The Weekly VineDown with Emily Smith

Most enrollment leaders own the front door. Rachel Beech owns the whole house (admissions, financial aid, the registrar, the career center, student success) "from first postcard to first job offer." From that rare full-funnel seat, she argues something the industry rarely says out loud: the best thing an enrollment team can do is get comfortable saying no. Rachel is the VP of Enrollment...

Everyone in higher ed agrees the ground is shifting. The disagreement is about what to do while it's moving. Dr. Ramon Blakley, who leads admissions at one of the most-watched public institutions in the country, has a deceptively simple answer: stay in your lane, keep moving, and check on your people before they break. As Assistant Vice Provost for Admissions at UT Austin, Blakley sits behind what...

Jenny Sawyer has been telling families no for over a decade. She'll open ChatGPT mid-call, run the math in real time, and tell a student their second-choice school is a better financial decision than the one she runs admissions for. Then she'll wish them well. She's the Associate Provost and Executive Director of Admissions at the University of Louisville, a public university in a poor...

Gary Clark has 175,000 applications landing on his desk every year as Associate Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management at UCLA. He's also one of the loudest voices in higher ed arguing that selectivity is not a proxy for quality. In this episode of The VineDown, Emily sits down with Gary to pull apart the pressure cooker that college admissions has become, why the system is producing "...

Kevin Mathes is the Vice President of Enrollment Management and Dean of Admissions at Bucknell University. It’s a full circle moment as Bucknell is his alma mater, where he started as a first-year tour guide before spending nearly two decades working his way back to lead the whole operation. Under his leadership, Bucknell has achieved five consecutive years of record enrollment, including the larg...

Todd Rinehart arrived at the University of Denver in 1997 as an assistant men's basketball coach. When the coaching staff was fired in 2001, he made a pivot that changed everything: he stayed, moved into admissions, and discovered that recruiting athletes had quietly trained him for a career in recruiting students. Twenty-nine years later, he's the Vice Chancellor for Enrollment at DU, whe...

In this episode of The VineDown , Emily Smith sits down with John Haller, one of the most consequential enrollment leaders of the past two decades. John served for 10 years as Vice President of Enrollment Management and New Student Strategies at the University of Miami, where he didn't just fill seats. He rewired the entire student lifecycle. Applications grew 30–80%+. Yield jumped 50%+. Fresh...

Most boards and CFOs track one number obsessively in enrollment conversations: The discount rate. But Kevin Dyerly argues that focusing on that number can lead institutions to make the wrong decisions. Kevin has a unique perspective on this problem. After eight years leading enrollment at the University of Redlands, he crossed the hall to become the university’s Chief Financial Officer in 2020. Du...

What if the financial aid letter your students' families are opening right now is designed, not to help them, but to steer them toward a loan they almost certainly can't repay? That's the argument Stephen Burd is making. And he has 41 universities worth of data to back it up. Stephen is a Senior Writer and Editor at New America, and the author of Lifting the Veil on Enrollment Manageme...

What if higher education stopped obsessing over where students start and focused instead on where they’re actually supposed to finish? In this episode of The VineDown , Emily sits down with Rhonda Longworth , Provost and Executive Vice President at Eastern Michigan University , for one of the most grounded, human, and quietly radical conversations we’ve had this season. Rhonda has spent nearly 30...

College admissions is built on human connection. So why does it feel like technology (especially AI) is pulling us in the opposite direction? In this episode of The VineDown , Emily Smith sits down with James Miller, Associate Vice President & Dean of Admission at Seattle University, to explore what he calls “the central paradox of admissions today.” James brings a rare perspective shaped by d...

For decades, higher education has treated enrollment like an arms race. More applications. More admits. More students in the door. But what happens after they arrive? In this episode of The VineDown, Emily Smith sits down with Costas Solomou, Vice President for Enrollment Management at SUNY Geneseo, for a candid, deeply human conversation about why growth-at-all-costs is quietly breaking student s...

This week on The VineDown, I sat down with David Weil , the longtime CIO and Senior VP of Strategic Services & Initiatives at Ithaca College. He’s a man who has survived every major tech wave higher ed has ever thrown at him. Mainframes. Early PCs. The dawn of the internet. Mobile. SaaS. Y2K panic. He’s seen it all. But when I asked him how AI compares? He didn’t hesitate: “Nothing has hit hig...

Most people in higher ed hear “AI in admissions” and think: “Ah, so… another chatbot.” In this episode of The VineDown , I sit down with CollegeVine’s own CTO, Chris Coffey, to pull back the curtain on what we’re actually building: autonomous AI agents that act more like teammates than tools with guardrails, reasoning, and real responsibility. We get into: How our first AI recruiter (“Sarah”) went...

What happens when a first-generation college student grows up to lead enrollment at a major university? In this episode of The VineDown , Emily Smith sits down with Shawana Singletary , Assistant Vice President and Chief Enrollment Officer at Adelphi University. Drawing from her own journey (from working double shifts to pay tuition, to leading admissions and enrollment strategy) Shawana shares ho...

What does it really mean to put students first in the college admissions process? In this episode of The VineDown , Emily Smith sits down with Yvonne Espinoza, CEP, nationally recognized counselor, City of Austin Women’s Hall of Fame inductee, and founder of YESpi College Counseling. After 19 years serving Title I and alternative schools in Austin, Yvonne launched her own independent practice to k...

Families obsess over “dream schools.” Colleges obsess over rankings and yield. Somewhere in between, the real truth about admissions gets lost. In this episode of The VineDown , I sit down (again!) with bestselling author and higher ed strategist Jeff Selingo to cut through the myths and talk candidly about what really drives admissions decisions today. Jeff has spent decades reporting on higher e...

What happens when universities stop thinking of “student experience” as a buzzword and start treating it like an outcome-driven mission? In this episode of The Vinedown , host Emily Smith sits down with Joe Hartman, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs at UMass Lowell, to explore how his university reimagined student success by breaking down longstanding silos between acade...

What if the secret to enrollment success isn’t about bigger funnels, but about smaller friction? In this episode of the Vine Down, I chat with Kevin Halle, VP of Enrollment Management at Wayne State College: a public institution serving a student body that’s nearly 50% first-gen. Kevin breaks down how Wayne State has not only grown enrollment significantly over the past decade but maintained a uni...

In this episode, Emily Smith sits down with Dan Garcia, VP of Enrollment Management at the University of New Mexico, to unpack the realities and anxieties around adopting AI in enrollment and retention strategies. Dan gets candid about shifting from if to how to use AI, the outdated tactics to abandon, and the core enrollment fundamentals he’ll never give up. He shares practical strategies for add...

If your institution treats student recruitment separately from retention, you’re missing a critical connection. On this episode of The Vinedown , Emily Smith speaks with Katie Condon , Vice President of Enrollment Management at Eastern Michigan University. Katie draws from her own experiences as a first-generation college student to explain why student retention begins from the very first interact...

Colleges are stuck sending mixed messages about AI—and students are paying the price. Emily Pacheco, Associate Director at Case Western Reserve and founder of the AI in College Admissions (AICA) group, joins Emily Smith on The Vinedown to break down how the absence of clear AI policies in college admissions is quietly damaging student belonging, creativity, and authenticity. In this conversation,...

Enrollment leaders, listen up—it’s time to confront an uncomfortable truth: colleges stuck in old models of recruitment and data management risk falling dangerously behind. In this eye-opening episode, Emily Smith sits down with David Burge, VP of Enrollment Management at George Mason University, to unpack the critical issues facing higher education enrollment today. From the limitations of tradit...

In this episode, Emily Smith sits down with Reggie Hill, Vice Chancellor for Strategic Enrollment at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. They discuss innovative approaches to recruitment at regional public universities, building community partnerships, and adapting to changing enrollment landscapes in higher education. TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 Introduction & UMSL's Institutional Context 3:08 Ba...

In the latest episode of The VineDown, Heath Einstein, the Vice Provost for Enrollment Management at Texas Christian University, reflects on the evolving challenges and responsibilities we face in higher education today.