For the Record, An AACRAO Podcast
For the Record, An AACRAO Podcast
The 110th Annual Meeting
The AACRAO Annual Meeting is a phenomenal event for networking, learning, and catching up with friends and colleagues. This year’s meeting, held in Seattle, Washington, brought together more than 1,700 higher education professionals for breakout sessions, plenaries, timely topics, and great fun.
Key Takeaways:
- The AACRAO Annual Meeting continues to provide outstanding opportunities for personal and professional growth to the AACRAO membership.
- It’s not too soon to start thinking about what you might present next year in New Orleans at the 111th Annual Meeting.
- Say yes, get out of your own way, and be brave. You have tons of support from people who want to see you succeed!
Host:
Doug McKenna
University Registrar, George Mason University
cmckenn@gmu.edu
Guests:
So many guests! Thank you to everyone who agreed to be interviewed for this episode.
References and Additional Information:
You're listening to For the Record, a registrar podcast sponsored by Acro. I'm your host, Doug McKenna, and this is the 110th annual meeting. Hello. Welcome to For the Record. I'm glad you're here. I'm just back from the 110th annual meeting held in Seattle, Washington, and what a fantastic event it was. 1740 attendees, all coming together to share knowledge and expertise in the unique and collaborative ways that only registrars and admissions officers can. This episode is going to give you a podcaster on the street view of the conference starting with the Experience Acro event all the way through the closing plenary, and I'm just one person with a microphone and I didn't even bring two turntables. So there were many, many parts of the conference I wasn't able to document, but I hope you get a taste of how wonderful a place the annual meeting can be. Hi, I'm Sasha Suzuki, deputy registrar at the University of Utah, and I'm Marin Mason, university registrar at the University of Utah, and we met here while like helping with the experience Acro events. So Experience Acro is an event for first-timers that is geared to introduce first timers to all the acro has to offer. So it's a college style event with tables, um, with caucuses represented, different um areas of acro represented. We have state. Regional association representatives and so really it's a place for first timers to come and walk around the room, meet people, mingle, learn more about Acro. Hopefully it helps them feel like acclimated and make this conference feel not so large. It's a really fun event. We encourage you to come if you're a first timer in the future. If you're hearing this and you missed Experience Acro on Monday morning, there's an in case you missed it session. But you can also find other first timers who are wearing purple lanyards. So if you see someone wearing a purple lanyard, go up and say hi, and if you're a first timer, it's a new person to connect with. But if you've been here for 10 years in a row, First timers would love to hear from you and meet new people and make great connections, and it's always fun to win a vintage Acro swag and other great prizes that we're giving out. So make sure to make Experience Acro a stop for you if you are a first time attendee. Welcome to Acro. We love and are looking forward to having you. Thanks y'all. Hi, I'm Melanie Gottlieb. I'm the executive director at Acro. I'm here at Experience Acro, and there is so much energy in the room. The thing I love most about Experience Acro is it gives an opportunity right at the start of the conference for the more than 500 first-time attendees who join us to make friends and build connections because that's what Acro is about. It's about making connections, building your network, and learning from your peers. So I'm, I'm really excited. I'm thrilled to be here. Hi. Hello, my name is Abdul. I'm from LaGuardia Community College. Um, this is my first time here at Acro. Uh, I'm here to learn more, um, about the organization, and also I'm interested in a lot of the workshops. Uh, we're facing a lot of challenges and some of the workshops that are here are, are really related to the, the work that I do. I'm surprised as the, as the volume, I didn't realize how many people would be here. I, I thought it was a much smaller event. So, you know, just coming here and seeing all these people from all across the country, I think it's a it's a great experience. Hi, I'm Katie Rendon. I am here at Experience Acro as a member of the State and Regional Relations Committee. I'm the registrar at Hebrew Union College, and we are here sharing all of the amazing professional development opportunities that you can um take part in by joining a state and regional committee. The room is very busy. It's very energetic and exciting, and everyone is just having a great time introducing themselves and getting to know new people. My name is uh Curri Debell from New York University School of Law, and, uh, essentially we're looking at basically an icebreaker session among uh young networking professionals getting a chance to know each other through a bingo game. They also have different tables set up for, uh, seems like different information for different organizations within Acuraro. So, uh, pretty, pretty cool so far. Uh. Hi, my name is Amanda Beck from the New York University School of Law. Um, I'm here with my colleague Curtis Deal, and we're currently at the Acro Welcome session, um, where we have tables set up of different organizations and we have people chatting and smoozing, giving us tips about the best events to attend and, um, a bingo card to, uh, make it easier to icebreak. We're very happy to be here and learn from our colleagues. Hi, I'm Lahandria Thomas. I'm the director of undergraduate scholarships at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and right now this is I'm at the first, um, attendees that write their first experience Aro. This is my first time at this conference. um, this room is electrifying. There's a lot of people in here, um, you could tell that there's a room of worth of knowledge to get involved with a lot of different programs, so I'm excited to be here. Fantastic. Uh, my name's. Paul Butler, I work at the University of Utah. I am the early college program's director, uh, and that includes concurrent enrollment and our early college program, but it also includes a very creative little thing, um, that we are doing in the space of direct admission, and I'm actually presenting on that on Wednesday, one of the very last sessions of the conference. I'm very excited. So it is my first time here, but I also get to be a presenter, which makes me. Very excited to be here and to be meeting so many cool people, and I'm really looking forward to meeting anyone else who does something similar to me. I would love to share ideas with people. This room is not what I was expecting, but it is fun. There are so many people here getting to know each other and filling out their bingo cards and signing up for resources that, frankly, I didn't know existed before I came in here. I've already signed up for a couple of newsletters. Hi, my name is Corey Riddle. I'm the associate registrar at Yale University. I'm Erin Pringle, assistant registrar at Yale University. We are in Seattle, Washington, attending Acro and having a blast. We just finished presenting our presentation on change management. Yeah, change management. The crowd was wild. The crowd was going wild. They're so excited about change management and they're going to go back to their institutions and crush it now. I was certified in change management through the Prosci program over the summer, so it was July in 2024, and I knew that our institution, this could really be helpful. And as I went through the program and got certified, I thought, wow, everybody could use this. We all need this in our personal lives and our professional lives. And so I thought about How could I present this? Um, there's so much information, so how could I break this down into a smaller, you know, bite size, bite size piece and still hopefully be effective and, and share this knowledge. Uh, so I started working on it early fall, I think, maybe August, September. I got involved when Corey needed somebody to help her and I kind of invited myself in. Um. So I got the email about the call for proposals and I thought, um, am I smart enough to do this? It was a little bit intimidating. You need your objectives and your learning outcomes, and I thought, well, this is really formal and I really had to think about and organize, um, what am I doing here? Like what am I trying to get across? So I gave that a lot of thought and I submitted the proposal and I checked off what areas I thought it belonged under, you know, organizational development or the registrar's office, there's a lot of options under there. Um, and so I just sent that out into the ether and waited, and I didn't think I would get picked, and then I got an email and I thought, oh no. This is happening and I think what was intimidating was that I come to Acro and there's people who I look up to in the profession who are giving these amazing, uh, presentations, and I'm just me, a regular person, and could I like live up to that. And so I just worked on the presentation. I actually gave um a version of the presentation at a regional um conference, so we're a part of NACO. So I did that there a little bit shorter, um, more watered down or edited version as practice, and then Erin came on board and we practiced on some souls in our office, which was great cross training for them. So, um, that was great for them, and then here we are. It feels really good. What did, what do you think, Erin? I thought it was great. Um, the crowd was great. I was, I was very nervous, but everybody was very interactive and welcoming and warm, um, so I thought it was great. Yeah, I like, I like to look at it as, you know, everybody here wants to get something out of it. They want you to succeed, and I think it's just really energizing to be able to share something. That will either inspire somebody or hopefully help them a little bit and that maybe there's something that they can take away, um, and plus, you know, you can get up and have some fun presenting even though you're a little bit nervous. Like we're all in this together. We've all had a lot of the same experiences. It's a safe space, and we're just all here to help each other out. Now that we're done presenting, I feel like I need to sign up again and do another one. I feel the same. I would definitely do it again. Heidi Tisher Gilly, I'm from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We are at Agro and we are down in the um the exhibit hall. Uh, and what's going on right now? Well, folks are walking around checking things out. They're also getting snacks, which seems to be incredibly popular right now. The Acaibo, fabulous, fabulous. My morning was great. I stopped into a session. It was really good, but I realized it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. And just like every session time, I have about 3 that I'm interested in. So I hopped out of that one about halfway through and jumped into the other one, which was great. I walked away with some tools that I'm going to be able to take back and utilize for the rest of the conference, I'm looking forward to connecting with more individuals from across the nation at different institutions. I've been able to make some really good connections. Also, the great sessions that are still planned ahead and the snacks. I'm Christy Wold McCormick. I'm the assistant vice provost and university registrar at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the newly minted past president of the board of directors. We just concluded our business session of the annual meeting. And during the business session we approved minutes from the last business session. We reviewed our financial health of the organization with the vice president of finance report. We voted on a number of bylaws changes to improve the association and how we conduct business, and we did a lot of recognitions of people who have contributed so much to the. Association over this past year in various volunteer roles. Thank you to everybody who attended the business session and for everybody who is presented at the annual meeting, and I look forward to seeing you all in New Orleans. Hello Acro Family. I am Doctor Connie Newsome from Campbell University School of Law. We're part of a larger university. Campbell University. So Campbell University, uh, the law school is located in Raleigh, North Carolina. Campbell University is in a small town called Louis Creek, North Carolina, about 40 miles south. What just happened is something that I'm still astonished about, but I do thank everyone for making it happen. Um, and that is I transitioned, uh, on the board from the, uh, a vice president at large position to President-elect, which is a 3 year, um, commitment. First year is president elect, um, the, the, the next year is, uh, you serve directly as president and then the the last year is, um, you serve in the past. President's role and um so I'm again I'm still astonished but I'm I'm very much looking forward to it and since I have this moment I just want to say thank you for everyone who um who who voted for me who supported me, for those that um nominated me because I had multiple nominations which is what made me consider it um and I I look forward to continuing to serve this fantastic organization. I'm Cassandra Moore and my day job is director of enrollment development and admissions at Enronto Community College, and I'm the new president of the ACRA board of directors. What just happened? I tell you I was so emotional because you think about what got you here, right? And I answered two questions about how do you become a board member and what does a board member do? And it was to inspire and encourage those who were sitting. To want to continue to engage with Acro. So many people believed in me. They would ask me to do things and I would say yes. I had to get out of my head, get out of my own way and say yes, and I figured it out. So I say yes, say yes and figure it out. You will have the support to figure out we have a great Aro staff and and the thing is when we, you know, when you work with state and regionals, when you do the work you're doing it all yourself, but in this case. You've got a whole wonderful exceptional staff to help you bring a thought and idea to fruition always on behalf of the members for me it's all about the members as we talk about issues and things come to the fore, I'm always envisioning real people. I'll be thinking of Doug, you, other people so for me it's about will the members be proud of us. are we sticking to our mission, vision and values? We have a challenging time in in in higher ed, but we've had them before, right? And community colleges have their own challenges. We know how to do this. We will not run from the challenge we will face it all these brains in Aro all the brains on the board, you've all the brains on the support and the uh ACro staff, we can do this. Some public, some less public, but it is important that we do it so that you're not on the island because you actually have the most important voice of anybody in a college or university. It's the students because the students are connected to parents, parents are constituents to elected officials, so we have to support you. One of the sad saddest moments. I'm recording this in the first ever live taping of an Acro podcast. Portia Lamar and Ingrid Nuttall. Interviewing Doctor Hassan Jeffries about resilience. This is super meta because I'm recording this in a plenary that will result in a podcast, and you're listening to this on a totally different podcast. We go check out the podcast for this whole session. It's the folk we need, we need your support,-- but also let them know that-- we understand that the support can come in various ways. We, we're gonna thank you again. Thank you so much, Doctor Jeffries. make sure we uh oh we did, yeah, see, I'm all off my script, you guys. Um, we really wanted to do, we would not, we do not do this work alone. So first of all, thank you to Acro for supporting not just her but also the other fabulous podcast that you must check out. Please check out admit it. Please check out TransferT. Please check out for the record. Download all of it now, smash that subscribe button, please support the people who are putting out this content and give us feedback about what you wanna hear because we love, love, love hearing from you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Ingri Nuttall. I'm from Northeastern University, and I just finished co-moderating a, um, a talk with Doctor Hassan Jeffries from Ohio State University. The first ever live Acro podcast, um, with my inspiration Portia Lamar. Porsha, what did you just do and who are you and where are you from? She said it all, yeah, I'm Portia Lamar, and I was with Ingriduttle and we did our first live recording here at the Seattle 110th Aro annual meeting. It was awesome. Oh, nervous. Because when you record a podcast, I'm in the comfort of my own home in a hoodie. This was live, and we did that. I was, it was terrifying in some ways. I'm gonna say because of the unknown, uh, it was hard not to lose it because it was an emotional talk. Felt good Porsha. The time, the timing was throwing me off. Porsha and I had exactly the same experience, and we are Heard, the co-host of her podcast. It's higher education, real diversity is what it stands for. It does, it does. And we also have another co-host, Tashana Curtis. She's fabulous and you can find us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Heather Zamar. I'm the managing editor of Akro's College and University Journal and sem Quarterly Journal. We are at the 2025 ACro annual meeting. We're in the beautiful atrium, uh, at the Seattle Convention Center. We are selling all of our books here today. We are, um, also celebrating the 100th anniversary of College and University Journal. We just learned that we reached our goal to recruit 100 new authors. Uh, we sell books through our online bookstore all year and then we have a large bookstore at the annual meeting every year, and we do a small bookstore at the SEM conference with a few of our SEM books. And our newest publications are Academic Operations and the role of the Registrar and SEM core concepts. So those are available here for the rest of the day and then online. Feel free to check out all of our resources at acro.org. You can look at our online bookstore at the website. You can also go to our journal web pages through the, through Acro.org as well. Just one more thing before we were done. We have 2 New Orleans themed goodie boxes. In a $100 Dicky Brennan's gift card and a Cathy Dumon voucher and a gift basket from Visit. While all of these prizes are amazing, the grand prize to be included with one of the boxes is a free registration for the 11. to be held and you are. The 26. Now, check under your seat to see if it's your lucky day. A few moments of moderate pandemonium here as it was just announced that there are prizes hidden under some of the seats and now everyone is checking under their seats and crawling around looking for the prizes. Super fun time. Um Jordan Jason with the University of Utah. Connor Robertson with the University of Utah. Sasha Suzuki of Utah, Emily Johnson, University of Utah. Brian Richards, University of Utah. Brittany Lambert, you guessed it, University of Utah. Aaron Mason, University of Utah. Uh, the last session of Acro, it was all about being future ready. And so, yeah, I'm future ready now. I'm going to be future ready by budgeting 15 minutes a week to think about how the future impacts my work. I'm ready to unlearn everything and relearn again. Mentoring between generations, sometimes the outsider can mentor you in new ways to do things. I'm excited to take back some of the things I've learned and implement those in the office. I'm reminded that optimization isn't enough and we need to be more forward thinking to support the students of the future. Uh, this is my 3rd annual meeting and I got to reconnect with a lot of friends. This is my first time and it was incredible. I'm so excited. This is my first time and I made a lot of great connections. This is definitely not my first time, but it's always so great to see everybody. All the sessions I attended were awesome. I learned a lot about tons of things clear across the academia spectrum. Uzbekistan. I'm program chair of New Orleans, so I will be there and I am so excited for you to join me, Doug.-- 12312-- 3. Oh. All right. Hey, thanks, Seattle. We're closing it out. Had a wonderful time at the 110th Acro annual meeting. At the end of every annual meeting, I always feel like a pony because I'm a little horse from all the talking and the laughing too loudly and the catching up with old friends in loud rooms. It's wonderful to see everyone. I hope that everyone gets home safely, and I hope to see everyone in person at the 111th annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana next April. Thank you to everyone who presented at this annual meeting. So, so many good sessions. Appreciate all of the work the local arrangements committee did and all the volunteers who helped throughout the meeting and to the Agro staff, just another phenomenal annual meeting. Thank you for everything you do. Ready, 123. That's a wrap on 2025. Until next time, drink some water, stretch your legs, look out for each other. I'm Doug McKenna and this is for the record.