After 13 years of serving as director of Institutional Research and Analysis at CSU-Pueblo, Dr. Lin Chang has decided to retire at the end of June. She has accomplished many things throughout her career since she joined CSU-Pueblo in 2000.
Dr. Lin Chang’s duties as director of Institutional Research and Analysis includes providing information for policy and management decisions to the campus through collecting, analyzing, reporting, and assisting in the use of information about CSU-Pueblo students, courses, graduates and employees. She also works collaboratively with the university’s leadership group, academic departments, administrative units and campus committees.
Dr. Chang has served on the President’s Leadership Team, Enrollment Management Team, Academic Excellence Committee, Academic Computing Advisory Committee, and the Kane Scholarship Committee. Even with all of these responsibilities, her work didn’t stop there.
One can see and hear the passion in her voice through her words as she discusses her career. She is driven and her personality shines through her work. She truly takes joy in what she does, “to make sense out of data and come to wise decisions, I enjoy it,” said Dr. Chang.
In addition to the responsibilities listed above, she compiled the annual “Fact Book” and data for the “Institutional Snapshots” as part of the NCA 10 year accreditation. Dr. Chang also created the Entering Student Questionnaire, Graduating Student Survey, and Alumni Survey, which are all still being used to this day. With all the data she collects, she provides and reports to important stakeholders at the federal, state, and the system level.
Dr. Chang joined the handful pioneers in introducing data-mining technology to higher education since 2003. She published and presented case studies through the National Association of Institutional Research, applying “cluster analysis” and “predictive modeling” to examine how admissions status, financial aid, and first semester performance impacted freshmen first year retention.
One of her works that has been published in her field is her article called, “Applying Data Mining to Predict College Admissions Yield: A Case Study,” published in “Data Mining in Action: Case studies of Enrollment Management,” Wiley Periodicals, 2006, part of a collection of articles from New Directions for Institutional Research. Clearly, Dr. Chang has achieved a lot throughout her years as the director of Institutional Research and Analysis.
After her retirement Dr. Chang will continue her volunteer work with the Pueblo community and the campus community in the symphony alongside her husband. She is retiring to spend more time with her family and mother, “if you don’t do it now, you will regret it,” said Dr. Chang.
She leaves big shoes to fill as she leaves CSU-Pueblo. Dr. Rick Kreminski will be overseeing the day-to-day operations of the IR office until a replacement is hired. A national search is said to begin shortly to replace Dr. Chang.
The university and colleagues will be saying their goodbyes and congratulating Dr. Chang on her well-deserved retirement. The university will be hosting a reception for Dr. Chang on July 1 in the Heartwell Lounge of the OUC.
