by Ashley Woodard, Sr. Assistant Director of Admissions, Longwood University
Good day, colleagues. I’m not sure about you, but I am super excited for the start of the Fall. Honestly, this is my favorite time of year for so many reasons – the air is cooler (thank goodness!), we get to celebrate some fun and meaningful holidays with family and close friends, the leaves change colors and last, but certainly not least, there will be tons of delicious food to eat. With the start of the Fall also comes the hustle and bustle of a new academic year; yet, another exciting time, especially for new students.
All of the great things we are doing in Virginia have also made me very cheerful! Recently, we wrapped up an eventful summer. We held two domicile workshops – combined 206 people attended. We also held a new (admissions) counselor workshop for VACRAO members, which had 24 people in attendance. Each Fall, the School and College Relations Committee is responsible for hosting a series of college fairs for eight weeks during the fall semester. The Virginia Tour spans the Commonwealth, giving students from all parts of Virginia the ability to learn more information about the college application process and have face-to-face time with admissions representatives. We had 190 colleges and universities register for all or part of the 83 college fairs. The VP for Admissions and Enrollment Management, Ashley Browning, and the Chair of the School and College Relations Committee, Alphonso Garrett, have also worked tirelessly to automate the Virginia Tour, this year, through a partnership with GoToCollegeFairs. Through this partnership, scanner technology will be utilized to help streamline the student data collection process. Since time will be saved from filling out inquiry cards, we hope that students will have more meaningful conversations with admissions representatives. I am also thrilled to announce that we are using Guidebook to house all of the information regarding each week (e.g. hotel and restaurant suggestions, driving directions, last minute changes to a program schedule). A huge ‘thank you’ is owed to the VP for Admissions and Enrollment Management and her committee for their work!
VACRAO also likes to provide as many professional development opportunities as possible to it’s membership. This year, we will be sending four VACRAO members to the SACRAO and AACRAO conferences. Kate Morgan (Longwood University) and Kate Amburn (Carson-Newman University) will attend the SACRAO Annual Meeting and Connor Rund (Hampden-Sydney College) and Meghan Arias (George Mason University) will attend the AACRAO Annual Meeting. Congratulations to these recipients! I am sure they will learn a wealth of information at these conferences.
Last, but certainly not least, we will be host our Annual Meeting at the beautiful Hotel Roanoke (Roanoke, Virginia) from December 2 until December 4. Dara Logan, President-Elect, has put in a lot of work thus far to make this a great experience for attendees. This year’s theme is “A Tacky VACRAO Holiday”…. I mean really, who doesn’t like a themed party?! We look forward to hearing some valuable information as it pertains to the worlds of registration/record keeping, admissions and enrollment management from many of our rock stars within the membership. We also look forward to providing a warm welcome to our representatives from SACRAO (Bradley Barnes) and AACRAO (Melanie Gottlieb).
More information about upcoming events and other items related to Virginia are available online at http://www.vacrao.org/.