with NAGAP Committee Chairs

Tell us about your current role in graduate enrollment management. What do you enjoy most about it?

Melissa Sersland, MS, Chair of the Publications Committee

In a nutshell, what does your committee work on (or is responsible for)?

The Publications Committee is responsible for the three issues of Perspectives that are released each year. Our committee copy edits the entire issue, produces much of the content, and collaborates with our designer to put each issue together. We are always looking for content and our members consistently reach out to our networks to encourage submissions from colleagues. If you are interested in submitting an article for Perspectives, we would love to hear from you! We also have committee members who assist with the NAGAP Insights blog.

What led you to your career in graduate enrollment management (for instance, how did you find your first role in GEM? Why have you continued in this field since?)

I was working at a business-to-business publishing company as a custom media manager and freelancing for my alma mater’s alumni magazine (my alma mater is the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University). The director of alumni relations at Medill let me know the Office of Graduate Admissions and Financial Aid was hiring an assistant director. I applied and was able to kick off my career in graduate enrollment management in January 2015. I quickly fell in love with working with graduate students and helping them make their dreams come true. Making admit calls and getting to hear the excitement in their voices were some of my favorite days on the job! While trying to decide my path in higher education, I pursued a master’s in higher education administration and policy, and that degree cemented for me that I want to work in enrollment management long-term.

Last summer, I started as the director of graduate admissions and recruitment at The Graduate School at Northwestern. In this role, I focus on supporting our 110+ PhD and master’s programs with our CRM and also with central policies, procedures, and best practices. I really enjoy the breadth of our program portfolio. We work with fully-funded PhD and MFA programs as well as professional master’s programs, and all of these departments face unique challenges. I’m constantly learning about each of these departments and about PhD admissions, which I have never worked with before.

How long have you been involved in NAGAP, and what led you to becoming involved?

I joined NAGAP in 2019, taking advantage of the student membership discount while completing my master’s degree. Soon after, I volunteered for a committee and joined Publications. As a journalism major at Northwestern, I have always loved writing and copy editing. Since I don’t have as many opportunities to create content in my current role, I enjoy working on Perspectives to continue interviewing people, writing articles, and editing content. I also love highlighting best practices and the great work of our colleagues as well as helping others have the opportunity to be published in an association publication.

What are you most excited to work on or accomplish in your committee chair position?

Last year, our committee completed the Perspectives redesign. It was a big project and I am really proud of that work. My main goal in this committee chair position is to encourage more members to submit content to Perspectives and to hopefully make it easier and less intimidating to do so.

What do you like to do for fun?

I have a nine-month-old daughter, and I like to just watch her explore and play. I also like to go for a walk outside or order takeout and watch a movie.

What is one thing about you people would never suspect?

It’s a running joke in journalism that journalists hate math, but I have always enjoyed math and took differential equations in high school. n