A second former colleague of new Drury University President Timothy Cloyd is coming to the Springfield liberal arts school.
Drury’s new executive vice president of enrollment management also marks the second C-level hiring announcement by the school in the past week.
Effective July 28, Kevin Kropf will become executive vice president of enrollment management. He succeeds Jay Fedje, who this spring accepted a similar role at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa, according to a news release.
On Friday, Drury announced the
hiring of David Hinson - a former Cloyd colleague at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark. - as executive vice president, chief operating officer and chief information officer. Hinson starts Aug. 1.
Kropf joins Drury from Baldwin City, Kan.-based Baker University, where he worked since 2010, first as director of enrollment management and then as senior director of admissions. He also
worked 2004-07 as executive director of admission for Hendrix when Cloyd was president of the Arkansas college.
“Kevin has an outstanding track record of results both as a leader of admissions teams and transforming enrollment efforts, especially campus visits,” Cloyd said in the release. “This is a critical touch point for prospective students and their families, and with Kevin’s leadership, we have the opportunity to make our visit program the best in class.”
While president of Hendrix, Cloyd helped raise enrollment by over 50 percent 2001-13. With his July 1 start at Drury, he pointed to enrollment growth as key to improving operations at the school. In the fall semester, Drury’s traditional undergraduate day-school enrollment fell 9 percent to 1,325 students, compared with 1,454 in fall 2014, according to
Springfield Business Journal archives.
At Baker University, Kropf exceeded enrollment goals for first-year students in 2013, 2014 and 2016, and he also previously worked at Albion College in Albion, Mich. A campus visit program he developed at Hendrix was featured in
The New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
“There are myriad reasons why Drury is poised for growth and the long list starts with dynamic and committed people,” Kropf said in the release. “Drury possesses a great leadership team, an experienced enrollment staff and a campuswide commitment to enrolling the best and brightest students possible.”
