Role: Interim Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs
Arlene Wesley Cash is the interim Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs at the San Francisco Art Institute. Prior to starting at SFAI, Cash served for 10 years as vice president for enrollment management at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA and consulted with a number of liberal arts colleges and research universities on the development of strategic enrollment plans and issues of diversity and access. While in her current position, she manages the offices of admissions, financial aid, the cashier, housing and student-life, Cash has also led career planning and placement, student support programs, TRIO programs, disability services, continuing-education, graduate, law and dental enrollment and student information systems.
In addition to her leadership at Spelman, Cash served as dean of enrollment at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and held admission and financial aid leadership roles at UMass Amherst, Brandeis University, Boston University and Kent State University. Throughout her career, she has served professionally and in a voluntary capacity with Upward Bound programs across the country, including those at Kent State University, UMass Boston, Brandeis University and Case Western Reserve University. Further, she has served on the residential life staff at Wellesley College, Kent State University and Brandeis University.
Cash has served on a number of boards and committees of the College Board, including the College Scholarship Services Board, Commission on Access and Equity, Midwestern Region Board, Retention Advisory Board, the HBCU advisory panel and the Dream Deferred Coordinating Conference Committee. She has also held a number of posts as a member of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, including their nominations committee, the statement of ethics review and national conference planning. Cash has served as a faculty member of the Harvard University - College Board Summer Admissions Institute. She is currently the chair of the US News and World Report Deans' Advisory Committee where she has served for 20 years, and where she has been committed to transparency in reporting, providing access to the full spectrum of their resources to disadvantaged schools and students, and equitable and reasonable weighting of the various factors which contribute to rankings. She is also an emeritus member of the board of advisors of InsideTrack and serves as the board chair for the National Research Center for College and University Admissions.
A frequent presenter at conferences and professional meetings, Cash has been interviewed for NPR's Talk of the Nation, participated in a panel presentation on NBC's Today Show and is the author of numerous articles on college admissions, student success programs, diversity in higher education and student debt. She earned her bachelor's degrees from Keuka College in Keuka Park, NY with an Independent Studies major combining the disciplines of philosophy and literature, a master's in philosophy at Kent State University, and is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in higher education leadership at the University of Georgia.
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