After a year and a half with the position unfilled, Josh Norman, formerly the Director of Enrollment Management Data Analysis and Reporting, has been selected to fill the position of Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management.

Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said he has been balancing the duties of provost with this position since it first came open and he said is relieved to be given the opportunity to focus his full attention on his provost duties.

“I have been trying to cover the duties of the Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management as provost and (I’ve) got too much on my plate so I’m really delighted to have him serving in this position and taking some of these responsibilities from me,” Lord said. “He’ll be able to devote more of his time to it (as well as) his energy and his analytic skills.”

Lord said that along with Norman’s analytic skills, his creativity and problem-solving skills make him a good fit for the position.

“He was chosen after a national search that was exhaustively done and it was pondered by many people from the search committee to the Vice President to the Provost to the President and we are delighted that we think we have found the right person,” Lord said.

When President Glassman informed Norman of his decision, Norman said he felt the weight of the responsibility put on him, but he was also excited for all the things he could do given this opportunity.

“A lot of what I’ve done is data, analytics and strategy and that will be a major part of what I do in this position, but with the added portion of management across the Offices of Admissions, Financial Aid, and the Office of the Registrar,” Norman said. “This is transitioning from a support role into a managerial and a strategic vision casting role.”

Norman said he is also excited to be working closely with other offices including the Office of International Students and Scholars, New Student Programs and the Honors College.

“We’re going to have to create a culture on this campus of advocacy for the university. I mean we all know how fantastic it is and how it changes the lives of the students who come here, but we’ve got to be out there telling the story,” Norman said. “I think that’s what I’m most excited about, is pulling together those individuals. A lot people are out there and they want to do something, but they don’t necessarily know what it is that they can do.”

Norman said the thing he is most inexperienced about is working with large-scale budgets, but he said Eastern President David Glassman assured him he will get the training required to handle that. Norman will have managerial oversight over the Office of the Registrar’s budget, along with the budgets of the Offices of Financial Aid and Admissions.

“I’ve handled budgets in the past but nothing to this scale,” Norman said.

Norman said being a member of Vitalization Project Workgroup no. 3, enrollment management, helped provide him with information and will be an asset for what he plans to do in this position.

“There are a lot of great ideas there that we can prioritize,” Norman said.

Norman said he wants to put together a strategic enrollment plan after he has made sure everything for the incoming class of 2021 is in order.

Before coming to Eastern, Norman worked as a physical therapy aide in high school. After graduating, Norman joined the U.S. Air Force as the secret protocol router network administrator for the Air Force’s second-largest secret network. He then went to the corporate headquarters of Rural King to work in e-commerce after his father fell ill.

“I didn’t take this job because it’s my dream job. I took this job because I felt like now is the time for me to step up and do what I can in the role of enrollment management for Eastern Illinois University,” Norman said. “Now I’m here and I’m excited to embark on that challenge.”

Chrissy Miller can be reached at 581-2812 or clmiller9@eiu.edu.