Juan Espinoza named Virginia Tech’s vice provost for enrollment management
Juan Espinoza has been named vice provost for enrollment management at Virginia Tech after serving as interim vice provost since January.
Enrollment Management provides stewardship and promotes collaborative partnerships to achieve university strategic goals by attracting, enrolling, and graduating a highly qualified, talented, and diverse student body.
Espinoza will continue to lead a division that includes Undergraduate Admissions, University Scholarships and Financial Aid, University Registrar, College Access Collaborative, Strategic Enrollment Communications and Marketing, Research and Analysis, and Professionally Oriented Graduate Programs.
“Virginia Tech has always been home for me, and it is an honor to lead our talented Enrollment Management team,” said Espinoza. “I am confident that our university can lead the way in building an innovative enrollment strategy that attracts the best and most qualified students while also ensuring they are provided the needed support to make them successful Hokies.”
In his nearly 20 years at Virginia Tech, Espinoza’s leadership and experience in undergraduate admissions and enrollment management includes serving as an assistant director, senior assistant director, and associate director of undergraduate admissions. He also has served as inclusion coordinator and director of diversity and access initiatives before becoming assistant and later, associate vice provost of enrollment management and director of undergraduate admissions, and his current role as interim vice provost.
“The leadership and success of Enrollment Management is critical to realizing our strategic goals as a university and advancing institutional priorities,” said Executive Vice Provost Don Taylor. “Juan’s knowledge, experience, and passion for engaging with and guiding students to successful outcomes, from recruitment through graduation, clearly made him the best choice to lead this division. I look forward to continuing to work closely with him and his outstanding Enrollment Management team.”
Under Espinoza’s leadership, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions underwent a comprehensive review and reinvention of its admissions model led to innovative changes that included the launch of a shared Common Application platform, self-reported academic records, a new holistic application review process, and an early action option for applicants. These changes have resulted in record applications, record diversity, as well as matriculation of some of the strongest incoming academic classes in Virginia Tech history.
In 2016, then Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe appointed Espinoza to serve on the Virginia Latino Advisory Board to help advise McAuliffe on issues of concern affecting the health, economic, professional, cultural, and educational prosperity of the Latino community in Virginia. He was reappointed to this role in 2018 by then Gov. Ralph Northam and recently completed his final term of service under current Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Espinoza is also a member of the board of VALHEN, the largest nonprofit in the Commonwealth of Virginia that focuses on higher education for Latinos. He previously served as president for eight years. Its flagship program, the Hispanic College Institute, was recognized by the Obama administration as a bright spot in Latino education.
In 2018, Espinoza was elected by his peers to the board of directors for the Coalition for a three-year term. The Coalition is a group of more than 140 distinguished colleges and universities across the U.S. that joined together to focus on college access, affordability, and student success.
Espinoza earned two bachelor's degrees in political science and public and urban affairs from Virginia Tech, a master's degree in corporate and professional communication from Radford University, and recently completed his doctorate in higher education leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University.
