Marc Booker

Associate Provost, Strategic Initiatives and Implementation at University of Phoenix

Vice President for Finance and Investments Position Statement

I am honored to be nominated by AACRAO’s membership for the position of Vice President for Finance and Investments.  It is one of the most demanding Board positions for AACRAO as it requires hard work, dedication, attention to detail, and a little bit of creativity; and I did not accept this important nomination lightly.  I believe that through my professional work experience and regional association leadership I am well-suited for this critical role and that I can also add to the diverse views and perspectives that represent all of AACRAO’s institutional membership types.  

I have been fortunate to be a part of AACRAO and PACRAO for just under a decade, and was able to serve on the PACRAO Board as President, Vice President of Professional Development, and Acting Treasurer.  As president of a regional association, fiduciary duties are essential given the limited resources and slim margins a regional association has.  During my presidency year with PACRAO I was able to help generate a yearly positive change in assets of ~$15,000 when our budget called for us to potentially operate at a slight loss based on an expensive conference location site.  Through negotiation with our hotel in conjunction with strategic expenditure decisions of the Board we were able to have a positive year, which was unexpected. 

As I entered my past-presidency year, our Treasurer unexpectedly resigned because of an opportunity outside of higher education.  Because the role of the past-president is to find ways to give back to the Association and leave a legacy, I volunteered to step into the Acting Treasurer role to fill this void, with the goal of improving how PACRAO manages and communicates its financial and budgeting process based on gaps I identified during my presidency.  In the year I served as Acting Treasurer I conducted a rebuild of our financial management processes to give a better view of income and expenses that included implementing an enhanced profit & loss statement model while reclassifying all of PACRAO’s revenue and expense categories.  These changes resulted in multiple benefits that included giving the board better insight into the actual performance of its annual meeting; aligning all financial statements, budgets, ledgers, and accounting software to represent the same financial information; and creating a sustainable process which is better aligned with the incremental budgeting model PACRAO uses.  Most importantly these changes provided more transparency into the operations of PACRAO to its membership, giving concise information on the flow and allocation of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which was not as clear in previous years.  As a result, PACRAO was able to further improve on its already sound accounting practices to refine its expenditures, resulting in a banner year that had a yearly positive change in assets of ~$63,000.  These changes also helped facilitate the association reaching its goal earlier than expected of holding more than $250,000 in reserve funds as an effort to ensure the longevity and sustainability of the organization.         

My 17 years of professional work experience in higher education also has provided me skills, knowledge, and expertise that I believe would serve me well in supporting AACRAO in this capacity.  My career has seen me work in registrar, admissions, and academic related roles giving me a well-rounded knowledge of the day-to-day experiences of AACRAO’s members across their unique job functions.  This, in conjunction with working in a complex institutional environment, has allowed me to hone my ability to pivot and quickly adjust to demands on the fly without sacrificing outcomes; an essential skill for any individual acting in a financial role.    

Professionally I have also benefited from the management and oversight of large-scale budgets and from having responsibility in strategic negotiations.  During my prior tenure as Vice President of Admissions and Evaluation I managed a consolidated budget that exceeded $16 million dollars annually, which included the direction of several hundred employees and oversight of our vendor management relationships related to our student admission, transfer credit, and prior learning assessment operations.  In my current role as the Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives and Implementation, I support our provost and the academic organization with the determination and allocation of strategic expenditures tied to our annual operating plan, and as a result have considerable experience in the zero-based budgeting model approach as we determine our priorities annually.  Additionally, I support some of our strategic partnerships that include alternative credit providers, transcript vendors, and most recently acted as one of the principal negotiators in our recent multimillion dollar contract extension renegotiation with our learning management system provider.  These experiences in a complex, fast-paced, and large scale environment give me confidence that I can appropriately carry out my fiduciary responsibilities as Vice President for Finance and Investments for AACRAO.

Given that solvency and sustainability is not an issue for AACRAO, as Vice President for Finance and Investments I would like my focus to be on the possible expansion of philanthropic exercises or looking at new ways to use capital to increase the voice of registrars and admissions professionals in higher education in light of the increasing burdens that are placed on our offices.  All students entering a post-secondary institution are touched by our membership whether they are an applicant with interest that may never attend or have left school years ago as a graduated alumni.  Therefore, it is critical that we find ways to use the influence and resources of AACRAO to demonstrate the power of our work and find new avenues to promote our community involvement to engage future leaders about the benefits and rewards of our professions.  This is a challenge I happily embrace if voted into the role. 

It is truly humbling and a privilege to have received this nomination for the role of Vice President for Finance and Investments serving AACRAO.  I am excited about the potential of bringing my unique experiences and expertise to provide a different perspective to this role and support AACRAO as it continues to carry out its mission to serve and advance higher education by providing leadership in academic and enrollment services, as strong fiscal management is essential to meeting this goal.