In April, Morgan Boyack joined the Washburn staff as the new admissions director.

Boyack, a native of Arlington, Va., grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and attended the University of Utah. Like many college students, Boyack changed his major numerous times.

“I was one of those students that started off in a different major, I think my dad wanted me to do something more than I did and I changed my way major halfway through college,” said Boyack.

Before getting involved in admissions work, Boyack wanted to go to law school.

“I thought I wanted to go to law school but then as I did more research  and I decided law school wasn’t for me,” said Boyack.

Boyack became involved specifically with admissions work after deciding he wanted to work in higher education.

“I worked in different areas around campus,” said Boyack. “I worked in financial aid, student government and then one of my first jobs after college was working in college admissions and I just never left because I enjoyed it so much.”

After applying for the Admissions Director position at Washburn, he was excited to be selected.

“Of course I was really excited at the time,” said Boyack. “I was at a job search, I came from a university. I had been there for four years and I had reached close to my potential of opportunities to grow and I was excited for a new opportunity to learn.”

Just about to start his seventh month in his new position, Boyack says that he’s acclimated pretty well to his new job.

“Admissions is similar at every institution as what we do,” said Boyack. “How we go about doing it is going to be different at every school and that’s something I get to help and shape here at Washburn which is what I love about my job.”

Boyack said his favorite part of his job is visiting with students, but regrets that he doesn’t get the opportunity to see students as often in his role as an administrator.  

Nevertheless, Boyack still enjoys the fact that he gets to give students advice about college in general.

“Being able to help give advice to a student to help them figure out what school is best for them and then having a light bulb go off in their mind is why I do what I do,” said Boyack. “Not every student will choose Washburn but it’s still the opportunity that I have to help them with.”

Boyack said one of his biggest challenges in the new position is getting the word out about Washburn.

“People just don’t know who we are,” said Boyack. “Even just an hour away in Kansas City, people don’t know about Washburn or they think that Washburn is a private school that has the price tag of a private school.”

Boyack said when people find out about Washburn and its cost of tuition, they are surprised.

Boyack said his goal for this year is to get larger numbers of students enrolling and high-quality students but Boyack has also decided that one of his main goals for this year is to inform more residents of Kansas City and Wichita about Washburn University.

“One of my main goals is to dispel some of the stereotypes and educate people about Washburn in the Wichita and Kansas City markets,” said Boyack.

Boyack encouraged current students to help recruit by sharing their experiences at Washburn.

“When you’re sharing your story or your experience about Washburn, other people are going to listen and it’s going to affect the university positively or negatively depending on your experience,” said Boyack. “For future and current students I always hope that it would be positively.”