By Autumn Walden, Editor, AACRAO Connect, Content Strategy Manager, AACRAO
As we celebrate this year’s AACRAO Award recipients ahead of the 111th AACRAO Annual Meeting in New Orleans, we’re proud to honor Jonathan Helm as the 2026 recipient of the Janie Barnett Distinguished Service Award, recognizing his sustained commitment to the association and the broader higher education community through decades of volunteer leadership, advocacy, and service.
With a career spanning more than 25 years across four institutions, Helm has built a reputation as a steady and generous presence in the profession—one shaped, as he’ll tell you, by more role models and connections who have influenced his path in ways he never anticipated.
“In the period of a couple of days, I literally thought of 100 or more individuals who I learned from and who have impacted how I think about things, conduct myself, and/or approach work and the Registrar profession,” offered Helm. “Given more time, I am certain I will think of many more examples of individuals across the University of Missouri-Rolla, University of Virginia, Baylor University, University of Pittsburgh, MACRAO, VACRAO, TACRAO, SACRAO, MSACROA, Big XII Registrars, AAU Registrars, AAU Registrars Summer Institute at Aspen, the AACRAO and Peabody College Senior Academic and Enrollment Services Professionals program, and AACRAO that have had a lasting positive influence on me as a person and as a professional. I have always hesitated to start naming names because, inevitably, someone will be missed, and I am certain that has happened here (please forgive me).”
His contributions to AACRAO at the national level have been both wide-ranging and enduring. Hear from Helm about the unexpected turns, lasting relationships, and lessons that have defined his career.
Who influenced your decision to get involved with AACRAO?
My awareness of AACRAO and the valuable resource it is for registrars, admissions officers, and enrollment professionals began when I was a graduate student at the University of Kansas in the late 1990s, thanks to Rich Morrell and Brenda Selman. Through them, I gained insight into the role AACRAO could play in a successful career prior to my first full-time role in a registrar’s office.
Then, when I began as an Assistant Registrar at the University of Missouri-Rolla, there was support for me to attend MACRAO and AACRAO meetings. I will always be thankful to Laura Stoll and Jay Goff for the commitment they showed to my development through those opportunities. Thanks to those opportunities, I immediately benefited from AACRAO, and I appreciated just how positive some of the initial experiences were for me. All of those things together influenced my desire to get involved in some way to contribute to AACRAO and try to ensure that others had as positive of an experience as I did. I recall that leading up to the 2001 and 2002 Annual Meetings, I became aware of the need for volunteers to facilitate sessions and to host tables for the first-time attendee event. All the opportunities to contribute to AACRAO in ways both large and small began with those first volunteer experiences.
What do you enjoy most about your work and/or involvement with AACRAO?
Undoubtedly, the thing I have enjoyed most is working with other members (and AACRAO staff) and all of the resulting professional relationships (and friendships) that doing so has led to. Each example of involvement is an opportunity to reconnect and to make new connections. It will probably sound corny, but for me, this means the Annual Meeting always strikes me as an indispensable (professional) family reunion that I look forward to each year.
Have you encountered any unexpected or notable experiences along your professional path?
At times, unexpected experiences (and sometimes challenges) are part of working in a registrar’s office. In connection with my involvement with AACRAO, the unexpected way my experience turned out as Vice Chair and Chair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee might be the most notable. I ended several years of work with the Program Committee at the end of the 2019 Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, and I did not foresee serving with the Program Committee beyond that. My involvement with the Program Committee to that point was “non-traditional”. I started out helping with the session evaluation process, which involved collecting paper evaluation forms and data entry. During that period, I worked with Marianne Stickel and AACRAO staff to move everything to an electronic evaluation process, which meant my evaluations role became largely unnecessary, and it evolved into a “new initiatives” role with the committee. I helped out with several program changes during that period, but the most significant of those was introducing “Stop and Shares” at the Annual Meeting.
After a brief time away from the committee, I was asked in Fall 2019 whether I would be willing to be considered for the role of Vice Chair for the 2021 Annual Meeting and Chair for the 2022 Annual Meeting. At that point, there were apparently several members who were being contacted about their interest in the roles, and I turned it down, which may have been a first when asked to do something with AACRAO. My reasoning was that I was possibly the least qualified past member of the Program Committee to be considered for the Vice Chair and Chair roles based on my non-traditional experience. I truly felt unqualified, not having served previously in a more traditional Coordinator role with the committee. A while later, Kelley Brundage contacted me again and asked whether I would reconsider based on the reality that everyone else who had been contacted about the roles had turned down the opportunity. This reconsideration came with Kelley’s assurance that I could observe the Vice Chair role during the 2020 Annual Meeting in New Orleans and the Chair role through the preparation cycle with the 2021 Annual Meeting. With that assurance, I agreed to be the Vice Chair for the 2021 Annual Meeting. Of course, things turned out a bit differently than planned. COVID led to the cancellation of the 2020 Annual Meeting and uncertainty about the viability of the 2021 Annual Meeting. Plus, there was turnover in some of the AACRAO staff who had worked closely with the committee previously.
Eventually, decisions about the 2021 Annual Meeting meant that I had the opportunity to work closely with Kelley, Tina DeNeen, and the Program Committee to deliver AACRAO’s first virtual Annual Meeting in 2021. We all learned a lot through that Annual Meeting, but there were remaining gaps in my own experience with an in-person Annual Meeting. Soon thereafter, Becky Fowkes joined AACRAO to work with Meetings and Special Events. She formed a successful partnership with the committee, and we were able to organize the in-person 2022 Annual Meeting in Portland despite the loss of continuity from the two years without an in-person Annual Meeting and any shortcomings of the Chair. I will always appreciate that group and hold their work together in high regard. Rob Hornberger was the Vice Chair of the committee, and Randall Langston, Steve Seaworth, Carol Harrison, Sam Fugazotto, Roslyn Perry, Doug McKenna, and Dan Weber served as Group Coordinators.
Who are your role models?
This is a surprisingly challenging question for me to answer. There are multiple reasons for that, but a lack of strong candidates to be professional role models is not one of them. There are so many colleagues that I have learned from, or who have impacted or inspired me in some way, that I do not typically limit my thinking to the concept of individual role models. More so, I think of specific ways I have been impacted or the lessons I have learned, whether through a single moment or long series of interactions. This question has caused me to reflect even more deeply on those instances occurring over the past 28 years. My conclusion is that there are an endless number of individuals who have had a profound positive impact on me both personally and professionally. Some of these individuals I barely even know, but they impacted me in a specific moment, and others are close colleagues and friends. It is daunting to piece all of that together without missing individuals. So, I decided to share examples of those whose impact came to mind through my recent period of reflection.
Rich Morrell, Brenda Selman, Laura Stoll, Jay Goff, Rick Skeel, Kathy Jones, Linda Girard, Deanne Jackson, Carol “Stash” Stanley, Ryan Carter, Bob LeHeup, Julia Pomerenke, Heather Eckstein, Dan Weber, Celeste Taber, Karen Jarrell, Lara Medley, Paul Kyle, Tina Faulkner, Suzanne McCray, Wes Null, John Hall, Pat Miller, Sofia Montes, Bobby Lothringer, Shelby Stanfield, Brenda Schumann, Rebecca Mathern, Marianne Stickel, Hannah King, Kyle Yates, Cie Gee, Gabe Olszewski, Kelley Brundage, Rob Hornberger, Chris Huang, LeRoy Rooker, Becky Fowkes, Frank Wada, Kara Saunders, Scott Campbell, David Tenney, and Patti Mathay have each had a significant impact on me.
Obviously, I have been very blessed. I wish I had the opportunity, here, to expand on how each and every one of these individuals impacted me, but that would likely take more space than I will ever have the opportunity to fill. If you read this and are curious about the impact of any individual on this list, feel free to ask, and I will be ready with a story of how they had a lasting impact on me and/or my career.
In the period of a couple of days, I literally thought of 100 or more individuals who I learned from and who have impacted how I think about things, conduct myself, and/or approach work and the Registrar profession. Given more time, I am certain I will think of many more examples of individuals across the University of Missouri-Rolla, University of Virginia, Baylor University, University of Pittsburgh, MACRAO, VACRAO, TACRAO, SACRAO, MSACROA, Big XII Registrars, AAU Registrars, AAU Registrars Summer Institute at Aspen, the AACRAO and Peabody College Senior Academic and Enrollment Services Professionals program, and AACRAO that have had a lasting positive influence on me as a person and as a professional. I have always hesitated to start naming names because, inevitably, someone will be missed, and I am certain that has happened here (please forgive me). However, I thought it was worthwhile now to take that chance in order to communicate just how much the colleagues listed above have impacted, motivated, and inspired me. I also hope my brief reflection encourages AACRAO members to recognize the opportunity they have to impact others each day.
What do you aspire to accomplish in the future?
My aspirations for what I might accomplish within AACRAO in the future remain much the same as they have always been. Simply, I hope to be able to continue to contribute to AACRAO and the professions in the years to come in whatever way I can best do so.
What advice would you give to help others find their community at AACRAO?
I think of AACRAO as a large community with a number of overlapping smaller sub-communities. How an individual member connects to those smaller communities likely varies to some extent from one member to another. The connection to communities may be based on state and/or regional organizations, caucuses, commonalities in roles or institutions, personal interests, etc.
For me, the best way I have found community within the broader AACRAO membership is to volunteer and work with other AACRAO members. You learn a lot about others by working together, and many of my long-standing relationships with other AACRAO members began through a shared volunteer experience. As a result, my own feeling of community and connection with other AACRAO members has only grown over time.
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