a university-wide effort to help our students achieve their academic goals.

So how does this work? Registration started last week for Crimson Scholars: students who have not yet registered are being contacted this week as a proactive intervention. There are many reasons why students wait to register; through this intervention, we are seeking to help students avoid this delay and address any concerns they might have. In the course of calling, staff volunteers might recommend that a student meet with his or her advisor, identify a hold on the student’s account that prevents registration, or suggest other strategies that will help ensure that the student sign up for courses and continue to make progress toward graduation.

This might sound complicated, but Terry Cook from the Office of Student Engagement and Student Information Management (SIM) have collaborated to make this a smooth operation. To help staff call students, SIM created a secure website that lists students who are eligible to be contacted. In addition to contact information, the site lists academic advisors, registration holds, majors, and other relevant information. The staff member calling can document student concerns and recommendations in a comment field; these comments will assist us in understanding what challenges our students face at registration time. Terry has also assembled information on registration holds and advisors so callers know where to refer students to resolve issues.

Besides helping students register for courses needed for graduation, this intervention will help NMSU plan earlier where to add course sections to meet student demand. Further, to maintain the same year-long enrollment numbers as last year, we will need to increase our enrollment by at least 5,877 credit hours over last spring’s enrollment.

For more information, or to volunteer to call students, please contact Terry Cook at tcook@nmsu.edu.

To get posters for your offices, email Melody at melodym@nmsu.edu. Poster by P. Johnson.

Between now and the December holidays, Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Staff will be working on two efforts to help student retention and enrollment, and all staff can help.

First, we are encouraging all NMSU students to update their contact information in my.nmsu.edu. As students visit your offices between now and the end of the year, encourage them to update this information, and help them with directions if necessary. It is critical that NMSU be able to contact students to keep them up-to-date with important campus deadlines and events. If you want materials such as flyers and posters with this message, contact Melody Munson-McGee at 6-3572 or melodym@nmsu.edu.

And second, headed by Terry Cook and the Office of Student Engagement and at the request of President Couture, NMSU staff will be calling students starting in about a week who are eligible to register but have not yet done so. More details on how you might be able to help will be available soon!

Both of these efforts can help NMSU’s enrollment numbers, so thank you for your assistance.

Thanks to everyone who helped to make our SAEM Staff BBQ such a successful event!  A special thanks to Ann Nieto, Melody Munson-McGee, Dacia Sedillo, Phillip Johnson, Ann Landmark and to our Enrollment Management student staff members for their work on all the details involved in the planning, implementation and clean up!  Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time, and the weather cooperated beautifully.

It was wonderful to see so many of you in attendance at our BBQ.  Serving as an employee in such a large area, it gave all of us an opportunity to meet new people, to visit with colleagues and to make new friends.  For me, it was especially nice to have an opportunity to meet a few new people myself, and to spend some time visiting; something we don’t often get the chance to do.  In addition, I had a wonderful opportunity to meet several student employees!

I appreciate those of you who took the time to engage in our community building portion.  We had over 100 employees participate by filling out the information cards.  I have taken the time time to read through all of them this afternoon, and was pleased with many of the comments.  Here are just a few that I enjoyed:

“I didn’t realize that SAEM has staff located in a total of 14 buildings across campus.”

“Career services hosts an Etiquette Dinner.”

“There’s a lot of good attitudes and school spirit in this group.”

“Outdoor recreational sports does lots of really cool outreach.”

“We have a design team that run the Twitter and Facebook for SAEM.”

“Didn’t realize how large our division truly was.”

“We are all tied together for the purpose of providing student services.”

Congratulations to the winners of our prize drawings.

Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Staff:

To meet a recent need for funding reallocation within the University system, Student Affairs and Enrollment Management was asked to consider a reorganization to help meet that need. While the choices we have had to make have been challenging, this reorganization is the best way we had to ensure that all offices remained in tact, and that we were still able to meet the needs of our students and the NMSU community.

Effective November 1, the following changes will occur:

• Career Services will report to Tony Marin in the Office of Student Engagement. Tony will retain his current title as Director, Student Affairs.  Veterans Affairs will move under the leadership of the Registrar’s Office, and report to Jacobo Varela, Assistant Registrar. These changes affect only reporting lines: the office functions will continue to operate out of the same space and with the same staff as prior to this reorganization.
• Agustin Diaz will join the administrative team in the Office of Institutional Equity.  Agustin will be focusing on Title IX compliance and other related OIE issues. 
• Maria Hernandez will transfer from Career Services to the Financial Aid and Scholarship Services Office as the Administrative Assistant. 

Effective January 2012, Testing Services will move from NMSU to Dona Ana Community College – East Mesa. Final details regarding this transition are still being worked out.

This reorganization reflects resources that have been reallocated within the University. To absorb this loss, we will not be filling the following positions:  Career Services Director, All Things Military Coordinator, International Transcript Evaluator, and Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management. The Dean of Students Position will also change from a level 14 to a level 12 position, and will be posted soon.

As part of this process, I would like to announce that the following positions will become available for posting within the coming months:

• Dean of Students
• Director of Financial Aid
• Aggie Welcome & Orientation Coordinator
• WAVE Student Program Coordinator
• Career Services Administrative Assistant
• Student Resources Coordinator for Career Services
• Senior Admissions Advisor
• Student Diversity and Outreach Administrative Assistant

As always, I appreciate and value your support.  I know you will help our colleagues in new and changing roles to be successful, and to make Student Affairs and Enrollment Management the great unit that it is!

With the start of the semester, I have had the opportunity to meet student leaders at several evening events over the past few weeks. These students all share in various leadership roles in groups ranging from American Indian and Black programs, our GLBTQA community, Chicano programs, to the Greek system and ASNMSU, our student government. They can expect to pick up valuable skills and experience though their leadership service.  It has been a pleasure getting to know the students and to spend time with them, and I have appreciated the opportunity to interact with them. 

During a recent evening event with student leaders, I shared with them a few thoughts on the unique insights and qualities of their generation.  Many of the students who are part of our campus community now are Millennials, and some additional understanding about them may help us serve them better.

These students, for the most part, share in being Millennial students, who were born after 1981 (much of the following information was taken from a report by California State University at Long Beach shared by Terry Cook). The current population of the US is made up of:

• Traditionalists: These are people who were born by the end of World War II and who have seen great changes in technology during their lifetime. Older Traditionalists were influenced by the Great Depression and World War II, younger ones by the Cold War.
• Baby Boomers: Born after World War II, Boomers grew up with television. This technology brought them news of the assassinations of the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, the Women’s Rights movement, the Space Race and Watergate.
• Generation X’ers: this was the first generation of latchkey kids with working mothers. They were influenced by single parent homes, news about violence, AIDS and child kidnappings, and the Gulf War. Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers make up the majority of college employees.
• Millennials: born after 1981, Millennials are the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history. Technology is very important to this generation, including laptop computers, iPods and MP3 players, gaming systems, and especially smartphones.

To support our NMSU student athletes, all Student Affairs and Enrollment Management staff will receive a Game Day t-shirt and a few Aggie tattoos to wear. It’s a great shirt to also wear on Crimson Fridays. Let’s show our support for the Aggies!

These shirts were purchased with personal monetary donations from your colleagues in Student Affairs and Enrollment Management.  Thanks to our students from University Admissions for modeling our shirts.

Bernadette Montoya and Pistol Pete at the 2011 Welcome BBQ

Early Sunday morning, students started arriving on campus to move into housing for the fall semester. Hundreds of family members were helped by even more student, faculty, and staff members to quickly empty out cars and fill up dorm rooms. One parent reported that because of all the volunteers, their daughter’s U-Haul was unloaded in just one trip by a swarm of helpful folks!

Student Affairs and Enrollment Management staff were busy all day. The Educational Services Building was open from 8-5 for students and their families to take care of business. Other staff were on hand to greet parents on the International Mall after they had moved their students into housing. Still more of our staff helped at other locations all over campus and from their offices.  Thanks to all Student Affairs and Enrollment Management staff who helped make this such a successful day for our new students!

Many students and their family members and friends attended an evening  BBQ with President Couture Sunday evening. It was a beautiful evening, and the Aggie Pride Band, our student athletes and coaches  helped to make it a memorable event. The staff and students from Alumni and Housing and Residential Life also made this event a huge success. 

As you can see by the photo, I had a little fun with “Pete” at the BBQ.  Both of the young men who play “Pistol Pete” do a wonderful job garnering enthusiasm from the crowd.  I observed many new students asking to have their pictures taken with him, so I decided to join in on the fun!

Best wishes for continued success during this busy week!

As many of you may know, the Executive Leadership Team spent some time this summer working toward building a more cohesive team.  The fact that we are merging two large departments (Student Affairs and Enrollment Management) necessitated that we work to ensure that we were all focusing on the same goals. Strengthening our team was the main agenda item for the retreat.  I invited a professional colleague of mine, Pam Bergone, to help guide us.  I met Pam through my work with the Leadership Chair Academy for Higher Education Leaders.  She did a great job in guiding us and in facilitating our work. 

We also had the pleasure of sharing our time with our two student interns, studying in the EMD department. Pam Wood and Rosa de la Torre Burmeister added a great deal to our time together, and we wish them well as they complete their last semester of graduate school.  We look forward to seeing them at commencement in December where their Master’s degrees will be conferred. 

The retreat was structured around the DiSC Assessment from Inscape Publishing, which provided  insights into leadership styles, work behavioral styles and strategies. The DiSC focuses on four aspects of behavior: dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness. We were fortunate that all of these aspects were represented in our group, and our discussion included contributions from all these voices.

The first day centered on developing insight into our predominant behavioral mode. As a group, we discussed the values and benefits of all the types, which helped us understand how people who think and act differently balance our strengths. These insights led to reflection on how to work with our strengths and to use the strengths of colleagues.

The second day focused on how we can apply what we learned the previous day, and the work we accomplished will be followed up with ideas for continued professional development.  In addition, our required reading in preparation for the retreat was a book by Bill George, titled 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis.  The book content was a springboard for our discussion on the challenges faced by our offices.  We used the 7 Lessons to help us focus on how we might approach these challenges and effectively deal with them.  There was great discussion among the team, and each of us left feeling energized and hopeful about our service at NMSU.

The work that we put into understanding our strengths will benefit Student Affairs and Enrollment Management through stronger, more balanced teams furthering the business of the university, and more importantly, or service to each other as professional colleagues.