Arlene Cash is vice provost for enrollment management at the University of the Pacific, a mid-size, private liberal arts college in northern California.
For Cash, 58, her life has never had a dull moment, evolving from one challenging chapter after another since she was an Upward Bound Program high school student in Boston more than 40 years ago. She was one of the first students reassigned to suburban public schools from the city as part of an ambitious school desegregation effort.
Cash’s sabbatical, which began toward the end of the last school year, did not last long. A few months after her time-out got into full gear, during which she went to study at the University of Georgia for her Ph.D., Cash hit the pause button and agreed to take on another enrollment management challenge.
By late December, Cash was starting her job as vice provost for enrollment management at the University of the Pacific, a mid-size, private liberal arts college in northern California.
“Working with retention, academic success, professional (graduate-level) programs, this gave me the whole breadth of experience,” says Cash of her new post and how it complements her long-term goals. She says she has found Pacific to be “a great university trying to do great things.”
Cash was initially reluctant to take the job, but Pacific recruiters used some of her own enrollment techniques.
“It’s all about asking,” Cash says, reflecting on her more than 30 years in recruitment and enrollment.
