Two Top Administrators Leaving for Other Schools

Posted on April 4, 2006

Jerry Lucido, vice provost for admissions and enrollment management, has accepted the same position at the University of Southern California, and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Nancy Suttenfield is leaving to become Wake Forest University’s senior vice president and chief financial officer.

Both will leave this summer. The University will conduct national searches for their successors. In the interim, David Perry, executive associate dean for administration for the medical school, will serve in Suttenfield’s position.

Lucido, who came to Chapel Hill as undergraduate admissions director in 1997, will have responsibilities mirroring those he has had at UNC and will lead a new think tank to study issues of access to college.

Under Lucido, Carolina first brought back and then three years later eliminated a binding early-decision program. When it dropped the program in 2002, the school drew national attention as the first major university to abolish the policy, which had enabled an applicant to get a decision from the University in early December of the senior year in high school in exchange for a promise that he or she would commit to enroll. Admissions officials said the program did not produce the results they had anticipated. Subsequently adopted by other leading national universities, the change encouraged future applicants to apply to universities based on their interests and merits rather than their chances of being admitted.

Suttenfield was at Carolina for five years. Chancellor James Moeser cited her leadership of the University’s Higher Education Bond Referendum building program. “Ninety percent of the $510 million worth of construction and renovation projects in the bond program have been completed or are under contract,” Moeser said. “That represents about a third of the University’s total capital construction program. The University’s track record throughout this major growth cycle has been among the best of any campus in America.”

Of Lucido, Moeser said, “Jerry and his great team have made Carolina a national leader among college admissions programs. The academic quality of our incoming freshman class has improved steadily at the same time that we have increased access.”

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For more about Carolina’s admissions, see in-depth features and statistics about entering classes as reported in the Carolina Alumni Review each March/April, available online for Carolina Alumni members.

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