UA Little Rock has hired Heather Reed as director of Student Retention Initiatives to develop, implement, and assess initiatives to improve student retention.

The new post, which begins Aug. 1, is a new 12-month, non-faculty position within the Trojan Academic Advising and Support Center that reports to the associate vice chancellor of academic affairs for student success.   

For the past three year, Reed has worked as the assistant dean in the College of Education and Health Professions at UA Little Rock. For the past year, she has served as the functional lead on implementing CRM-Advise, advising management software that allows advisors to manage their caseloads more easily, improves communications, and facilitates outreach to at-risk students.

In the new role, Reed will work with staff and faculty to develop, implement, and assess data-driven retention initiatives that are informed by best practices and part of a comprehensive retention plan. Her primary responsibility will be for initiatives targeting first- and second-year students.

She also will work with the Office of Institutional Research and Analytics and other units to identify special student populations for early risk-detection, design intervention strategies, and identify policies and procedures that contribute to attrition. She will serve on the University Advisors Council, the Behavioral Intervention Team and other groups as needed.

Reed has a B.A. in English/linguistics from Truman State University, an M.S. in college student personnel from Western Illinois University, and an Ed.S. in higher education and student affairs from the University of Iowa. She will start the Master of Public Administration program at UA Little Rock this fall. 

Photo of Heather Reed by Brad Sims