2023 Planning, Budgeting, and Analytics Forum

NACUBO’s 2023 Planning, Budgeting, and Analytics Forum offers strategies for higher education goal setting and resource management. Focusing on institutional planning, this program provides content to help business officers and their teams use data and allocate resources—including financial, facilities and infrastructure, and human resources—to support their institutions and students.

This information-packed event focuses on innovative planning and budgeting practices, building and leveraging an analytics-enabled culture, advancing institutional mission and student success, and much more.

This year’s key topics include—

• Addressing resource constraints
• Communicating financial data
• Exploring different budget models
• Maximizing resources for student success
• Scenario planning
• Using data to inform decisions

Learning Objectives

After participating in this program, you will be able to—

• Discuss innovative budgeting practices, including the how data support planning efforts
• Formulate approaches for creating a data-informed institutional culture
• Identify approaches for using planning and budgeting as an agent for institutional change
• Outline ways to use data and analytics to increase efficiencies while maintaining or improving outcomes

Sponsors

NACUBO thanks the following supporters of this event:

Premier

Classic

Supporting Sponsors

Session Info

Welcome and General Session: Who Should Pay? Public Opinion on the Funding and Value of Higher Education

There is ample evidence showing the return on investment in higher education. However, as tuition and fee prices have increased, many are asking: Is college worth it? An author of the recent book Who Should Pay? will share findings based on more than a decade’s worth of surveys and interviews with diverse Americans about college funding. Surveys covered attitudes about who should pay for higher education—whether it be students, parents, or the government—and how the public thinks about the costs and benefits of a degree. Although public opinion is often slow to change, Americans’ beliefs about college funding are evolving quite rapidly. What might this mean for students and your institution?

Speaker: Natasha Quadlin

Balancing the Books and Bytes: Debating the Impact of AI on Planning, Budgeting, and Analytics

ChatGPT helped us write this session title. Are there other tasks that artificial intelligence (AI) can help higher ed with? Can colleges and universities leverage generative AI to improve planning, budgeting, and data use? What are the benefits and potential pitfalls to be aware of in the ever-evolving landscape? In this session, participants will explore challenges, opportunities, and strategies to leverage AI at their institutions. Participants are encouraged, but not required, to bring a laptop to this session to follow along panelists’ examples.

Speakers: Orkun Toros, Karen Tumlinson, Jackie Agustin

General Session: Presidents’ Perspectives: Higher Education’s Top Business Issues

NACUBO will soon release a list of the top business issues confronting colleges and universities. In this lively discussion, NACUBO’s president and chief executive officer, Kara Freeman, will examine these pressing issues with a panel of institution presidents. How are the challenges evolving at different institutions? Which issues do campus leaders think will linger? How can individuals at various levels of the institution provide support for navigating these challenges? The panel will also explore some potential opportunities hidden in this sea of questions.

Speakers: Dan Mahony, Mary Surridge, Kara Freeman

Leveraging Academic Data and Processes in Financial Sustainability Efforts

Finance leaders know traditional budget cutting can no longer be the sole method for achieving strong institutional financial health and sustainability. Institutions must now understand their revenue and cost drivers and learn how programs and activities are generating return on investment in terms of people, time, and money. Discover two institutions’ processes for engaging the entire enterprise to understand academic demand, activities, and costs, identifying processes to monitor efficiency over time, and calculating and understanding return on investment.

Speakers: Sue Callahan, Robin Stanco, Rilie Sibold

Use Your Words: Improve Data Conversations for More Robust Analytics Outcomes

Have you ever asked a question of your analytics team and received an answer that did not seem right? Maybe you feel like you don’t even speak the same language as your institution's data professionals? Join us as we discuss approaches to enhancing data conversations. We will share practiced strategies that facilitate better, more productive conversations that lead to meaningful insights. Learn how data governance, a strong data culture, and heavily integrated partnerships can improve data competency and enable more sophisticated data analysis to inform complex decision-making.

Speakers: Susan Cooper, Tiffany Ennis-Henry

Institutionalizing Data and Systems Governance

College and university data needs have evolved beyond traditional reporting, and business officers are increasingly tasked to turn information from data into actionable, forward-looking insights. To rise to this expectation, business officers will need to partner with other institutional teams to establish a consistent, business-minded approach to data governance and systems management. In this session, panelists will share four “phases of action” to support their institution’s path to responsible data infrastructure, management, and stewardship while advancing the use of analytics. This approach was developed in partnership with 26 colleges and universities as part of a grant-funded project.

Speakers: Brian Lueth, Marcus Richardson, Kelli Rainey

Scrapping Budgetary Spending Authority to Improve Planning and Resource Management

Learn how one institution implemented better reporting, highlighted all available resources, and enabled budgets to become the true plan for operating activities. The transition to a new ERP allowed them a new approach to collect additional data points and create more visibility into balances, leading to the improved management of institutional resources. Scrapping budgetary spending authority has facilitated the use of unit-level multi-year plans, as all sources and uses are transacted and can then be planned for not just the next year, but years to follow. Explore their successes, lessons learned, challenges, and how they are moving forward.

Speaker: Katie Walker

Nimble, Transparent, AND Strategic: A New Multi-Year Budget Planning Model

Hear how one institution reimagined its budget planning process to engage stakeholders and leadership in multi-year planning and shift from incremental and siloed to strategic, incentive-based budgeting. The new process focuses on investment in “game changers” — the activities with the greatest return on investment for advancing the strategic priorities of the institution and creating equitable pathways for students. The new budget model and tools provide transparency to stakeholders and a better understanding of factors that drive expenditures and the cause and effect that pulling different revenue and expenditure levers has on the overall university budget.

Speakers: Jim Carpenter, Matt Ceppi

The Real Contribution Margin: It’s Not What You Think

Panelists will share a contribution margin dashboard that they developed to better understand and make decisions about academic programs at their institution. They will discuss how they developed it and lessons learned along the way. The panelists, representing institutional research, IT, and the business office, are part of an institution team working with AIR, EDUCAUSE, and NACUBO on a grant-funded project to develop resources to help colleges and universities build data-informed cultures and use analytics for decision-making. Drafts of some of the guide’s resources will be previewed, and panelists will discuss how the guide can help other institutions build analytics capacity.

Speakers: James Garrison, 

General Session: Empowering Higher Education Professionals: Nurturing the Well-Being of Self and Others

According to the World Health Organization, the prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by 25% in the first year following the COVID-19 pandemic. Colleges and universities continue to grapple with the issues of mental health and overall well-being of students--in addition to faculty and staff. In this session, you will hear about the importance of well-being for all these populations, how challenges are evolving at institutions, and some advice for maintaining your own wellness.

Speaker: Zainab Okolo

Speakers

Sue Callahan

Director, Budget and Financial Planning, Anne Arundel Community College

Susan Callahan was named director, budget and financial planning, at Anne Arundel Community College in February 2010. She is responsible for development and management of the college’s operating and capital budgets, to include compliance and reporting as well as strategic guidance and financial modeling to evaluate financial viability of college programs and initiatives. Under her leadership the budget office has undergone an operational transformation shifting from mainly transactional support to strategic direction and decision support. Callahan serves on several college wide committees, including the Strategic Planning Council, Institutional Assessment Team, and Data Governance Council. She is also a peer evaluator for Middle States Commission on Higher Education. She is a 2014 graduate of Leadership Anne Arundel and a 2015 graduate of the LEAD AACC program. She has a bachelor’s of business administration in accounting from the State University of New York at Buffalo and is a licensed certified public accountant (CPA) in Maryland. She is a member of the Maryland Association of CPAs, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Jim Carpenter

Associate Vice President for Administration and Chief Financial Officer, Metropolitan State University

Jim Carpenter's, MPP, career has focused on public finance and transparent budgeting systems, both in education and in other public sector organizations. He currently serves as the associate vice president for administration and chief financial officer at Metropolitan State University (MSU) in Denver, Colorado. MSU is an open access university with a mission of social mobility, primarily serving first generation and Pell-eligible students. Prior to joining MSU Denver, he spent the past five years with Denver Public Schools (DPS), where he served as CFO and deputy superintendent of operations. Before joining DPS, he served as the CFO and COO of the New America School, a system of charter schools in Colorado, and as the deputy director of the American School of Doha in Doha, Qatar. In addition to his work in education, he worked as a resident budget advisor for the U.S. Treasury Department’s office of technical assistance, where he provided technical support to government finance offices in Paraguay and Guatemala. He earned his master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of California at Berkeley.

Matthew Ceppi

Executive Director, Consulting, American Association of State Colleges and Universities

Dr. Matthew Ceppi is the executive director of consulting at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). A trusted advisor, strategic thought partner, and relationship builder, Ceppi assists institutional leaders with large scale or targeted change, leading high performing teams, and strategic execution. Ceppi served in various leadership roles in the California State University system for 19 years before becoming a consulting principal for a top 10 professional services firm. Since 2015, he has been an instructor of leadership studies on human capital management and strategy at Creighton University.

Ceppi's practice areas include strategy design and execution, financial and resource allocation models, talent management, and leadership assessment and development.

Susan Cooper

Assistant Vice President for Data Analytics and Performance, Emory University

Susan Cooper serves as the assistant vice president for data analytics and performance at Emory University. In her role, she oversees the enterprise data analytics and strategic support team, which is responsible for financial reporting to the board of directors, modeling and projections to support strategic decision making, campus reporting in the Emory Business Intelligence tool, and ad hoc data requests as needed. Cooper works closely with chief business officers and university leadership to meet reporting and analytics needs.

Tiffany J. Ennis-Henry

Senior Business Analyst, Data Analytics and Strategic Support, Emory University

Tiffany Ennis-Henry is a senior business analyst with the data analytics and strategic Support team at Emory University. She has worked at Emory for almost 16 years and has served in a variety of roles during her tenure. Ennis-Henry started her career in an academic department within Emory College and then transitioned into a role with Emory School of Medicine where she supported faculty as a research administrator in the department of research administration services. In 2016, Ennis-Henry joined the data analytics and strategic support team under the executive vice president for business and administration. Ennis-Henry's experience in her previous roles enables her to develop meaningful campus reporting and analytics that enable leadership to make data-driven decisions. In her free time, Ennis-Henry enjoys hanging out with her husband and three dogs. She also enjoys making costumes and building props to show off at pop culture conventions like Dragon Con.

James Garrison

Chief Information Officer, University of North Texas

As chief information officer (CIO) at the University of North Texas, James Garrison, MA, oversees the information technology needs of the institution, ensuring that the technology infrastructure aligns with the academic and administrative strategic goals of the university. Responsible for developing and implementing IT policies, managing IT resources, and leading digital transformation initiatives, Garrison is passionate about the role IT plays in ensuring both staff and student success.

Clayton Gibson

Vice President for Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer, University of North Texas

Clayton Gibson, MS, CPA, serves as vice president for finance and administration and chief financial officer (CFO) at University of North Texas (UNT), which has 44,500 students and an annual operating budget in excess of $900M. Supported by a team of 500 employees in his division, he is responsible for all institutional financial activities and also oversees facilities, department of public safety, risk management and insurance, and parking and transportation services.

Prior to joining UNT in June 2021, he was the senior vice president for finance and administration at Alabama A&M University in Huntsville, AL. He had been with Alabama A&M University since August 2012. Prior to Alabama A&M, Clayton also worked in the private sector for professional services firm Ernst and Young in Chicago, IL.

Brian Lueth

Vice President for Finance and Business, Kalamazoo Valley Community College

Brian Lueth has served as vice president for finance and business at Kalamazoo Valley Community College for a little over five years. He is responsible for student financial services, payroll, auxiliary services, budgeting, and business operations. Prior to this role, he served as the controller at the college. Before coming to Kalamazoo Valley Community College, Lueth was an independent auditor for over ten years, performing financial statement and federal program audits for both public and private institutions of higher education as well as related foundations. Lueth is a certified public accountant (CPA) and has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Western Michigan University.

Dan Mahony

Professor of Sport Management and President, Southern Illinois University System

Dr. Dan Mahony has served as a professor of sport management and the president of the Southern Illinois University System since March 2020. He has previously been an accountant for KMPG; assistant ticket manager at the University of Cincinnati athletic department; program director, department chair, associate dean, and associate provost at the University of Louisville; dean at Kent State University; and president at Winthrop University. He has a B.S. in accounting from Virginia Tech, an M.S. in sport management from West Virginia University, and a Ph.D. in sport management from Ohio State University.

Mahony has published over 60 refereed journal articles, several book chapters, and was a coauthor of Economics of Sport. He has won several awards including the Earle F. Zeigler Award for career achievements in sport management research, the McInness/Ryan Award for Mid-Career Higher Education Leadership, the Academic Achievement in Sport and Entertainment Award, the Charles Whitcomb Service Award for fostering diversity and inclusion within intercollegiate athletics, and the West Virginia University College of Physical Activity and Sport Studies Legacy Award. He was also the first recipient of the Daniel Mahony Award for Social Responsibility from the Kent State University College of Education, Health, and Human Services. He has been inducted into the West Virginia University College of Physical Activity and Sport Studies Hall of Fame and the Pi Kappa Alpha Order of West Range.

Natasha Quadlin

Associate Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles

Natasha Quadlin, Ph.D. is an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a faculty fellow in the California Center for Population Research. Her research focuses on educational inequality, the funding of higher education, and public attitudes. With Brian Powell (Indiana University), she is the author of the book WHO SHOULD PAY?, published in 2022 by the Russell Sage Foundation.

Marcus Richardson

Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives for Finance and Administration, CUNY Brooklyn College

Marcus Richardson is the executive director of strategic initiatives for finance and administration at CUNY Brooklyn College. As such, he oversees activities that build upon the senior vice president for finance and administration’s (SVPFA) portfolio capacity to develop, collaborate, and sustain large cross-divisional initiatives that lead to organizational excellence and student, employee, and operational success. He focuses on special projects that finance and administration lead or participate in, particularly those related to student success, such as the transfer credit alignment initiative to optimize academic momentum and financial aid eligibility. Additionally, he plays a role in the college-wide budget and planning process that ensures budget alignment with the Brooklyn College strategic plan and institutional priorities that are part of the complex intersectionality of the administration, faculty, staff, students, and community that Brooklyn College serves. Additionally, he oversees the Leonard and Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts operations and the Brooklyn College Auxiliary Enterprises Corporation Services to meet academic and strategic entrepreneurial goals. He holds advanced certificates in management development from Harvard University, SQL database development from New York University, an M.F.A., and a B.A. in communications and emerging media from CUNY Brooklyn College. He holds an MPhil and is a doctoral candidate (A.B.D.) in the Ph.D. program in urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Jason Simon

Assistant Vice President of Data, Analytics, and Institutional Research, University of North Texas

Jason F. Simon, Ph.D. is the assistant vice president of data, analytics, and institutional research at the University of North Texas serving under the vice president of finance and administration. Simon also serves as an affiliate faculty member in the higher education department. He leads an enterprise-wide data warehouse program designed to bring together data sources across the entire campus. Over his 30-year career, he has lead teams in advancement, student affairs, academic affairs, finance and administration, and enrollment management. He brings these diverse perspectives to his work in supporting creative data solutions for strategically important challenges facing his institution. As a frequent presenter, his scholarly work delves into the areas of data management and culture, future-proofing higher education and institutional research, and linking analytic efforts with decision making. Finally, Simon represented the Association of Institutional Research membership in the drafting of the AIR/EDUCAUSE/NACUBO Joint Statement on Analytics.

Robin Stanco

Director of Finance, Washington State University Tri-Cities

Robin Stanco, CPA, is the director of finance for Washington State University Tri-Cities. After graduating from San Diego State University with a bachelor’s of science degree in business administration/accounting, she began her career working as a CPA in San Francisco and later New York City. She went on to work in the non-profit and governmental industries and landed finally in higher education. In 2012, when working for Franklin County, Washington, she uncovered an employee fraud that was the largest municipal fraud in the history of Washington State at the time. She has been with Washington State University for 6 years now and enjoys every minute of it.

Mary K. Surridge

President, North Park University

Mary K. Surridge is the 10th president of North Park University. Prior to her appointment as president, she served North Park as the vice president for advancement, as well as providing leadership as interim vice president for undergraduate admissions. Surridge’s previous higher education experience includes several years as associate director of planned and major gifts at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; director of residence life and student activities at Concordia University in Mequon, Wisconsin; and dean of students at Marian College (now Marian University) in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Additionally, she has worked for the Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Bucks.

Surridge holds a B.S. in communications from Northwestern University and an M.S. in student personnel administration from Concordia University (Wisconsin). She and her husband Dr. Jack Surridge have one daughter, Jessie, a student at Butler University. They are longtime members of North Park Covenant Church in Chicago.

Orkun Toros

Assistant Vice President and Chief Budget Officer, University of Texas at Dallas

Orkun Toros serves as the assistant vice president and chief budget officer at the University of Texas at Dallas. In his role, Orkun oversees the budget, bursar, centralized business services, finance IT, and business analytics functions within the office of budget and finance. Orkun has a bachelor's degree in mathematics and an M.B.A. He holds certified public accountant (CPA) and project management professional (PMP) designations.

Karen Tumlinson

Vice President for Finance and Administration, Treasurer, Central College

Karen Tumlinson is an executive and administrative leader in higher education with extensive experience with small private colleges and large Tier 1 research institutions. Her specialties include strategic planning, budgeting, forecasting, and financial analysis and planning, financial modeling, systems conversions, and implementations as a certified business systems analyst. Tumlinson has a bachelor’s of arts in business administration with an emphasis in accounting from Doane University and a master’s of science in business and advanced data analytics from the University of Nebraska.

Katie Walker

Executive Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, University of Virginia

Katie Walker, Ph.D., serves as executive director of financial planning and analysis at the University of Virginia (UVA). She received the Rising Star Award at the NACUBO 2023 Annual Meeting. Prior to returning to the University of Virginia in 2021, she was director of budget management at the University of Colorado Boulder and left UVA as director of budget in the school of education and human development. She received her Ph.D. in higher education and completed her dissertation on the implementation feasibility of RCM budget models. Her undergraduate degrees in history and anthropology and master's degree in teaching history provided her with the strategic and interpersonal skills to manage a large institution in a financial role. She focuses each day on continuous improvement in financial planning and analysis to support optimal resource management.

Zainab Okolo

Senior Vice President of Policy, Advocacy, and Government Relations, The Jed Foundation

Dr. Zainab Okolo is a higher education policy and mental health expert, practitioner, and educator. As the current senior vice president of policy, advocacy, and government relations for The Jed Foundation, Okolo works to leverage key relationships with external networks to strengthen the organization’s national and state-level presence as a trusted resource in advocating for new federal, state, and local support for a comprehensive approach to mental health and suicide prevention.

With over a decade of professional experience in higher education research and student services, Okolo has worked to help higher education and workforce providers facilitate and validate high-quality learning and training—inside and outside of the classroom. Her research has specifically focused on the needs of equity populations including first-generation college students. Okolo earned her doctorate in education from The George Washington University, her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Syracuse University, and her bachelor’s degree in family science from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Rilie Sibold

Associate, rpk GROUP

Rilie Sibold is an associate with rpk GROUP. She supports clients in fulfilling mission and student success under a sustainable financial model. Sibold focuses particularly on optimizing academic portfolios and instructional efficiencies, advising on best practices in business processes, and helping institutions understand student/employer demand and markets. For more than 10 years prior to joining rpk, Sibold worked in institutions of higher education leading sustainability and innovation efforts at university, technical and community colleges.

Jackie Agustin

Manager, Analytics and Research, NACUBO

Jackie Agustin is manager of analytics and research at NACUBO. She works on analytics and research initiatives and collaborates with NACUBO members to bring forth spaces to discuss data and analytics in higher education.

Agustin has a master's degree in public affairs from the Watson Institute at Brown University and earned her bachelor’s degree from Brown University.

Kara D. Freeman

President and Chief Executive Officer, NACUBO

Kara D. Freeman is NACUBO's president and chief executive officer, the first African American woman to serve in this role.

Freeman, a strategic leader with extensive national higher education experience, brings more than three decades of experience to NACUBO and is joining from the American Council on Education (ACE), where she has worked since 2006. She most recently served as senior vice president and chief operating officer (COO), with the responsibility for setting the strategic direction of the administrative and operational areas of the organization. She previously was ACE’s vice president of administration and chief information officer.

As an executive leader at ACE, Freeman’s portfolio included providing strategic thought leadership on organization-wide initiatives, representing ACE with constituency groups such as the ACE Women’s Network, and playing a leading role in ACE’s efforts to share advocacy information with presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in information systems from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and an M.B.A. from The George Washington University. She also holds a certified association executive credential from the American Society of Association Executives.

Kelli S. Rainey

Senior Director, Grants Management, NACUBO

Kelli S. Rainey, Ed.D., serves as the senior director for grants management at NACUBO. In her current role, she is leading a multi-foundation, multi-campus project to develop frameworks, tools, and models that will change how higher education institutions strategically and sustainably finance equitable student outcomes. With more than two decades in higher education, Rainey has an extensive background in institutional effectiveness, data analytics, and student development. Most recently, she provided strategic leadership as a senior-level university administrator and focused on strategies and initiatives to support student retention and completion, service delivery, and organizational effectiveness. Rainey holds a doctorate in higher education and organizational change and a graduate certificate in institutional research.