GREENEVILLE – Zack Kassebaum, who has served in multiple leadership roles in higher education enrollment, financial aid and marketing for 18 years, has been selected to oversee these initiatives at Tusculum University.
Kassebaum will join the Tusculum family as vice president of enrollment management and financial aid Monday, April 7. He will also oversee the strategic direction of the offices of communications and marketing as he implements a strategic plan for enrollment growth and further success in other university sectors. In addition, he will collaborate with other senior leaders at the university to support Dr. Scott Hummel, Tusculum’s president, as a member of the Executive Cabinet.
“Zack is an excellent leader with a track record of strong results and a thorough understanding of the dynamics of Christian universities,” Dr. Hummel said. “We are impressed with his enthusiastic approach to driving higher enrollment numbers and helping his teams accomplish goals. People with whom he has teamed during his career speak highly of him for his leadership and expertise. Those skills will benefit Tusculum as we recruit students to study in a caring Christian environment that will prepare them to be career-ready, civically engaged professionals.”
Kassebaum is grateful for the opportunity to serve at the university and looks forward to building excellent teams that are excited about transforming lives through an outstanding active and experiential Tusculum education. He is inspired and enthused by Tusculum’s record of providing access to a high-quality, affordable education to everyone, particularly first-generation students.
“Tusculum University has such a rich history of extending the opportunity of higher education to so many, and my heart beats for every single type of student the institution serves,” Kassebaum said. “Before I began my career in higher education, I was a youth pastor. I worked closely with high school students and their families as they prepared for college.
“At the same time, I was a nontraditional student working two jobs while earning my bachelor’s degree. Later I earned my master’s degree online as a full-time working adult. That firsthand experience has shaped how I have led and developed traditional residential enrollment departments as well as nontraditional, online enrollment departments.”
For the last 10 years, Kassebaum has served as a consultant in two roles. One has been as an embedded executive leader for six months to two years at higher education institutions, such as Bellhaven University and Mount Vernon Nazarene University. He has also provided analysis, training and coaching for multiple institutions, such as Concordia University, Fuller Theological Seminary, California Baptist University and Pellissippi State Community College.
The standard outcome has been increases in new enrollment of 12-15% compared to the prior year and in new student retention of 10-15%.
Before he moved into the consultant space, he served as associate vice president of enrollment for about 2 ½ years at Indiana Wesleyan University. He quickly earned a promotion that greatly expanded his leadership duties to oversee 52 directors and staff on eight campuses in four states. Within 1 ½ years, new student enrollment had achieved a record-breaking high.
Kassebaum began his higher education career with the University of Phoenix, where he served for more than five years. He started as an enrollment counselor and advanced to enrollment manager before being promoted to director of enrollment for the Southeast region.
As a counselor in Nashville, he outperformed more than 90% of enrollment representatives within the University of Phoenix. The Richmond, Virginia, campus became one of the highest performing in the Northeast region of the university while he was enrollment manager.
Within six months of his appointment as director at a campus in the Southeast region, his enrollment department had become the highest performing enrollment department in the University of Phoenix system, averaging the highest number of enrollments per representative per month.
Now, he turns his attention to Tusculum. The university’s leadership team impresses him as grounded, focused on Tusculum’s mission, clear on the objectives and headed in the same direction as a group. He also applauds the experiential learning approach to education at Tusculum and notes recent major student achievements, such as the discovery of a potential new crayfish species and students being published in the journals “Inorganic Chemistry” and “Dalton Transactions” for their research into medications to fight cancer.
“Dr. Hummel has built a strong and talented cabinet, and I am confident Tusculum has an innovative and exciting future,” Kassebaum said. “Tusculum also has an excellent staff and expert faculty to support our students with one-on-one attention and mentorship. I would like to partner with faculty members to further expand our enrollment approach. Not only do they have an enthusiasm for what they teach that is infectious, but I also believe faculty members are fantastic communicators about the many ways Tusculum makes a positive difference in students’ lives.”
Kassebaum earned a bachelor’s degree in religion and a master’s in human services, with an executive leadership concentration, both from Liberty University.
Individuals who are interested in enrolling at Tusculum can apply at https://site.tusculum.edu/apply-visit/apply/. To learn more about the university, please visit www.tusculum.edu.
