Office of the President

This leadership profile is intended to provide information about Ithaca College and the position of vice president for marketing and enrollment strategy. It is designed to assist qualified individuals in assessing their interest in the position.

Download a PDF file of the full Vice President of Marketing and Enrollment Strategy Leadership Profile.

The Division of Marketing and Enrollment Strategy

The new Division of Marketing and Enrollment Strategy will be tasked with marketing the college strategically and wisely to advance IC's overall presence; expand the college's reach and penetration in enrollment; and support the college’s strategies for engagement, volunteering and philanthropy. The division will be centered around a vision of collaborative work with the entire IC community to position the college in the public imagination and to help attract, enroll, retain, graduate and foster lifelong engagement of a talented and diverse student body that is dedicated to changing the world for the better.

Marketing

The college’s marketing and creative professionals collaborate closely with one another and with the communications division to refine the ways in which Ithaca College tells its story as an institution and positions itself among its peers, with its families and students, and among alumni, working to reinforce IC's dynamic institutional identity as a destination for learning, work and life. The team strives to create an audience-centered approach driven by research, testing, measurement and cycles of data-based iteration.

Enrollment

takes into consideration recommendations, the essay and extracurricular activities. If class rank or standardized test scores are provided, those are included in the review. For programs in music or theatre arts that require a pre-screening submission, audition or interview, talent is an important factor.

Engagement is at the core of an Ithaca College education — the students who are most successful at IC are those who are engaged, in and out of the classroom. The college considers demonstrated interest in and engagement with IC when reviewing admission applications.

Ithaca also supports the choice of admitted students to take a semester or year off between high school graduation and college. The college reviews requests to postpone enrollment for a semester or year on a case-by-case basis, and students are asked to include their reason(s) for deferring admission as well as their tentative plans for their gap semester or year.

Ithaca College participates in a wide variety of aid programs designed to meet the needs of most students. All applicants and continuing students are eligible to apply for aid programs that are available as scholarships, grants, loans and work. In 2018-19, the college disbursed more than $136 million in institutional financial aid to more than 5,900 students, and 91 percent of Ithaca College students received grants, scholarships and need-based aid. More than $39 million in scholarships were awarded to enrolled first-year students in 2018-19.

For 2018–19, the cost of undergraduate attendance, including tuition, room and board, and estimated book and personal expenses, is $60,740. Additional information about tuition, fees and aid may be found at https://www.ithaca.edu/tuition-financial-aid/undergraduate-costs- financial-aid.

Analytics and Institutional Research

The Office of Analytics and Institutional Research (AIR), composed of seven staff, is a strategic partner with the campus community transforming institutional data into accurate, accessible and actionable information and advancing a culture of data-informed decision making to support Ithaca College’s mission. AIR assists the college through work on predictive analytics, statistical modeling and analysis, enrollment planning, data warehousing, data governance, research and reporting.

The Role of the Vice President for Marketing and Enrollment Strategy

The new vice president is expected to oversee the overarching marketing and creative strategy for the college collaborating with and advising/consulting partners across IC. Working collaboratively with other campus partners, the vice president will sponsor the development and implementation of a marketing strategy that is backed by analytics and communicates the strengths of Ithaca's academic and student-life programs to prospective students and their influencers. Partnering closely with leaders in the Division of Institutional Advancement, the vice president also will sponsor the development and implementation of a marketing strategy that inspires alumni, parents and friends to engage meaningfully in the life of the college and sustain or increase levels of participation and support.

The vice president will also provide leadership in the area of institutional research: generating, analyzing and publishing institutional research data as appropriate to inform institutional decision making; tracking institutional progress toward the accomplishment of organizational goals and satisfying institutional reporting requirements; and facilitating information gathering in a way that enhances cross-departmental communication and empowers, emboldens and trains others in the use of data and analysis.

The vice president will serve as a key member of a dynamic and diverse senior team with rich experience from a variety of sectors inside and outside of higher education. The senior leadership team provides guidance and leadership for the entire college. The new marketing and enrollment leader will oversee a full- time staff and manage an operating budget with responsibilities including direct oversight of undergraduate and graduate admission, student financial services, analytics and institutional research, and institutional marketing.

Personal Qualifications and Personal Qualities

Ithaca College seeks a driven, innovative and highly skilled vice president to serve as a strategic partner committed to the college’s success as a pre-eminent institution of higher education in the 21st century. To be successful, the vice president must be a results-oriented, relationship- driven and high-performance leader who thrives in a dynamic, fast-paced environment. The role requires an innovative, driven leader and manager who values high engagement with faculty, staff and students, is committed to working in a student-centered shared governance model, is skilled in contemporary enrollment and marketing strategies and seeks to maximize efficiency and effectiveness to deliver transformational results.

The ideal candidate will possess some or all of the following professional qualifications and personal characteristics:

Leadership and Vision

• Capacity to develop a clear vision and strategy consistent with the college’s mission and best practices, and the leadership and talent to advance the division and make it a national model for the combined areas of institutional marketing, data analytics and enrollment;
• Ability to align one's leadership and goals with an ambitious and inclusive strategic plan;
• Executive skills capable of leading and developing a diverse, high-performing team that delivers results and demonstrates a high level of excellence;
• Collaborative leadership style with a deep appreciation for the value of shared governance;
• Student-centered problem solver and risk taker who can work seamlessly across the institution connecting with all key stakeholders;
• Strategic thinking with the ability to contribute to the senior leadership team in areas directly related to enrollment and marketing and beyond, as an expert on trends, challenges and opportunities facing higher education writ large; and
• Unquestionable integrity and moral character; an individual who the institution and community can trust completely and without reservation.

Marketing and Enrollment Expertise

• Demonstrated commitment not only to delivering results in new student recruitment and yield, but, equally, to supporting student success, retention, graduation and lifelong engagement;
• Ability to lead the shaping of Ithaca's future student body with vision and creativity;
• A history of delivering on enrollment goals and a demonstrated ability to develop and implement successful undergraduate and graduate admission, financial aid and marketing strategies;
• Significant professional experience managing the complex interplay of marketing and recruiting strategies, enrollment goals and revenue targets, yield and financial aid, with experience and understanding of how each of these areas differs across student markets and populations;
• Experience leveraging financial aid to optimize enrollment goals;
• Proven experience delivering marketing strategies that support the attainment of strategic advancement goals, particularly those for philanthropy;
• Proven success in the execution of both complex and routine marketing strategies;
• Strong ability in distinguishing and marketing an institution against a competitive set of peer institutions and in effectively seizing and capitalizing on appropriate opportunities to expand or enhance institutional attractiveness;
• Ability to connect institutional marketing efforts with the highest strategic needs of the college and facilitate the match between the college’s needs and the interests of its potential and current students, alumni, families and friends; and
• Ability to translate and/or contribute to institutional strategic planning initiatives that have implications for enrollment strategy.

Record of Advancing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

• Demonstrated commitment to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and full participation so as to align with the college's values and president’s vision for Ithaca College;
• Understanding of difference, and the ability to think intentionally with an awareness of the various ways in which the campus is experienced by students of all backgrounds;
• Knowledge of the changing landscape and demographic shifts regionally, nationally and globally; vision for how an institution can evolve to meet the needs of future student populations; and
• A proven history of identifying, recruiting and enrolling students from diverse backgrounds and increasing diversity – including cultural, socioeconomic, racial, sexual orientation and gender identify and expression – at one's institution.

Technological and Analytical Sophistication

• Ability to engage in constant strategic analysis of opportunities and challenges and to produce forward-looking, transparent strategic plans and budgets that link expenditures to outcomes;
• Experience and understanding of how institutional technology platforms can be utilized to optimize enrollment results and efficient use of staff resources. Specifically, the college will be implementing a new Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) System, which will enable the college to improve its efforts spanning from enrollment, retention and student learning through alumni engagement. Another is the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System, which will enable the college to better manage its human resource and finance functions as well as related information technology.
• Analytical capacity to assess the effectiveness of how recruitment and financial aid funds are employed to achieve enrollment goals;
• Ability to produce regular and systematic comparative reports that detail month-to-month as well as annual progress toward enrollment goals; and
• Understanding of national and international trends in higher education and ability to employ these data effectively in marketing, enrollment and institutional planning.

Change Management and Innovation

• Deep understanding of current and future demographic and higher education trends to build an innovative marketing and enrollment strategy;
• Experience and knowledge considering a mix of educational modes and delivery models, including online, hybrid and nontraditional programs;
• Demonstrated record in managing change for a diverse and complex organization;
• Genuine enjoyment in leading, managing and implementing large-scale innovation;
• Record of success with innovative recruitment strategies along with a willingness to take creative risks for success; and
• Experience in implementing strategies of major importance to the division and to the institution.

Communication and Collaboration

• Propensity to deeply value a student-centered organization and inspire cross collaborative partnerships within and beyond the division, and the organization itself;
• Effective communication skills and strong interpersonal skills that engender trust and collaboration; and
• Confidence as a leader who values relationships with faculty, students, staff, peers and senior leadership equally.

Management

• Exceptional skills as a leader and manager with the ability to inspire and support professional development;
• Secure and self-directed leadership with an ability to work effectively in a consensus-driven environment where direct feedback and constructive criticism is expected and admired; and
• Experience in building, managing and supporting a strong staff that is dedicated to the goals of the division and institution.

Education

• A bachelor's degree is required and candidates with an earned advanced or terminal degree will have an advantage.