Message From Your Co-Chairs

Within the higher education community, enrollment managers and communication professionals are working more closely together than ever before. Roles and responsibilities are shifting or expanding; new reporting and working relationships are being developed. This is new territory for many of us.

This program is designed to explore this emerging practice and its impact on our work together. We hope you will walk away with a deeper understanding of the fundamental and philosophical approaches in each discipline and how new strategic partnerships can emerge for greater success.

We look forward to meeting you there!

W. Kent Barnds, Conference Co-Chair
Vice President, Enrollment & Communication
Augustana College

W. Kent Barnds joined Augustana College in the summer of 2005 as vice president of enrollment. Since his arrival at Augustana, he has overseen the most successful enrollment in the college's history and the two largest entering first-year classes; strategies to achieve the largest applicant pool in history; greater selectivity of accepted applicants; scholarship strategies to improve yield of students with stronger academic qualifications and increase net tuition revenue; and a multicultural recruitment plan that increased first-year multicultural enrollment from 8 percent to 11 percent.

Barnds' professional record also exemplifies his leadership abilities. He has presented annually at the Conference of Lutheran College Enrollment Officers, Illinois Association for College Admissions Counseling (IACAC), and has served as a delegate with the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). As a consultant for higher education admissions offices, he lectures on a wide variety of higher education topics ranging from college admission interviews and essays to the value of a four-year degree from a private college. He has published articles in Inside Higher Education, University Business Magazine and Next Magazine, and has served as a higher education enrollment expert to local and national media such as the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

At Augustana College, Barnds oversees the offices of admissions, financial assistance, communication and marketing, and Web services. Prior to joining Augustana, he worked for Elizabethtown College in central Pennsylvania for 13 years. At that institution he advanced from admissions counselor to a number of director positions to dean of admissions and enrollment management.

Susan Mesheau, Conference Co-Chair
Executive Director, U First: Integrated Recruitment & Retention
University of New Brunswick

Susan Mesheau joined the University of New Brunswick (Fredericton) in 2001 as its first director of student recruitment & integrated marketing.

Throughout her 30-year career in marketing, Mesheau has directed numerous marketing campaigns within the New Brunswick provincial government, which resulted in significant growth in provincial revenues. She brought her expertise to UNB to raise awareness of and investment in the university through the integration and coordination of university marketing and student recruitment efforts. Her breadth of knowledge covers branding, strategic marketing program development, implementation and measurement, market research, marketing consultation, public-private sector partnerships, public relations and product development.

Under her leadership, undergraduate student enrollment at UNB increased by more than 15 percent in three years; a university branding initiative was developed, from which several bold, successful integrated marketing programs have been launched, positively affecting significant outcomes such as marketplace perceptions, increased research revenue, government funding increases, growth in first-time donors, active alumni and media attention.

Mesheau recently assumed the new position of executive director of U First: Integrated Recruitment & Retention at UNB Fredericton, with responsibility for all levels of recruitment, recruitment marketing and retention. Bringing the ‘integrated marketing way of strategic thinking' into enrollment management and academic planning, her team spearheads the generation of over one-third of the operating revenue of the institution through the development and implementation of targeted and integrated recruitment and retention strategies built upon solid market research and performance measurement to achieve specific enrollment objectives.

George Dehne
President
George Dehne and Associates

George Dehne is president of George Dehne & Associates, Inc., which is comprised of two divisions, GDA Research and GDA Integrated Services. GDA Research focuses on market research and consulting, specializing in creating strategies for admissions, financial aid and public relations. GDA Integrated Services offers a complete line of services for student recruitment and public relations ranging from direct mail and telemarketing to audio-video and publication production. Together, the two divisions have worked with more than 300 colleges and universities throughout the United States.
Dehne has served as a consultant to some of the nation's most distinguished universities and several small colleges.

As special assistant to the president from 1977-1981, Dehne developed and directed the landmark marketing program for Carleton College. During his tenure at the college, Carleton won four Circle of Excellence Awards for Public Relations and Admissions from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). The success of the Carleton effort was chronicled in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Harvard Business Review.

Dehne began his career as a feature writer for United Press International and later served as a creative director for Young & Rubicam, the worldwide advertising agency. In the early 1970s, he was director of public relations for Wittenberg University in Ohio, followed by tenure as an account executive for Gehrung Associates University Relations Counselors, the nation's first and largest firm devoted to the promotion of higher education.

He earned a master's degree in business administration, a master's degree in journalism and a master's degree in higher education from Indiana University.

Dehne's articles have appeared in the Journal of College Admissions, The College Board Review, Trusteeship of the Association of Governing Boards, CASE Currents, College Marketing Alert, and the Handbook for Student Recruitment. He is also principal author of Marketing Higher Education: A Handbook for Administrators.

Patricia Lawson
Associate Vice President for Communications & Public Relations
Gettysburg College

Patricia Lawson is associate vice president for communications & public relations at Gettysburg College. The department she oversees is responsible for media relations, crisis communications, brand, graphic design, the Gettysburg magazine, sports information, print and online editorial support, and community and government relations. She also chairs the college's Institutional Marketing Committee. A campaign video that she produced for Gettysburg in 2000 received a bronze medal from CASE. Prior to joining Gettysburg College in February 1999, she was director of college relations at Bates College.

Lawson also served as director of public relations and publications at Franklin & Marshall College for 11 years.

She has a master's degree in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University, and an undergraduate degree in English. She is past chair and a member of the public relations committee for the Annapolis Group, 120 of the nation's leading liberal arts colleges. Lawson also represents the college on a number of local community boards and committees, including Main Street Gettysburg's executive committee, and she served as the administrative representative on the college's presidential search committee last year.

Rachel Reuben
Director of Web Communications and Strategic Projects
University of New York

Rachel Reuben is a marketing and Web communication professional in the higher education and small business industries. She is employed by the State University of New York at New Paltz as their director of web communication and strategic projects, and launched her consulting business, Rachel Reuben Consulting, LLC in January 2010.

Reuben has undergraduate degrees in marketing and organizational communication, and a master's degree in business administration in marketing and management. She is regularly invited to present at conferences across the country, and blogs on her site http://rachelreuben.com.

At New Paltz, Reuben oversees the Web Management Office, the university's Welcome Center, and serves as team lead for the Creative Services Team. She has pioneered the university's presence in social media, is an active member of the Emergency Response Team, as well as the President's Brand Marketing Taskforce. During her tenure she has overseen four major redesigns of their main site (www.newpaltz.edu), has implemented the OmniUpdate content management system, two different mass notification systems, and initiated e-recruiting efforts for the college.

Jane Seaberg
Director of Marketing and Public Relations
GDA Integrated Services

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Jay W. Goff
Vice Provost & Dean of Enrollment Management
Missouri University of Science and Technology

Jay W. Goff is the vice-provost and dean of enrollment management at Missouri University of Science and Technology. With over 15 years of experience in university enrollment, strategic planning and communication programs, Goff believes in building a team-oriented and data-driven workplace that stresses service-focused student success plans. His mission-centric approach has achieved record enrollments, retention and graduation rates.

Goff has been active in helping higher education professionals and students develop leadership skills and engage in strategic planning. He has written articles and presented workshops at many regional and national programs, mostly focusing on the values of team building and training, quality student-service systems, and data-driven planning. He has worked with over 30 public and private institutions throughout the United States, Turkey, Canada, Mexico, China, Sri Lanka, Oman and Malaysia. Goff's consulting has focused on the use of operational audits and benchmarking data to assist institutions in improving student success and recruitment rates.

Robert M. Moore
Managing Partner
Lipman Hearne

Rob Moore has more than 25 years of experience providing marketing communications counsel and creative services for nonprofit organizations. Known nationally for his role in advancing the understanding and validity of effective marketing practices in higher education, Moore is a frequent presenter at national conferences and a leading contributor to industry periodicals including CASE Currents, Change, Advancing Philanthropy, and Trusteeship. He also launched and supervised the nation's first and only survey of marketing practices in higher education and his book on higher education branding - The Real U: Building Brands that Resonate with Students, Faculty, Staff, and Donors - was published by CASE in February 2010.

Moore's education clients have included Ball State University, Bates College, Baylor University, Benedictine University, Brown University, Bryant University, Clark University, Culver Academies, Denison University, Duke University, Fairfield University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Grand Valley State University, Harvey Mudd College, McDaniel College, National-Louis University, Northern Arizona University, Ohio Northern University, Ohio University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institution, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, San Francisco State University, Seattle University, Sewanee: The University of the South, Seton Hall University, Sidwell Friends School, The College of New Jersey, Trinity University, UNITECH South Africa, University of Arizona Foundation, University of Birmingham (UK), University of California at San Francisco, University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Miami, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Northern Colorado, University of Rochester, University of South Carolina, University of Sydney (AU), University of Texas at Arlington, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Wheaton College, and Whitman College.

He holds a bachelor's degree from University of California at Santa Cruz, a master;s degree from the University of Idaho, and a doctorate in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is a founding member of the CASE Industry Advisory Council, the Public Affairs Committee of the Independent Sector, and the Forum for Higher Ed Marketing. He served as a long-time board member of Arts & Business Council of Chicago, Heartland Alliance, University Club of Chicago, MetroSquash, the University Club, and Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation. He currently serves on the Board of the University Club Foundation.