Pohl Leaving Post as VP for Enrollment and Student Affairs

Laurie Pohl, BU’s vice president for enrollment and student affairs since 2007, is stepping down from the position as of September 1. With her decades of student-focused expertise as an administrator and planner, she will join the faculty of the School of Education, where she will teach, conduct research on college access and success, and provide direction for on-campus support for low-income and underrepresented students.

Pohl leaves a notable legacy and a broad portfolio of responsibilities, one that includes oversight of undergraduate admissions, student financial assistance, the University registrar, student employment, enrollment operations, the University Service Center, the Center for Career Development, Enrollment Services, and the Educational Resource Center.

Jean Morrison, University provost, says Pohl has “provided essential direction of the University’s undergraduate enrollment strategies and coordinated activities to strengthen undergraduate retention, degree completion, and student success.”

Pohl, who will go on sabbatical before assuming her job at SED, was part of the team that created the Kilachand Honors College and led a number of critical policy reforms, including intra-university transfer, course credit assignment, and incorporation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In the past nine years, she has been the force behind the team that advises students as they deal with challenges ranging from financial aid to personal leave.

Effective immediately, Christine McGuire, currently associate vice president for enrollment and student affairs and executive director for financial assistance, will serve as the interim vice president for enrollment and students affairs.

McGuire holds a BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges. In 2010, she completed the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Institute for Management and Leadership in Education. With 29 years of experience in higher education administration in enrollment management, financial aid, student employment, and registrar functions, Morrison says, “Christine is well-suited to succeed Laurie in this important leadership role.”

Prior to coming to Boston University in 2003, Pohl was chief of staff to the president and chief planning officer of the University of Virginia, from 1996 to 2002. She says that in her years first as associate vice president for enrollment and student affairs, and as vice president since 2007, she has seen Boston University and its students change significantly.

“There’s a greater pride of place among the undergraduate student body, with students wearing BU paraphernalia, and a greater sense of community,” she says. “There’s more activity on campus and more engagement with BU and with important issues. Many of us have been working on just that thing.”

And she is increasingly impressed by BU’s student body. “The students are amazing,” she says. “They are interesting, passionate, they are silly, they make mistakes, but by and large they still think they can change the world, and I feel like part of my job was to not have that quashed out of them by the time they leave.”

Pohl earned undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from Albion College and a PhD in chemistry from the University of Virginia. She has completed course work toward an MA in philosophy of science at Boston University and was awarded the Shimony Prize for best paper in philosophy of science in 2007. Although her work at BU involved no beakers, pipettes, or arcane formulas, her chemistry background has served her well.

“Being a scientist, I’m an intuitive, but also very analytical,” she says. “When I meet people and I have to work with them, I ask a lot of questions. That’s the way my mind works. If you’re a scientist, most of your life is failure. But every time that happens, you’re learning something. That way of seeing comes from science. In science we never have complete knowledge, but we’re always making decisions based on the information available to us, our experience, and our training. We take calculated risks, and that practice has served me well as an administrator.”

The job McGuire is taking on is a huge one, and Pohl has no doubt that she will handle it well. “It really does span from the first point of contact in high school to the time that they leave,” she says. “The exciting thing for me was how do you look at that experience and make sure that we serve students well and at a high level across that span of time?”

At SED, Pohl will be researching issues in college access and student success. “We try, and sometimes succeed, to bring more underrepresented students into schools like BU, but are they having the same experience? One student was working three jobs when she was here, and the option was not available for her to participate in leadership opportunities,” she says.

She hopes her research and teaching will illuminate challenges and barriers to success in and after college, in addition to those that prevent underrepresented students from attending college, and will explore the role of mentoring both here and in preparation for college. “College access initiatives are important, and they require resources,” says Pohl. “With budgets tight, however, college leaders need to better understand what works. Too often we claim success by starting a new initiative or allocating resources, but what are the results? What is the impact on students?”

She is looking forward to returning to teaching and research, and to working more with students. “This is one of the more polite generations I’ve ever met,” she says. “They are so grateful if you spend time with them; they appreciate having adults around who take an interest in them. You just never know when a five-minute conversation has changed someone’s outlook, maybe for a lifetime.”