Student Affairs & Enrollment Management

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:

• 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.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to participate in our recent Dean of Students Search.   At this time, and after much thought and consideration, I have chosen to close the search.  I will be working with members of my Executive Leadership Team, ASNMSU President and other members of our campus community to consider reclassifying the position.  Dr. Susan Waldo will continue her service as Interim Dean of Students.  I will keep you informed of our progress.  Thank you again for your involvement and interest is the search.

The following is the presentation Bernadette delivered to the Board of Regents on June 22 to introduce the Division.

Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Colleauges ~

June was certainly a busy month!  On the 22nd, I was given a wonderful opportunity to share information about our division with our NMSU Board of Regents during their annual retreat.  It was truly a pleasure to discuss the many good and very important things that all of you are doing to serve both students and our faculty.

Last week I attended a meeting of the Council of Student Affairs and Enrollmement Management Vice Presidents at APLU (Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities) in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  This was a wonderful opportunity to meet with colleagues from other Land Grant institutions.  Our conversations focused on reporting relationships among VP’s and within the various areas of student affairs, the role of co-curricular learning outcomes, marketing student affairs and enrollment management on our campuses, promoting data-driven supervision of collegiate counseling centers, and the role and impact of our areas on retention and graduation.  In addition, there was also much discussion about the current challenges we are facing related to the impending radical changes of the Pell grant funding at the Federal level.  Thanks to those of you who I called on for advice on the Pell issues!  We were able to share our collective thoughts with President Couture, and she will now forward comments to APLU and to others to continue to support Pell funding for our students.

As many of you may already know, Mr. Steve Salway retired after serving many years as Director of  Career Services.  We wish him the very best.  I will be meeting with staff from the Career Services office in the next two weeks to discuss future direction for this key area in Student Affairs and to get to know each of them a little better, and to learn about the role they each play.  Dr. Susan Waldo has agreed to serve as the point person for the Career Services office until we determine next steps.

Many of you continue to ask about the status of the Dean of Students search.  At this time, I am finalizing the secondary referencing.  I will keep you informed as we move forward.

The plans for Freshman Student Convocation scheduled for August 15 are coming along nicely!  I appreciate the time and effort spent by the Office of Student Engagement in handling the many details involved with this event.  It is the intent of our President to make this an annual event, and one of NMSU’s traditions.  We will all play a role in the many important events scheduled for that week, beginning on Sunday, August 14th – Move in day!  I will be counting on everyone’s cooperation and support as we welcome our entering freshman class, as well as our continuing students.  Updates will be shared in the coming weeks on ways that you might be involved.

Again, please take this opportunity to provide relevant feedback on the updates and information I provide.  I look forward to continued dialogue with you.

Bernadette

Division Colleagues ~

Thanks to all of you who participated in our recent Dean of Students on-campus interview process.  I am pleased with the pool of candidates that the search committee recommended, and feel confident that we can continue moving forward in our process.  We owe a great deal of thanks to our search committee members:  Tony Marin (Chair), Stephen Lopez, Susan Waldo, Danois Montoya, Abby Goodin, Delia DeLeon, Julie Weber and Ann Nieto.  At this time, I am preparing to complete final referencing on the candidates.  I will keep you apprised of the progress.  The target date for hire is scheduled for July 18th. 

In addition to a busy week with our candiate interviews, several of our colleagues were extremely busy working on the submission of a Lumina Grant.  If awarded, this grant will support the success and graduation rates of Latino/a students at NMSU.  The project is named for one of the first minority students to ever attend NMSU (then called the New Mexico College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts), Fabian Garcia.  The specific name for the project is the Fabian Garcia Baccalaureate Achievement Program.  A great deal of work was done by Dr. Tony Marin, Dr. Terry Cook and Christina Chavez Kelley. Thank you all for a job well done!  Please keep a good thought that we are awarded this funding. We will know more in the coming months and will keep you posted on the progress. 

I am preparing to present to the NMSU Board of Regents on June 22 during their annual Board Retreat.  I have been given the opportunity to discuss the organizational structure of our division, as well as to discuss the many plans that we have to help boost our graduation and retention rates.  I am looking forward to sharing the good things that all of our areas are doing!  Thanks to those of you who provided data and information for the presentation. 

I know there are many other things happening within our division right now. Some of you are involved in moving into new space, others are dealing with the challenges of being in new space, and others are engaged in planning for the upcoming year.  We have some areas involved in cleaning our student data for HED reporting, awarding scholarships,  managing and preparing for all of our new student registration programs,  and generally preparing  for the start of the fall semester.  Even with all that is going on, it is my hope that you are each finding some personal  time to relax and enjoy the summer.

As a reminder, I hope that you will use this forum as a place for collegial and professional dialogue related to our division. Your comments are encouraged.  This web site will grow and expand as we continue our efforts to broaden our communication within the division.  A closing thought and quote to consider:

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me

was when someone asked me what I thought,

and attended to my answer.“

-Henry David Thoreau 

In closing,  I appreciate all of the support and positive feedback that I have received from so many of you.  Thank you. 

Bernadette

To all DSS staff:

I am honored to serve NMSU as the Vice President for Student Success. As an alumna of NMSU, it is a privilege to be able to give back to this institution and to work alongside each of you.

In this position, I am responsible for areas that deal with student affairs, health and wellness, and enrollment management. Staff in this area play an essential role in the success of our students and in the academic mission of the university. As NMSU sets new goals, the Division will be particularly involved in those focused on graduation, diversity, efficiency, and pride. Among our current efforts in the Division:

• The search committee for the Dean of Students will announce this week candidates who will be invited for campus visits.
• The Office of Student Engagement is partnering with the President’s Office to hold NMSU’s first New Student Convocation.
• In partnership with the Provost’s Office, we are creating a center for transfer students in the Educational Services Building. This center will give these students one place to go for advice on credit evaluation, advising, and financial aid.

In addition, we have other vacant, key positions that must be filled, and I will work with the Student Success leadership to establish strategic directions for the future.

And finally, this website is a first step in addressing concerns I have heard from DSS staff about communications. This site will be a primary channel for communication in the Division, and it will evolve over time to meet our needs. I will use this site to update staff with news and events; we will also use this site to post items such as meeting notes.  While some of these items are routine in nature, they inform us all what is happening in other areas of the Division.

The goal is for effective communication to become not just be part of what we do, but part of our culture. I invite you to comment below. I want to hear from you; let’s keep up the conversation.

Bernadette Montoya
Vice President for Student Success