Mind of a Next Level Communicator: Insights from award winning enrollment VP, Roger Thompson

Vice President for Student Services and Enrollment Management at the University of Oregon, Dr. Roger Thompson, isn’t just your ordinary, run of the mill collegiate cog in the wheel. As an award winning enrollment officer for the University, he is unparalleled in his passion for equal access to opportunities in higher education. His impressive resume includes working for the University of Indiana and University of Alabama which earned him the prestigious Robert Vance award, named in recognition of the leadership provided by federal judge Vance who was instrumental in enforcing desegregation in the South in the 1960s. 

Growing up in the East San Francisco Bay/Richmond area, Dr. Thompson’s family moved to Hillsboro, Oregon when his banker father landed a job with Washington Federal Savings. “Communication became a big part of who I was because I was a new kid and played sports, which connects you,” he remembered. “When I went off to college, I was a broadcasting major. I wanted Bill Schonely’s job,” he said with a laugh. He eventually decided to pursue University leadership and after working at the Universities of Alabama and Indiana, he jumped at the opportunity to return to Oregon, becoming Vice President of Student Services and Enrollment Management.

Rising to the challenges of addressing the skyrocketing cost of higher education and the daunting onus of student loan debt, the Thompson and the U of O employ tactics and strategies to help students and families. 

“What we are trying to do at the U of O is we try to find ways that we can invest in students and families. There are open opportunities, especially for students from underrepresented, underserved communities to come to the U of O. And while our debt level is still too high, it’s lower than the State of Oregon’s average, lower than the federal average and we are working to make it even lower than our average. While it is still a challenge, we have friends of the University that are helpful and we do our best to strategically use our dollars to help us accomplish things like enrolling the largest, most diverse, highest academically achieving class ever, now 10 years in a row,” he stated proudly. “We also talk to students and families about return on investment. Attending the U of O or any University is a big expense, the largest expense a family will ever undertake if they don’t own their own home. If they own their own home it is the second largest expense they will ever undertake, so we talk to these students and families about what is the return on that investment, what we can do so that they have a brighter future.  It’s important that we help them dream and imagine that future they sometimes cannot define and how do we then help them make that happen.”

Dr. Thompson is proud of the fact that when it comes to reaching out and engaging at-risk communities, the U of O is also on the cutting edge for finding new and novel ways to help recruit and retain students. “Access is really important to me. We need to make college as affordable as we can so we have taken some initiative, like through our scholarship program. We are the only school in the State that has guaranteed tuition, so when you begin at the U of O, your tuition will remain the same over 4-5 years.”

It appears to be working. Despite high costs and prohibitive student loan debt, 38,000 applications were submitted for a freshman class with 5,000 openings. “We have lots of interest, but it is maintaining access to the University of Oregon that is critical. In my mind, Universities are built on two things: quality and access. If you don’t have quality, you are offering students and families a false promise about their future. If you don’t have access, you aren’t a public University. Access for me has been part of my career from the very beginning. Winning the Robert Vance award is one of the highlights of my career, something that I am really proud of. Judge Vance was an incredible hero at a really tough time and he paid with his life. He was killed because of how supportive he was of integration.”

Carrying forth the torch of equality was not without its challenges for Thompson, particularly during his tenure at the University of Alabama. “Alabama was a bigger challenge than I thought,” he remembered.  “In 2002, we celebrated 50 years of what we called “opening doors”. Robert Kennedy Jr. and Coretta Scott King came in to speak, and that’s when I met a most amazing woman, Vivian Malones Jones, who I encourage people to read up on. I told her that I had a goal to make the University of Alabama the institution of choice for African Americans and that I thought that she was the one to help with that. She laughed and said “How can I help?”. We wound up being featured in Jet Magazine of which we bought 10,000 copies to put in every kid's hands,” he shared proudly.

Recognizing that helping kids become inspired and motivated to pursue and complete journeys in higher education, Thompson jumped at the opportunity to become involved in a flagship U of O program, the Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health. 

“Steve Ballmer was the CEO of Microsoft, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers and his wife, Connie, grew up in Portland and was a U of O alumni. Both have always been very concerned with underserved and underrepresented communities. They saw a crisis with children’s health and wanted to make a difference in Portland. It just so happened that at the same time, Concordia University was up for sale and with the philanthropic help of the Ballmer family, the U of O had an opportunity to really make a difference in NE Portland. One of the things that is really exciting about the University of Oregon/Portland, is that we have the physical space and the program to work with children. Children today have so much trauma and so many things going on that we need to be addressing as a society and that is really important to the Ballmer’s. We have tremendous potential to make a very real lasting impact in NE Portland and in the State of Oregon.”

The process for enrollment at the Ballmer Institute has multiple segueways to participation. “We will have students that come from Eugene to Portland for their last 2 years and we will have students that start in Portland and do all 4 years,” Dr. Thompson explained. “The great thing is that we have a scholarship that gives 40 Oregonians who have financial need the opportunity to access a Ballmer family program that pays for tuition, room and board. Everything is paid. That’s a tremendous opportunity for a lot of young people wanting to come study in a field that is so very needed. And this isn’t just what we are doing with the Ballmer Institute and that particular program, it’s also an opportunity to grow other programs on that campus like moving our programs from downtown Portland out to the U of O Portland campus.”

Becoming a good partner in an area where they have never broken ground before is something the U of O takes very seriously. The University also recognizes the challenges inherent in educating the students of 2023 and beyond. “I think it’s a lot tougher to be a young person than it was when I was growing up,” Dr. Thompson acknowledges. “These phones and social media portray a world that is ‘perfect’ and most people’s worlds aren’t perfect. In fact even the people posting on social media, their world is not perfect yet what they are putting out there are really impacting people with those messages in ways that make them feel inadequate. On the University's end, we need to do a better job of preparation and helping our students decide what the best path is.”

As for the business and residential impact the U of O is hoping to make in N/NE Portland, their goals are lofty, with the potential for great and long lasting impact. “It’s about economic development, it’s about opportunity, it’s about being a good partner in the community. It’s about being a partner to help solve issues while giving children and families the opportunity to attend the University of Oregon.”