JAMES LILLIN
Staff Writer
Vice President of Student Affairs Cedric Howard has only been working at Fredonia since August of 2016, but in that time he’s been busy making waves in admissions, enrollment and residential life. In recognition of his work, Howard has been named as the recipient of the 2018 Scott Goodnight Award for Outstanding Performance as a Dean.
“Scott Goodnight was the founding chair of the organization that is now known as NASPA, the organization which most student affairs professionals are affiliated with, and it kind of governs our work as a profession,” said Howard.
Howard’s work with NASPA goes back for years, having served as a regional representative for NASPA and as a chair for one of its regional planning committees. In 2013, Howard won the western regional version of the Scott Goodnight award, but the path that got him there was a long one, starting as an undergraduate at Georgia College.
“I was very involved, I was a resident assistant, which lead to me being an assistant housing director my senior year,” said Howard.
Howard also served as an intramurals event coordinator, the president of a greek letter organization and as a student government representative, but it was a conversation with Paul Haufman, Georgia College’s VP of Student Life, that set Howard on the path to school administration.
“I said wanted to be a Human Resources VP for a Fortune 500 Company,” said Howard. “His exact words for me were, ‘Eh, that’s boring … you’re a student affairs type.’”
Hoffman then helped Howard secure a place at the University of Tennessee, where he pursued his masters in higher education administration, as well as a job as the Coordinator of Student Programs at the university itself. It was at the University of Tennessee where Howard first met his wife, who he credits as being vital to his professional and personal success.
“My wife has been the stabilizer that has helped my kids feel like they didn’t have to give up anything,” said Howard. “My wife and my mother have always been there for me, and they are the reason that I am where I am now.”
After graduate school, Howard began working his way up the career ladder of academia, developing an impressive and diverse resume of jobs and skills. This eventually would lead him to the University of South Florida in 2002, where he first began honing his skill in enrollment management while working to start their department of Student Affairs.
“How I got into enrollment management was, really, a mistake,” said Howard. “During my second year they realized they didn’t have anybody to oversee enrollment management so they said, ‘we want to expand your portfolio.’ When I took over enrollment the school had 2,700 [students]. When I left, we were just under 6,000. That was in the span of four years.”
Howard dedicated himself to involving students in the admissions process, asking them what their desires were, and removing the barriers faced by students throughout the process. His work with Fredonia’s admissions team is already paying dividends, with Fredonia welcoming its second largest freshman class on record this year.
“He really did a great job because he is an enrollment specialist,” said Fredonia President Virginia Horvath. “ … That’s why I was so eager that he was a candidate and so eager to hire him, because he knows that field. He’s been able to look at the way we’ve always done things here and say ‘that didn’t make sense,’ and make real changes to the system.”
Some of those changes include eliminating the cumbersome process by which batches of applications were looked over by committee, and expediting the process by making sure students who already meet Fredonia’s academic standards receive their acceptance decision and an initial financial aid amount within five days of applying.
“Coming in, I realized we didn’t have a recruitment issue, we had an admissions issue,” said Howard. “Over the past three years this has been the caliber of student we knew we would admit to Fredonia. So why don’t we just admit them? Why wait until February or March?”
Howard credits the sustained interest in Fredonia among prospective students to its excellent Performing Arts and STEM programs, but also notes that the uniquely collaborative environment at Fredonia makes it stand out from the rest.
“I think the thing that really differentiates us from other institutions is the ‘Fredonia Family,’” said Howard. “It’s not something you could necessarily understand just looking at it from the outside. This place is a family that cares about you, and the students and staff here care about both how you’re doing, and how you actually feel.”
Howard is modest about his effect on the institution, stressing that he’s only a part of the excellent admissions and marketing teams that are working to revitalize Fredonia. His contributions, however, have definitely impressed Horvath.
“I see in him creativity, expertise and professionalism in his field, and he’s genuinely committed to student success in all ways,” said Horvath. “He has great ideas that you haven’t even seen yet about what the residential experience here should be like. It’s what made me really excited that we could get Cedric Howard here and it has not disappointed. He has exceeded even my already-high expectations.”