Search for the Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs

The Plymouth Promise to students of Plymouth State University is as follows: simply, "give us your best and we'll give you ours."

What this means in terms of holding up this promise, on the part of the Administration and the University, hinges largely on employing the very best in all fields to make PSU a place where students can learn and flourish. With this initiative in mind, Vice President for Finance and Administration Stephen Taksar has been leading the search for the University's new Vice President for Enrollment Management and  Affairs.

Since the beginning of the academic year, the position formerly held by Rick Barth has been vacant, and Taksar and the VPEMSA Search Committee have been admirably active in recruiting candidates to apply for the position.

The Committee is past the initial stage of the search process that entails finding and selecting candidates, and is now hosting a series of public sessions for the campus community, which students are encouraged to attend. During these sessions, each candidate spends two days at PSU getting acquainted with the community and discussing their plan for furthering enrollment management and student affairs. 

"We have outstanding candidates coming to the campus," said Taksar. "These are people who are leaders in their field and have really long and well-established track records in the areas of expertise that we're looking for."

According to Taksar, "the focus of the position [of Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs] is to bring in expertise relative to current enrollment management strategies… and to integrate them into what we're currently doing."

The position, as is suggested by the title, entails orchestrating and overseeing two aspects of the University's operations: student enrollment and student affairs.

"Enrollment management is really the strategies to recruit and retain our students at Plymouth State. And at the end of the day it's everybody's job to help retain students, but the leaders of that initiative are really in the student affairs area," said Taksar. 

The mission of student affairs leaders is to "enhance the out of classroom experience," said Taksar. "Of course, students are here to go to school and get an education, but it's also important to have positive out-of-classroom experiences."

However, while Taksar said that the focus on student affairs was "no less-important than enrollment management, we have very experienced people in positions that have been restructured [in the area of student affairs] to allow the Vice President to focus more on enrollment management."

"Student affairs was restructured by the previous Vice President, and responsibilities were added to various peoples' existing duties in a way to facilitate propelling the student affairs side of the organization," said Taksar. 

Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Terri Potter, who has an extremely active role in the development and propelling of student affairs and is also a member of the Search Committee, believes that the new Vice President should have "demonstrated a record of success in leading enrollment management efforts, and also a significant understanding of the work of student affairs."

"Enrollment management needs to be the priority" of the chosen candidate, said Potter.

Student Body President Lexi Casale, who is representing PSU students on the Search Committee, says she believes that it is "important" that the new Vice President "not only fits in with the administration, but also understands the students, the campus, and our priorities."

Upon the completion of the each candidate's public sessions, the Search Committee will review all of the input from everyone on campus that spoke with the candidates, and then send a modified list to President Steen of those recommended for consideration for the position. 

"From that point, the decision is left to President Steen," said Taksar.

For Taksar, certain qualities in a candidate are necessary to making the final list: "Affective leadership in enrollment management, having a clear vision of how to translate a goal to reality, and fitting within the culture of Plymouth State University."

"It's a long process. We started in September, and the Committee's been working very hard since then," said Taksar. "It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy, and it's because of them that we're going to come out with a great candidate."