Angelica Moore, EdD ’13, Director of Transfer Recruitment named new Interim Dean of Admissions

Angelica Moore EdD ’13, director of transfer recruitment for Saint Mary’s, has been appointed to serve as the College’s Interim Dean of Admissions. She will succeed Michael McKeon, who recently resigned to accept a new opportunity at CSU East Bay.

I am very pleased to have Angelica accept this interim role. She is a dynamic, collaborative and experienced professional with 19 years of effective leadership in college admissions. Angelica arrived at Saint Mary’s 12 years ago, having contributed significantly to two other liberal arts colleges: Drury University in Missouri, and Dominican University in California. She has in-depth experience in freshman, honors, multicultural, and transfer recruitment in territories spanning California, Colorado, Washington, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. She has also managed event planning for prospective students and families, as well as high school and community college counselors.

Demonstrating a collaborative leadership style, Angelica has led the College’s Admissions team in an intensive data-driven transfer recruitment plan that has consistently met and exceeded institutional enrollment targets, while also positioning SMC as a “transfer friendly” university.

Angelica has experience collaborating with a broad spectrum of college services here and in previous institutions. In particular, she co-chaired, with the director of institutional research at Dominican, the development of the first-ever retention plan for that university. While there, she pioneered the Admissions/Alumni Program that engaged alumni in recruiting students to their alma mater. Currently, she serves as SMC’s admissions athletics liaison, where she does preliminary admissions evaluations for prospective NLI (National Letter of Intent) student-athletes.

Angelica’s understanding of the needs of student-athletes is rooted in her own experience playing on Division I basketball and volleyball teams at San Diego State University. While there, she posted a world record for 52 volleyball kills in one match. She went on to play professional volleyball for several years, closing out her career playing volleyball for a team in Germany.

A first-generation college student herself, Angelica has a deep appreciation for students who demonstrate persistence to graduation; it is the focus of her academic research. Her master’s thesis was on minority student recruitment and retention, which led to the development of a comprehensive diversity plan for Drury University. More recently she wrote her doctoral dissertation on the successful character traits of first-generation students who persist to graduation.