The Millennial Admission Directors and Deans Special Interest Group aims to provide a professional and supportive network for millennial admission leadership to come together to discuss the issues and challenges related to their young leadership roles. The group is for anyone who self-selects themselves as "young" while serving as a senior leader within their office; to that end, there's no age cutoff, but an estimated time in the profession would likely include at least seven to ten years of experience.

Millennial Admission Directors and Deans SIG Co-Leaders: 

Tony Sarda
St. Mary's University

SIG FOCUS - April 2020

Millennial Admission Directors and Deans SIG Partners with Rural SIG to Foster Strong Relationships

The Millennial Admission Directors and Deans Special Interest Group fosters a community of support and dialogue among a group of like-minded admission leaders.

Our networking efforts are not just done internally, but also with admission professionals in very different spaces. One prime example of this is our partnership with the Rural and Small Town SIG. The two SIGs have a direct partnership used for guidance, advice, and shared experiences.

Many school counselors from well-resourced or independent schools have a rolodex of admission directors on speed dial. That’s not always the case for our partners in rural schools. Through our SIG partnership, a millennial admission dean or director is directly paired with a member of the Rural and Small Town SIG to foster strong relationships, offer guidance and support, and even create virtual advising sessions for students, teachers, and counselors.

We offer guidance for teachers writing letters of recommendation, provide advice for high school juniors filling out the Common App, and most importantly, make ourselves available to our rural partners in any way we can. We believe having a dean or director available as a resource for a rural school counselor provides mutually beneficial experiences.

Additionally, in these trying times, the members of our SIG have leaned on one another for both collegial support and advice on how to best handle a number of issues related to COVID-19 and college admission. The SIG hosted a virtual “Lunch and Learn” for members from across the country where discussion was facilitated on topics such as best practices on working from home, managing staff morale, virtual engagement with students, and work-life balance. SIG members have also made use of a group chat via Facebook to ask honest and transparent questions as well as leave positive notes of encouragement for their peers.

SIG co-leaders Jeff Schiffman (Tulane University, LA) and Tony Sarda (Lamar University, TX) agree that the Millennial Admission Directors and Deans SIG has created a space for some of the best young minds in the profession to collaborate, allowing members to learn from and share with each other in order to better serve the world of college admission counseling.