As members vote for AACRAO leadership, Connect is helping familiarize readers with our currently serving officers. This month, we interview Monique Snowden, Ph.D., Vice President for Institutional Planning & Effectiveness at Fielding Graduate University. She has been an AACRAO member since 2005, and is currently serving as the Vice President for Access and Equity. We were privileged to find out about her career advancement, both within our association and in the higher education sphere.
Can you talk about your higher education career thus far?
After working as a business analyst and consultant for a global financial software firm, I started my career in higher education at Texas A&M University in 1995 as a programmer/analyst in the Computing and Information Services division, specifically supporting the student information system as the technical lead for the financial aid module. Approximately a year after returning to my alma mater, I unexpectedly became engaged in higher education policy. In 1996, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Hopwood v. State of Texas prohibited Texas public colleges and universities from using students’ racial or ethnic background as a factor in recruitment or admissions decisions. Subsequently the Texas Attorney General issued a formal opinion extending the prohibition to financial aid, including scholarships and fellowships. For almost a decade thereafter, I led and supported initiatives to restructure enrollment policies, practices and services to mitigate the effects of Hopwood on diversity at Texas A&M. As you may know, in 2003, the Supreme Court abrogated Hopwood in Grutter v. Bollinger. However, in contrast to the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University’s Board of Regents and university leadership decided to maintain race neutral admissions and financial aid.
For the past 20 years, my professional journey in higher education has included being a programmer/analyst and eventually IT manager, supervising the lead programmer/analysts of the four SIS modules—admissions, financial aid, student financial accounts, and registration and records from 1995-2001; serving as the first director of IT for Texas A&M’s Office of Admissions and Records from 2001-2006; functioning dually as the director of IT and managing director of admissions processing from 2002-2004; serving dually as director of IT and interim director of admissions from 2005–2006; and subsequently having my position as director of IT expanded to director of enrollment research and technology, before departing Texas A&M in 2007 to serve as assistant dean of enrollment management for Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies in Chicago, Illinois. In 2009, I was hired by the provost of Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California as the institution’s first associate provost for enrollment management, and then appointed vice president for academic and enrollment services before assuming my current position as vice president for institutional planning & effectiveness.
Fortuitously, I have been an ‘accidental’ enrollment manager as a result of my unique career trajectory.
You mention the role of your mentors within AACRAO as you have progressed in your higher education career – can you elaborate on that?
I first became involved with the Texas Association of Registrars and Admissions Officers (TACRAO) Technology Committee—eventually becoming chair—because of my work with the Standardization of Postsecondary Education Data Exchange (SPEEDE) server, which was hosted by the University of Texas at Austin under the laudable leadership of Dave Stones and subsequently Shelby Stanfield. I attended my first AACRAO Annual Meeting in 2005, which was in New York City. I met Rick Skeel through his SPEEDE work, and when I saw him at a subsequent SACRAO meeting I enthusiastically expressed an interest in serving on the AACRAO SPEEDE Committee. I served as a committee member initially and eventually became chair in 2007.
On one hand, I really enjoyed my time on the SPEEDE Committee, particularly the comradery developed between the dedicated colleagues with whom I served. On the other hand, there were a number of senior AACRAO members and staff members–colleagues like Angé Peterson, Stan Henderson, Jerry Sullivan, and Bob Bontrager – who encouraged me to expand beyond SPEEDE and become involved in other domains of the association. I remember Bob telling me once to let go of the numbers, and just let things happen. I really appreciated that advice. I recognized and leveraged opportunities in part because my AACRAO mentors encouraged me to grow professionally and to elevate my knowledge of higher education.
Keep in mind that mentoring involves a reciprocal relationship; mentors are vested in and advise you, but you have to embrace them and be open to their advisement. So I stepped down as the SPEEDE chair after one year and accepted an offer to serve as co-chair of volunteers for the annual meeting in Chicago. Next, upon request of Glenn Munson, I recruited members for and chaired the Distinct Programs and Populations committee in Group III: Records and Academic Services—a reconstitution of the Distance Education Committee, which had lacked membership and thus engagement for years. Subsequently, before assuming my current position on the AACRAO Board of Directors as Vice President for Access and Equity, I served as chair of the Graduate and Professional School Issues committee in Group V: Access and Equity. Group V is where my heart resides.
It seems like your journey through the association has been closely mirrored by your journey through the ranks of AACRAO leadership.
It really has. My entry into higher education and advancement in the association and profession has been by way of technology. I pay homage to my technical roots and upcoming because I believe it legitimized me as an enrollment manager in immeasurable ways—particularly in terms of leading and supporting enrollment and academic analytics. I should mention that as an African American woman it has often surprised colleagues that my professional journey through higher education started in IT as a programmer. From an organizational standpoint, I think we can and should do more to encourage professionals in more technical areas like enrollment systems support and institutional research to get involved with AACRAO. Frankly, I believe there is much potential for developing strong association leaders from those domains.
My engagement in AACRAO continues to have a profound impact on my professional development and career progression. I have held positions at three very different institutions over the course of my career in higher education. No matter my geographic location, or institutional nuances, I can always depend on the beacon light of AACRAO to guide me back toward our professional gatherings. Meeting with my AACRAO colleagues every year provides the unique opportunity to converse, share and learn in ways that I simply cannot do anywhere else. So when I am interviewing for new positions I make sure that my continued engagement with the association is part of the negotiation. I ask, “Will you support my involvement with AACRAO?”
Can you speak about some of the work that you’re involved with as a member of the Board of Directors?
I am very excited about our partnership with the Lumina Foundation and the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA) on the extended transcript framework. I envision the Board’s involvement to focus on more strategic aspects around that project, and potentially any future projects where we can help to shape the course of higher education policy and practice. Previously, far-reaching work like this has been funded by AACRAO—like SPEEDE—so I think this grant provides an essential opportunity for expanded, systematic inclusion of different member institutions and extremely knowledgeable individual association members. I think the Board can and will help position AACRAO executive leadership to facilitate vibrant conversations around this topic within the membership, particularly how the pilot framework will be implemented at our sundry member institutions. This particular initiative requires the Board’s strong support of our executive director, Michael Reilly, who will effectively guide us toward securing additional opportunities to move the association boldly into its promising future.
I think it is important that AACRAO keep its place at the table and ensure that are members are collectively defining the standards that we use rather than other entities defining them for us. In the coming years, I think it will be important to contemplate a recalibration and elevation of the registrar position in higher education. That is, while we as an association are growing, it is important to keep top mind how vital the registrar’s position is to our association’s past, present and future. On a personal note, if I did not have an exceptional registrar like Bridget Brady at my side, I would be looking for another job.
Aside from your day job and your work on the Board, we were also happy to hear that you have been accepted into the American Council on Education’s Fellows Program. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
The ACE Fellowship Program is a premier higher education leadership development program that prepares senior leaders to serve American colleges and universities. I am one of 47 ACE Fellows selected for the 2015-2016 academic year. I was nominated by Dr. Katrina S. Rogers, President of Fielding Graduate University. I will serve my fellowship year under the mentorship of Dr. Soraya M. Coley, President of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) and Dr. John O’Brien, President and CEO of EDUCAUSE.
Traditionally, many ACE Fellow Program applicants have been engaged in academic rather than solely administrative careers. So, I am appreciative that AACRAO has a publishing arm that provides its members an opportunity to evidence that we are not only capable administrators, but also engaged higher education scholars. I earned a doctorate of philosophy in communication, with an emphasis in organizational communication, from Texas A&M University. Thus, organizational communication is my academic discipline; however, my research context is higher education. I am assured that my application to the ACE Fellowship Program was strengthened because of my AACRAO published articles, book chapters, and positon on the editorial board of Strategic Enrollment Management Quarterly (SEMQ) journal. I strongly encourage aspiring professionals to explore and take full advantage of the many opportunities AACRAO offers to support its members’ leadership development, professional practice excellence, and scholarly pursuits. I am one of many benefactors of these opportunities.