Mary Beth Lindsey is the enrollment support coordinator at SFUAD. Her main duties as ESC are to provide information to whomever needs it, whether it be prospective students (and/or their parents), or helping current students connect with the right people.

“The people you work with make it or break it,” enrollment advisor Justin Grogan says, and for him SFUAD surpasses his expectations. Grogan works with prospective and current students in the Creative Writing and Literature and Photography departments.

Larry Hinz, president of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, has seen the school go through major changes since 2009. Here he answers some questions about how the school is growing, his vision for the future, and what it is that makes SFUAD special. *The following interview has been edited for conciseness. JM: How do you think SFUAD has changed since you began as president? LH: We’ve had an incredible 3 1/2 to four years of transition. We’re at an exciting place in time for this school. We have over 800 students, and the campus seems more alive—I walk across campus and I see students, so it’s really good for me to have that contrast to what it was like four years ago when we were trying to save the school. The student body is the most talented that I’ve seen since I’ve been here; it’s an engaged, energetic dynamic group of students that we have here and the faculty are really jazzed about that. I also think the campus looks really good; the quad is more welcoming than it was two years ago, for example. We will continue to make improvements to the campus and the buildings as time goes on. Also, we do a satisfaction survey every April, and student satisfaction is way up. There are common themes: students love the faculty, love the classroom, love the courses, love the facilities. Some of the negatives continue as well, like the cafeteria and the dorms and student activities, but this year has been a huge improvement overall. Another area that we track closely is student retention rates. That has also shown consistent improvement over the last year. I think this goes back to that engaged student body. Overall, the group of kids that are...

 By Arianna Sullivan The 2013-‘14 school year began with rumors that the Santa Fe University of Art and Design had suddenly increased its student numbers by the hundreds. There were students momentarily camped out in King Lounge because the dorms had been over-booked, and students received an email from student life before the first day of classes reiterating that each meal time consists of a two-hour block in an attempt to cut down on the long lines already forming in the cafeteria. It was clear from the get-go that student numbers were up, but by exactly how much remained to be seen—even by enrollment staff—until the add-drop period ended on Aug. 30. The magic number of new students: 430. The incoming students are divided into domestic (262), international (19) and network (149). The total number of new students has increased from 18 in 2010, when the school officially became SFUAD, so clearly progress is being made. How exactly are these numbers increasing? Christine Guevara, SFUAD’s executive director of student operations, explains the ins and outs of the enrollment process that yields these numbers. While SFUAD is a Laureate International University network school, its enrollment process happens internally. The university has six field reps, or representatives of the school, who visit high schools to attend college fairs and talk to college counselors and students. These representatives are located in Northern California, Southern California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico. The target states are concentrated in the west and southwest because studies by higher education consultants such as Noel-Levitz show that students are becoming less and less likely to travel further distances for undergraduate education. SFUAD also enlists its department chairs to travel around the country to hold workshops and introduce the school to high school...