Tammy Aagard, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management at The University of Florida, was elected to serve as the Vice President for Admissions and Enrollment Management back in November 2016. We sat down with Tammy to figure out how she got to this point in her career, and we are excited to share her story with you.
How did you get your start in higher education?
Like many in this industry, I started as a temporary student worker in the academic advising office. My big task was to look at a bunch of brochures which had misprints, and divide the good ones and the bad ones into separate piles. Lots of fun.
After graduation I did a bit of wandering around with my husband before I got back into higher education as an academic advisor, and soon after that I moved to the University of Wyoming to work as an admissions officer as a transfer credit analyst while my husband finished his degree. This was actually my first real exposure to AACRAO, through Rocky Mountain ACRAO. I don’t think I realized until then that people pursued this kind of work as a career.
How did you move from transfer credit analyst to VP of Enrollment Management?
My husband was working on his master’s degree in Washington. I saw an opening at Washington State University as the assistant to the Athletic Director and got the job. I saw aspects of university operations that I had never been exposed to before, from the business of athletics to dealing with compliance and so on. One of the things I was in charge of was our Rose Bowl tickets. I had to decide who got them and who didn’t. Dealing with all those disappointed people made it feel, at times, very much like I was back in the admissions office. But I was very popular in December.
Then after a few years of teaching in Colorado, I ended up back at the University of Wyoming as a graduate admissions officer in 1996. That same year I moved into the registrar’s office. I started as a degree analyst, but eventually became associate registrar, then interim registrar, and then finally just Registrar from 2006 until 2012. For the last year or two there, I also served as the interim Director of Financial Aid.
How did you handle the two jobs?
I think there is a lot of overlap between the registrar’s office and the financial aid office. There are so many compliance issues that have to do with academic performance that it makes a good deal of sense. There’s also just a skillset overlap, to be honest. I always thought financial aid was the third rail in higher ed – you just stay away from it. But I really enjoyed my time in that role. But when they did identify a new financial aid director and I found myself back with the one job, I started to wonder if I should start looking. If I was going to maximize my experience in financial aid, I needed to do it quickly before my knowledge became stale. My boss encouraged me to look at enrollment management positions. So I ventured on over to AACRAO and took a look at Jobs Online and saw the University of Florida had a position available.
To be honest, I didn’t think I was qualified initially, even though I had experience in all of the enrollment management areas. I always thought to get the EM jobs, you had to be an admissions director. I think that’s a mistake that many of us make, to think that there is only one path to success when in reality there are so many ways to achieve your goals.
How did your involvement with AACRAO begin?
As I mentioned earlier, my first real exposure to the association was through my regional, RMACRAO. But I think I became involved in earnest when I entered the registrar’s office at the University of Wyoming in 1996. My boss at the time took me and two other associates to the meeting in Salt Lake City (1997 AM), mostly because we could drive to it. I was struck by how contentious it was, to be honest. I think at the time AACRAO was going through some major financial trouble. But despite all that my boss really helped instill a passion for AACRAO. In 1950, Ralph McWhinnie, the Registrar at the University of Wyoming, served as the President of AACRAO. It was a source of pride for the institution, and there was always a culture of support for AACRAO because it was seen as such a valuable relationship.
But much of my own involvement stemmed from presentations. I like getting in front of people and sharing the things that I have learned. I also served on the Nominations and Elections committee once, and on the Program Structure Task Force in 2013. Beyond that, I served on the Board of RMACRAO for 6 years in various roles, including President, and I hosted regional meetings at our institution.
The true value I found in AACRAO was the network. As I grew in the profession, it was so fulfilling to be able to pick up the phone and call a colleague I met through AACRAO to figure out how to handle an issue, or to post a question on the REGIST-L listserv and see the responses. Most of all, I enjoyed giving back! The relationships I have made in AACRAO are often stronger that those I have with the people down the street in my own community because of our common professional bond. I remain great friends with people in AACRAO and RMACRAO. My job duties have not allowed me to be as active in SACRAO as I would like to be.
I worry sometimes about our younger professionals that either don’t see a need for engagement in AACRAO or don’t have an opportunity to participate in the same way that I did. I encourage my younger staff to get involved as much as possible.
Speaking of the REGIST-L listserv, I have heard you have some very popular posts – would you care to elaborate?
I think we all are always looking for creative ways to get faculty’s attention when it comes time to submit grades at the end of the semester. To be fair, they have a lot on their plates. So one Christmas, I decided to do something out of the ordinary to get their attention, and I rewrote the words to “Twas the Night Before Christmas” about submitting grades. I got a great response to it, they enjoyed seeing something different. Registrars can be seen by some staff as being these rigid bureaucrats harping on about the rules and deadlines, but I think this helped them see me as a person. So I kept on doing it, sometimes with Shakespeare sonnets – one time I rewrote the words to Neil Diamond’s “Hot August Night,” all sorts of different things. And I started to share these on the listserv.
Eventually these creative memos started to get ingrained in the culture of the registrar’s office, so much so that I had faculty who refused to give me grades, even when they had them all ready to submit, until they received my memos. So we got a dialogue going and agreed to do something special if we got above 98 percent of grades submitted on time. Of course, they came through. Who would pass up a chance to see the Registrar humiliate herself on YouTube? My staff wrote the script and lyrics for the Grinch video. We conscripted two faculty members, one from the English department and my husband, to help star in the video, we recorded the music at the university radio station, and we filmed the Grinch video (You’re a Mean One, Registrar), and put it up on YouTube. That’s our claim to fame, so to speak, and I give a lot of credit to my staff for that one for writing the script, directing it, and starring in the video. I just wore green makeup and was responsible for the outtakes.
What the proudest moment in your AACRAO career?
I was extremely proud to be elected to this position, to be trusted to help direct this organization that we all love. I am also really proud of my service to RMACRAO. I remember when I got their Distinguished Service Award, they hadn’t told me in advance. I was sitting at a table chatting with friends, not even really paying attention to the stage, and then all of the sudden they called my name, and I was absolutely overwhelmed. To be recognized by your peers is one of the greatest honors you can have because they know what it is that you do. But I still have to thank all of the people who helped me to get where I am now. I have this philosophy on life – if you see a turtle on a fence post, it’s a good bet it didn’t get there on its own. I feel like that turtle. I might be a little more visible than some people, but there are so many people putting in hard work to lift us as professionals.