Leading within a SEM Environment: Five Lessons Learned

Jody Gordon currently serves as a Senior Consultant for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, a non-profit organization in the United States who is a leader in strategic enrollment management and admissions and registrarial services. Previously, Ms. Gordon served as the Vice President, Students and Enrollment Management, at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV), Abbotsford, B.C., Canada, and prior to this she held the position of Associate Vice President, Students at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), Surrey, B.C., Canada. Ms. Gordon has worked in postsecondary education since 1992, beginning her career at Simon Fraser University before joining KPU in 1998 and UFV in 2012. She has held progressively responsible positions as an Academic Advisor, Associate Director of Advising and Enrollment Services, Registrar and Chief Student Affairs Officer. In addition to Ms. Gordon’s administrator roles, she has taught first-year criminology students. Her broad experience in the classroom, in enrollment services, and in student affairs has allowed her to lead universities in developing such retention initiatives as an Early Alert Referral system, Academic Boost camps for at risk students, a behavioral intervention team, peer-to-peer tutoring and mentoring and sexualized violence policy and prevention/education awareness programming.

Ms. Gordon completed a First Class Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in 1992 and a Master of Arts degree in 1996 from Simon Fraser University. She was selected as the recipient of the 2009 Strategic Enrollment Management Award of Excellence in the Canadian Institutions category, an award co-sponsored by AACRAO and Education Systems Inc. Ms. Gordon presents regularly at higher education conferences across North America and has published articles on such topics as enrollment management, student success initiatives, the mobile transfer student, and leadership in higher education.