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SEM WORKS' Consulting Team

Jeffrey Black, Public Relations/Media Consultant

Jeffrey Black is a SEM WORKS' consultant and president of a public relations consulting and communications training company with clients in ten different countries. He specializes in developing public relations strategies and teaching corporate executives, higher education administrators, and even NASCAR drivers, how to talk to the media effectively and how to deliver powerful presentations. Since 1996, he has worked with educational organizations such as Northern Arizona University and Northeastern Technical College.

Jeffrey has an extensive media background, primarily in television. He worked on the prime-time television drama, "Dynasty," hosted a Los Angeles cable TV show and was an anchor, reporter and program host for the CBS and FOX affiliates in Birmingham, Alabama. Jeffrey is currently an on-air TV host for the South Carolina Education Lottery and hosts their TV game show, "Power Deal."

His extensive client list includes General Electric, Bank of America, several NASCAR drivers, Home Depot, M&M/Mars Candy, NBC Television, UPS, Cooper Tools and numerous other organizations.

Jeffrey has a master's degree in Public Administration and Human Resources Management from Troy University and a bachelor's degree in Public Relations from the University of South Carolina. Last year, he was named South Carolina's Entrepreneur of the Year by the SC Department of Commerce. Jeffrey also holds the highest professional designations from the Public Relations Society of America and the National Speakers' Association.

Kenneth W. Chandler, Retention Consultant

A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, Kenneth earned his B.S. from Guilford College. He completed his master's at the University of Pennsylvania in administration and budgeting before going on to complete his Ph.D. at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He began his professional career in student affairs/development and financial affairs at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He moved rapidly through the ranks and continued to build his professional portfolio with government relations work for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, research and program administration work with Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey, and a successful career in institutional advancement and external affairs at Guilford College, the American Council on Education, Saint Augustine's College, and now as a consultant. Kenneth has held many leadership and speaking roles with Leadership Raleigh, CASE, and AFP. He is active in community affairs and has held board positions with the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, United Arts, Red Cross, Big Brothers of America, Salvation Army, Greensboro and Wake County Public School Associations, Cary Academy, and ClubCorp Incorporated.

Mary Grondahl, Enrollment Consultant

Mary is entering her twenty-fourth year in the field admissions, financial aid, and overall enrollment management. She currently serves as the vice president of enrollment management at The College of Saint Rose, an independent, coeducational, liberal arts institution located in Albany, New York. Mary leads marketing, recruitment, and enrollment planning and strategy development for the College's undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education enrollment streams. Mary's organization includes the teams in undergraduate and graduate admissions, financial aid, and the College's innovative Student Solution Center. Mary has been a speaker at the National Association of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) annual conference, several Small College Enrollment Conferences and NYS Association of College Admission Counseling Annual Conference (NYSACAC) on topics such as 'How to Develop a Winning Marketing Strategy on a Limited Budget,' 'How to Market On- and Off-Campus Admissions Events,' and 'How to Make the Admissions Search Process Work for You.' She has also been a Peer Reviewer for Institutional Accreditation for New York State's Education Department and has completed several 'Best Practice Admissions Audits' for other institutions. In summer 2004, she was a participant in Harvard's Institute for Educational Management.

Mary holds a bachelor and master's degree in Russian language and literature and an M.B.A. from The College of Saint Rose.

Michael A. Johnson, Graduate School Enrollment Management Consultant

Michael began his career in enrollment management in 1986. While serving as a vice president at Milligan College, a small private institution, Michael introduced strategies that resulted in a 40% growth in enrollment, record incoming class sizes, and significant increases in average GPA and ACT scores for new students. In 2002, he decided to redirect his career and focus on enrollment management in graduate education. He joined the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro as the assistant dean. While at UNC Greensboro, he launched aggressive recruiting initiatives targeting prospective graduate students; applications increased by 19% and the graduate enrollment at the University reached an all time high. Currently, Michael serves as the assistant dean for enrollment management at the University of Georgia Graduate School. At UGA, he is responsible for assisting individual graduate programs in developing student recruitment plans. In addition, Michael is charged with diversifying the graduate student population at the University. During the last few years the overall number of students pursuing a graduate degree has increased by 7% and the number of African American graduate students has increased by more than 40%.

By serving at a small private college, a mid-size university, and a large Research I institution, Michael has gained valuable enrollment management experience while working with both undergraduate and graduate student populations. He believes that good data, good systems, and hard work usually translate into positive results; however, effective enrollment management requires a team effort.

Susan Kirtland, Marketing Consultant

Susan Kirtland is a lead strategist with SEM WORKS for higher education specializing in the areas of brand positioning, strategic planning, media preference research/planning and brand implementation. Since 2001, she has worked with scores of colleges and educational organizations across the country to achieve their goals.

Through the development and use of unique team building/staff development workshops, Susan quickly immerses representation from the entire college in various processes leading to the successful consensus of brand directives and their college-wide buy in.

Susan is a keynote speaker and has presented at numerous state, district and national conferences including conferences for the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations and the University College Designers Association.

With a thorough education in and an appreciation for the creative process—balanced with proven marketing knowledge—colleges soon learn they can count on Susan to lead their organizations to success.

Maggie Killoran, Enrollment Consultant

Maggie Killoran has been working in the field of education for 18 years. For six of those years she taught and managed non-profit programs for adults; spent three years as the director of a Learning Center for workers in the manufacturing industry; and eight years in admissions and student services in the community college system. Originally from Canada, Maggie moved to North Carolina in 2003 to take a position as the director of enrollment management for Isothermal Community College in Spindale, NC. She has been a presenter at various conferences including the League for Innovation, the Student Development Conference of the Carolinas, the National Workplace Literacy Conference in Canada, and has offered a variety of workshops in public, corporate, and non-profit settings. In addition to her undergraduate degree in education, Maggie holds a master’s degree in psychology, as well as an M.B.A, and is currently working towards a certified post-master's certificate in enrollment management offered through Capella University.

Teresa Mauk, Enrollment Consultant

Teresa Mauk is the assistant vice-president of enrollment services at Texas Woman's University. She holds a master's in speech communication from Emporia State University. Her professional experience includes over twenty years of teaching and administration at the high school, community college, and university levels in four states. Under her leadership, TWU has exceeded the state's Closing the Gaps Participation initiative by increasing enrollment by 36% from 2002 to 2007, while simultaneously improving the average freshmen SAT score by 19 points. TWU's Hispanic enrollment grew by 58.4 percent during this period, the third largest increase in Texas. Teresa is an appointee to two state-wide committees: ApplyTexas (the state's common admissions application system) and the Enrollment Services Efficiency Committee. She also serves as chair for the TACRAO Strategic Enrollment Management Committee. Teresa enjoys working with a wide variety of people and her areas of expertise include: customer service, collaboration with faculty, communication planning and writing, Hispanic recruitment, process analysis, distance education, target marketing, public speaking, and recruitment on a shoestring budget.

Lynda Wallace-Hulecki, Enrollment Consultant

Lynda is a seasoned professional with over thirty years experience in higher education. In her current position at the University of Victoria in Canada, Lynda leads strategic enrolment planning and chairs the university’s enrolment planning committee. Lynda has administrative responsibility for undergraduate and graduate student recruitment, admissions, registration, and records, as well as for student awards and financial assistance, student transitions and orientation, academic scheduling, calendar production, and student systems support services. Lynda also has held an enrolment management position at a four year comprehensive college in Canada, and served for twenty-three years as the director of the college’s institutional analysis and planning office─ a position for which she was awarded a distinguished administrator award. In addition to enrolment management, Lynda has expertise in leading strategic planning processes, facilitating and managing change, and in developing systems for enrolment performance management, assessment, and accountability.

Lynda has served on several provincial and federal committees related to inter-provincial student mobility and higher education accountability systems in Canada. She is an active member of numerous professional organizations (e.g., AACRAO, ARUCC, NASPA, AIR, SCUP, EDUCAUSE) at which she has been both a presenter and a presentation reviewer. In 2000, she participated in Harvard’s Institute for Management and Leadership in Education (MLE).

Lynda holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of Manitoba, and is completing a master of educational administration- higher education from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln (Dec. 2007) with a view to pursuing a doctoral degree. Her graduate research work has concentrated on enrolment management, and specifically on the topic of 'Creating the Conditions for Shared Responsibility of Enrolment Outcomes in Research-Focused Institutions'.

Theresa Waterbury, Process Reengineering Consultant

Theresa Waterbury is the director of institutional research and an adjunct faculty at Winona State University. She has a strong statistical background and a M.Ed. in Human Resource Development from the University of Minnesota. Currently she is a doctorial student in Organization and Management. Her professional experience includes nine years of extensive work in the area of Quality Management and Improvement and nine years in the area of Assessment and Research.

Theresa facilitates process improvement teams to increase student, staff, and faculty satisfaction and to eliminate non-value added activities. Areas in which she has experience include student services, (transfer students, admitted students, advising, on-going registration, first-week program, preparing for graduation, and withdrawing from the university) human resources, and student life-cycle. Process mapping is a significant component of the team activities. Theresa is Lean certified in business applications. She presents at Lean workshops specifically designed for the higher education audience. Lean concepts and applications have widely been accepted in manufacturing and service industries as a model to improve services, reduce costs, shorten lead-times, and delight customers. Theresa's dissertation topic is: Lean in Higher Education: A Delphi Study to Develop Academic Metrics and a Lean Implementation Model for Higher Education.

Rex Whisman, Branding Consultant

Rex Whisman is a brand consultant with SEM WORKS. Rex helps colleges, universities, PreK-12 school districts and other organizations with an education mission, build, enhance or re-build their identities to reach their strategic goals, especially enrollment and fund-raising. Rex is a recognized thought leader in educational brand building and known as a cultural change agent. As the former assistant vice chancellor for communications and marketing at the University of Denver, Rex led one of the nation’s most groundbreaking approaches to educational brand development.

Rex has presented at numerous state, national and international conferences, including Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States. As a result, Rex has a global perspective on education and understands the need for schools to effectively position them in a regional, national or international marketplace. Rex is a member of the American Marketing Association, and holds an M.S. in communications management and a B.A. in history, both from Colorado State University.

Dr. Michael Whiteman, International Recruitment and Retention Consultant

Dr. Whiteman has been the director of international programs at the University of Idaho since 1993 and has served in leadership roles on the University of Idaho Strategic Enrollment Management team, including associate vice provost for enrollment management. His specialty is international recruitment and retention.

Dr. Whiteman led planning efforts that resulted in the first and subsequent international Strategic Enrollment Management plans, and he and his international programs colleagues undertook a structural reorganization to align position functions with programmatic recruitment and retention needs. He has led team members in adopting cutting edge Web-assisted international student recruitment strategies, international partnership/ articulation agreement development approaches, Customer Relations Management standards, and data management/analysis and reporting methods. He has led institutional efforts in adapting the institutional brand to international target audiences and in shaping international student enrollment in line with strategic targets for diversity and academic quality.

Dr. Whiteman has spent the past several years developing progressive strategies to enhance rates of retention for international undergraduate, graduate, and ESL students at the University of Idaho. Programs have focused on "internationalizing" the campus community through the programmatic participation of international students, scholars, and faculty in community building activities as well as through incorporation of international elements into the undergraduate and graduate curricula in departments across the University. He has led institutional efforts to enhance and expand university-wide support programs for international students to create an institutional "experience" that results in higher percentages of international students staying through completion of their academic programs.

Dr. Whiteman received his B.S. degree in Zoology from the Albertson College of Idaho in 1972, his M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies in 1980, and his Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management from the University of Idaho in 1993. He continues to teach graduate courses in addition to his current administrative responsibilities.

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