College Avenue The latest from across campus
New Vice President Named Enrollment and Marketing Vice President also to lead Advancement
If
you’ve attended one of Walla Walla University’s student recruiting events, there’s a good chance you know who Jodi Wagner is. Wagner would be the university administrator with more energy than most students half her age. In her new and expanded role, the campus administrator will become a familiar face to the university’s alumni and friends as well. Wagner is the new vice president for university relations and advancement. Wagner will now lead the combined areas of marketing, enrollment services, university relations, advancement, and alumni relations. During her time as vice president for marketing and enrollment, Wagner has overseen a student enrollment of nearly 8 percent since she arrived at WWU in 2008. She has also expanded communication and outreach programs to build the university’s regional and national visibility. Restructuring the departments will include the appointment of two new associate vice presidents. Wagner will transfer some of her work in enrollment and marketing to Trevor Congleton, the new associate vice president for marketing and enrollment services. Congleton will oversee the daily operations of these programs. Congleton has served previously
Behind the Screen
New software program powers university operation When Hilary Nieland logged onto her “myWWU” account in September, she checked her new class schedule, paid a tuition bill, reviewed her pre-requisite class list, and discovered two more items on her back-to-school “to-do” list. For the junior French and history student, a visit to Walla Walla University’s computer information system might seem routine, even mundane. However, for the people who implemented the new system Aug. 11, 2011, it represents a minor miracle. On the “go live” date, the computer system transferred successfully with little to no interruption. One year later, data from almost all of the university’s nooks and crannies hums along on an information system powered by Oracle’s PeopleSoft software. The transition from WWU’s former BiTech software system took five years and a multi-million dollar budget. “The greatest challenge,” says Michael Bell, one of the project managers, “was the migration of the historical data from the old system to the new system— over 20 million rows of data.” University faculty and staff now have a centralized system, which allows them to efficiently view and access information for academic records, financial aid, human resources, alumni records, and more. Previously, information was recorded and stored in departmental software 6
Westwind Fall 2012
in the department as the director of recruiting and the director for guest relations. A new associate vice president for alumni/ parent relations and university advancement will also be named to focus on the university’s philanthropic programs. A search for candidates is underway. Plans are also underway for the alumni/ parent relations and university advancement team to move from Havstad Alumni Center to the fourth floor of the Administration Building as soon as appropriate office space can be prepared. “In this location, the combined team’s five divisions will be in close proximity,” says Wagner, “and we expect new energy and efficiencies from shared communications strategies and resources. Recruiting and parent relations might work together to ensure continuity of messaging to parents, for example, and university relations/marketing can support alumni communication efforts.” Before coming to WWU, Wagner was the director of client planning and strategy services for 10 years at Coffey Communications, a health care publication company in Walla Walla. Wagner majored in mass communications and completed concentrated studies in business and English, graduating in 1992. Wagner and her husband, Jeff, also a WWU graduate, have three children.
silos, requiring extensive labor to share information and run reports. Industry professionals have noted the accomplishment of the WWU implementation team, and are calling for professional advice on how WWU managed to accomplish the transition when some other universities have experienced software Mark Priddy, meltdowns and huge cost data migration overruns. specialist, was WWU launched the a key player in the transition. transition project in 2007. Dana Jensen and Richard Jensen, who led the original implementation team until 2010, were key in configuring the system and developing the data migration programs. The Information Services Department team assumed responsibility for the project in 2010 and worked with WWU staff across campus to finalize the system and ensure it was ready for use.