Debbie Below leaves lasting mark on SEMO as she prepares for retirement

Debbie Below has been a consistent fixture at Southeast Missouri State University since 2002, serving in various administrative roles over the past 23 years.

Below, the university’s vice president of Enrollment Management and Student Success, announced her retirement Jan. 29, effective Monday, June 30. Bruce Skinner, SEMO’s associate vice president of Student Life, will fill in for Below in an interim role beginning Tuesday, July 1, until a long-term hire is made. The transition process will begin Saturday, March 1.

As vice president of Enrollment Management and Student Success, Below oversees departments that support new student recruitment, student life and several auxiliary services, including Academic Advising, Admissions, Institutional Research, International Education and Services, Intensive English Program, Marketing and Communications, Registrar, Dean of Students, Student Financial Services and Student Life.

“I have valued Debbie’s counsel and appreciate the hours and effort she has put into helping us succeed,” SEMO president Carlos Vargas said in a news release announcing Below’s retirement Jan. 29. “I think of Debbie not only as a professional colleague but as a trusted friend. I have not met before anybody with a sense of institutional commitment and work ethic as profound and strong as Debbie’s. SEMO is losing an irreplaceable individual.”

A Washington native and 1986 graduate of St. Francis Borgia High School, Below said departing SEMO is "bittersweet". She cited "personal reasons" for leaving the university, including the upcoming birth of her first grandchild.

“I love the university and I love what I do for a living,” Below said. “I don’t want to say, ‘I don’t feel like I’ve ever worked a day in my life’, because I think that everyone works very hard in this industry, but I’ve enjoyed it tremendously.”

Below has more than 30 years of experience working in higher education, including two stints at SEMO — 1990 to 1994 and 2002 to present — and a seven-year tenure as director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Jefferson College from 1994 to 2001. She attended SEMO for her undergraduate studies and began studying journalism before shifting her focus to public relations. After earning a Bachelor of Science in mass communication from SEMO in 1990, Below immediately began working for the university’s Department of Admissions.

“As I was finishing my undergraduate degree and May was approaching, the university hired a new president, Dr. Kala Stroup. As she came in, she knew that we were going through a challenging time in higher education. Enrollments were declining nationwide at that time,” Below said. “She wanted a larger admissions team, so she asked to have four additional admission counselors added, and that just created this opportunity.

“I was one of those four that were hired, which was very exciting, to join this new team. The university decided to join new student relations — the office I met with when I came in as a high school student — with the Office of Admissions to create a more modern admissions experience for prospective students. I got to be a part of that team. We got our first computers, we moved our office from over on Pacific Street into Academic Hall and started that new Admissions office.”

While working at SEMO in the early 1990s, Below saw a potential future in higher education administration and began pursuing a graduate degree. She received a master’s in public administration in 1994.

“I could quickly see that there were opportunities to make a career in higher education,” Below said. “When I pursued the role of an admission counselor, I don’t know that I immediately understood the career opportunities that were ahead of me. But then, it’s just really about creating opportunities for yourself. You’re here, the university provides a discount to take the courses, so it seemed like a natural next step.”

In 1994, Below and her family chose to relocate to St. Louis, which prompted her to apply for an open director of Admissions and Financial Aid position at Jefferson College. During her tenure there, Below was invited by Stroup, who had been named Missouri’s Commissioner of Higher Education, to represent the financial aid industry on former Gov. Mel Carnahan’s Commission on the Affordability of Higher Education. Below said her work with the commission helped create the state’s current financial aid program.

“It was such an honor to be a part of the state commission to truly understand how students are financing their education and the decisions they’re making,” Below said. “Just to be a part of that was exciting.”

SEMO posted a job opening in 2002 for a new director of Admissions, which Below applied for and received. At the time, she was completing her graduate education and received a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2003. Below led SEMO’s Admissions department for 10 years before being named to her current role in 2013.

“In your work life, as you become comfortable with what you’re doing and you can demonstrate effectiveness, you’re given additional opportunities,” Below said. “As I served in that director of Admissions role, I also began to work with our auxiliaries, in areas like Residence Life and the university’s dining contract. Eventually, other areas of responsibility that were added included things like international education and services, which really transformed my understanding of education. …

“I’ve had the opportunity to work with probably more than 25 university departments over the course of my career, and it’s given me a broader perspective, but also an appreciation for how each individual person who works at this university contributes to our overall success.”

Below’s accomplishments at SEMO include helping modernize the recruitment of new students and leading various efforts to bolster student retention and graduation rates. Additionally, she led the university’s first brand launch, co-chaired the development of SEMO’s current Strategic Action Plan and developed a Strategic Enrollment Plan endorsed by the university’s Board of Governors last summer.

While her list of accomplishments is impressive, Below said one of the most rewarding aspects of her job is meeting with students one on one.

“I served as our dean of students for a period of time and I’d get the chance to talk to a student almost every day,” Below said. “I think the mentorship that young people need and deserve is something we get to do in this job, and those are the memories I’ll remember the most.

“I think that it’s a privilege to get to do this kind of work and to have knowledge about how you can finance an education, and I love when somebody reaches out to me and asks, ‘Do you know of any resources that I should be looking at?’ It’s gratifying to be able to connect a person with a pathway.”