Meet Melynda Huskey, new Vice President for Enrollment and Student Services

By Hailey Murphy

Last July, Melynda Huskey started as Western’s new Vice President for Enrollment and Student Services (ESS). Enrollment and Student Services encompasses many aspects of student life including student athletics, admissions, the Viking Union and the dining halls.
Huskey started her career as an English professor. However, after finding that her passion was working with students, she moved into the field of student affairs.
She worked at Washington State University for the past 19 years, serving in a variety of positions including Director of the Student Center (the first LGBTQ+ person to hold the position at WSU), Dean of Students, sexuality educator, deputy Title IX coordinator and interim vice president for Student Affairs.
As deputy Title IX coordinator, she was in charge of a grant aimed at prevention of sexual assault, and while she no longer holds that position, students can expect further dedication to sexual assault prevention:
“What I’ve brought forward with me from that previous role is a deep commitment to [sexual assault] prevention, in particular,” said Huskey. “Working with prevention services to make sure that we have a wide variety of prevention education opportunities, that we enfuse that sense of affirmative training about consent, about healthy decision making, sexual choices, affirming healthy sexuality for students— whatever that means to them in terms of their own values… That’s something I care very deeply about; promoting really good, healthy, self-motivated, self-actualizing, positive sexuality for students.”
Huskey’s passions reach past sexual assault prevention. As a member of a mostly-new senior leadership team, Huskey works alongside President Randhawa to help achieve goals for Western.
One of Randhawa’s goals is for Western’s demographics to match the demographics of Washington state across the board. This includes gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status etc. He also wishes to close the achievement gap at Western. This means having all students— regardless of their support network outside of this institution— graduate at a rate of 80 percent.
While acknowledging the ambition and the work required to get there, Huskey is dedicated to completing these goals.
“The message that I take from [these goals] is that [Pres. Randhawa] is ambitious about making this a premiere institution nationally,” Huskey says. “ I have that ambition too. That in student affairs and enrollment we are attracting and retaining students who will benefit greatly from this really remarkable place, but who will also go on to benefit the state and the nation and the world. That we will be a transformative institution, but also that we will be transformed.”
As a former director of a disability resource center, Huskey has been educated in the disability rights movement. She carries with her the slogan: nothing about us without us, and it is with this idea that she approaches her work, she said.
Something Huskey says really matters to her is access, in every sense of the word. This means access to all buildings for all people, access to the right funds to pay for tuition, access to academic assistance and access to higher education itself. Additionally, she’s been working alongside AS VP for Student Life Annie Gordon on issues of food security, and how access to nutritious food can affect student’s work.
Another goal of Huskey’s is around student development, and how Western can meet the needs of their students. She believes that an institution must always adapt to its student body. This means actively making changes on campus instead of depending on old policies to meet student needs.
“What are we doing, what can we change, what can we advance, that will give students the opportunity to define their values and to live up to their own goals through the services we provide?” Huskey asks. “We’re not in the business of picking people’s values or setting people’s goals, but we are in the business of advancing a student’s capacity to achieve what they want.”
Melynda Huskey is succeeding Eileen Coughlin, who has retired after 23 years of working at Western. Coughlin will provide transition assistance as needed while Huskey continues to get to know our campus—at which point, Huskey will begin putting forth active change.