Yesterday afternoon Brandeis students received a strange e-mail from Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy about the return of Vice President for Enrollment Keenyn MacFarlane. It began,
“It is my pleasure to inform you, that effective April 5, 2010, Keenyn MacFarlane returned to the Brandeis campus to serve as Vice President for Enrollment.”
Why are they just informing us now, almost a month later?
“Nearly three years ago Keenyn left Brandeis to serve as the Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, D.C….”
There just seems something wrong with that. Please tell me I am not the only one who sees something wrong with that.
And then she just goes on with miscellaneous biographical information and an explanation of the position of Vice President for Enrollment. Such a weird e-mail.
To: The Brandeis Community
From: Jean Eddy, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment
It is my pleasure to inform you, that effective April 5, 2010, Keenyn MacFarlane returned to the Brandeis campus to serve as Vice President for Enrollment. Many of you will remember Keenyn as the Director of Budget for the Division of Students and Enrollment.
Nearly three years ago Keenyn left Brandeis to serve as the Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, D.C., where he was the principal architect of the agency’s billion dollar budget, accounting, and audit strategies. Most recently Keenyn served as the Deputy Chief Financial Officer with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the investigative arm of the Department for Homeland Security, where he managed resources and employees for over 400 offices nationwide and around the world.
In addition to Keenyn’s work at the federal level, he has also served as the Finance Officer in the United States Attorney’s Office in Boston, an Assistant Budget Director for the Massachusetts Department of Education and as the Deputy Director of Financial Management for the Massachusetts Department of Social Services. Before working in federal and state government, Keenyn held various positions in both for-profit and non-profit sectors.
Keenyn has a BA in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Boston and an MBA in Business Economics from the McCallum Graduate School of Business at Bentley College.
In his current role at Brandeis, Keenyn will focus on division wide budget issues, oversight on the administrative side for student activity fees, and management of the enrollment drivers that impact University tuition revenue. Please join me in welcoming Keenyn back to campus.
I don’t find it odd. He has only been back 3 weeks and during some of that time school was closed. Also, it is possible that his return was not announced to the departmental staff before April 5. If that is the case, it would not be appropriate for the departments whose budgets he oversees to find out via email that they had a new person overseeing the budgets. As Brandesian said, he probably needed to redevelop the professional relationships. Also, they don’t always announce an admins hire the day of the hire. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks. Jean probably wanted to let people know, and this seemed like the right time.
Brandeisian, I’m sorry–are you getting upset about this? What you’re saying makes sense, I just thought it was odd that we were finding out about Keenan’s arrival so long after the fact.
so… your only fault with the email is that it’s a few weeks late? Do you expect a mass distribution email from HR as soon as any employee is hired? Keenan likely wanted to get settled back here, redevelop his professional relationships, etc, before announcing his presence to the world.
Keenyn was absolutely one of the THE BEST administrators I worked with during my time at Brandeis. As Brandesian says, I recommend you get to know him. Brandeis is lucky to have him back.
Why is she telling us one month after the fact? You’re right, the e-mail is very straightforward–couldn’t it have been written easily at the time this was all happening?
I agree with Brandeisian; the e-mail seems as straightforward as it could be. What exactly do you find so weird about it?
No, I don’t think it’ strange at all. Keenan was at Brandeis for quite some time, left for a few years, did some federal gigs, where he had huge responsibilities, finished those gigs, and has returned. Go meet him, get to know him, he has some pretty cool stories to tell, and will continue to do Brandeis well.