The University of Idaho announced Friday that Dean Kahler accepted the position of vice provost for strategic enrollment management, effective Oct. 17.
In a press release from the university, Kahler said he is honored by the opportunity to serve the students of UI.
“I look forward to working with the dedicated faculty and staff at UI as well as with our community partners,” Kahler said.
The announcement comes amid months of structural changes to the provost division of student affairs. Changes began at the start of this year when Provost and Executive Vice President John Wiencek said a decision was made to separate enrollment management from the vice provost of student affairs position. A nationwide search for a vice provost of strategic enrollment management began in April.
But when Jean Kim, former vice provost of student affairs, left her position in June of this year, it was announced that the position of vice provost of student affairs would be eliminated entirely and oversight of student affairs would fall under Dean of Students Blaine Eckles.
Wiencek said the new position is meant to fall in line with UI President Chuck Staben’s goal to increase statewide enrollment at the university by 50 percent.
Wiencek said his experience working at other universities taught him that the retention of students is an important component of student success — a component that UI has possibly overlooked.
“When I came here to this campus, the impression that I got is we viewed the recruiting function as our whole enrollment strategy,” Wiencek said.
In a press release announcing the creation of the vice provost of strategic enrollment management in July, Wiencek said UI cannot afford to wait another year to implement these changes. He said a university’s improvement requires forward momentum, a problem he said UI has struggled with for the last decade.
“We just haven’t found a consistent momentum to get ourselves moving forward,” Wiencek said.
Wiencek said the university has been struggling with enrollment and retention, but transfers to the university are up.
UI experienced a 3.8 percent decline in non-resident registrations this year, mainly due to a drop in international student enrollment, but had a 4.1 percent increase in new transfer students.
“We’ve been, actually, declining in enrollment, and I think we understand pretty well where that came from,” Wiencek said. “It was somewhat intentional, but it does sort of take the wind out of the sails, and it makes it hard for faculty, staff and students to really feel good about their university and excited about its future.”
Now, Wiencek said, UI is at a turning point. With the changes being implemented, there will be four major pillars reporting to the provost — student affairs, strategic enrollment management, faculty development and academic initiatives.
A national search is yet to be underway for a vice provost of academic initiatives. An interim search will also be underway for a temporary appointment to the position.
Kahler, a former inaugural vice chancellor for enrollment management at the University of Arkansas — who also worked in enrollment management at Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green (WKU) — beat out three other applicants for the position.
“We could’ve accepted any of them and been in a really good place,” Wiencek said.
But Wiencek said Kahler has both the recruitment and retention skills that the university needs to meet Staben’s enrollment goal.
Kahler served as the executive director of Navitas, associate vice president for enrollment management and director of the Office of Admissions during his 10 years at WKU.
According to a university press release, Kahler helped increase new freshmen admissions by nearly 50 percent in three years at the University of Arkansas.
Taylor Nadauld
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