I am what they call an admissions lifer. I started off as a student office worker at my alma mater and grew up the ranks—when it was time to graduate I was going to be an actuarial associate or an admissions officer; thank goodness I became the latter.
Depending on who you ask I am either 17 or 13 years into my admissions career; had you asked me 20 years ago where I would be today where I am is certainly not where I would have imagined. I am a mid-career professional in higher education administration focused on marketing an educational and developmental experience to young people and their families—yes, that’s admissions.
What is mid-career? Well, that specific time-frame is somewhat subject for interpretation. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management(this is a real thing) indicates, on its website, that a mid-career professional is someone with more than 10 years of professional experience. An article I read, written in 2012, suggested that mid-career is approximately 10 to 15 years into your career. If you were to consider a professional career as roughly 35 to 40 years, you could reasonably consider a mid-career professional as being in years 10 through 25.
So, here I am somewhere in the middle and I wonder—what next? In the admissions world I have reached the pinnacle of my career spectrum by being named a vice president. Yet, I feel like I am just starting out—just about to take the stage and shape the rest of the performance; I realize I am part of “The Next Wave of Enrollment Leaders.”
In Eric Hoover’s 2011 article, for The Chronicle of Higher Education, he referenced 3 enrollment professionals who I would have called mid-career professionals, all at the top of their game, who were giving insight for those who some may have seen as their contemporaries. Today I think I sit where my contemporaries sat—and it was only four years ago. Today none of the 3 quoted in Eric’s article can be found at their then institutions, they are all still in the enrollment field, and now they are seen as full leaders in the industry—but are they past the hump of mid-career professional?
“Today’s emerging leaders are sandwiched between two very different generations. There are the old-school deans, who predate college rankings and the college-marketing boom, and then there are the 20-somethings who are tech-savvy and convinced that they can do their bosses’ jobs tomorrow, said Angel Perez*, interim vice president for admission and financial aid at Pitzer College.”
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Here I am, in a similar position to Mr. Perez, several months into my new vice president role, well into my mid-career stage, and I am trying to consider the advice I give to my staff to keep them motivated and engaged—but I also wonder where I will be in several years.
I am an admissions lifer— I’ve got a fire in my belly for this work, I’ve stayed hungry, and well frankly I am foolish (a nod to Steve Job’s Commencement Address to the Stanford University class of 2005).
Every day that I go into work I wonder how my work may impact and shape not only my campus community but also the climate of admissions on the larger landscape. I want to learn more, impact more, refine more, and push our work to new and interesting heights. I want to do all of these things even while knowing that our college going population is shrinking, that the cost of higher education is climbing, and that our society has increasingly brought scrutiny to the value of higher education.
At this point in my career, mid or not, I realize that my future is defined not by my title but by the work with which I engage. I have to expand my understanding of the work that goes on in education so that I can best help support whatever institution for which I work. I have to be sure to encourage my staff members to seek out new learning opportunities and to really share with them what it means to be the chief of a division. And hopefully several years from now the idea of me being a mid-career professional won’t leave me wondering what next, but will have me embracing the limitless possibilities of my future.
*Angel Perez was named Vice President for Enrollment and Student Success at Trinity College in November 2015.
