On Thursday June 1, the University of Oregon announced that Julia Pomerenk has been hired as the next university registrar and assistant vice president for student service and enrollment management.
The hiring came after a nationwide search in order to replace Sue Eveland, who retired in May and had worked as UO registrar for the last 16 years. Pomerenk has worked at Washington State University for the last 14 years as the registrar and will officially start at UO on July 20.
“I am very much looking forward to moving to Eugene and to building working relationships at the University of Oregon and am just excited to start and learn more.” said Pomerenk.
The search committee that was in charge of filling the position included Roger Thompson, vice president for student services and enrollment management, Jiselle Sheeran, a student majoring in architecture, as well as a few others. Sheeran currently works in the office of enrollment management with Thompson. She was also part of the recent hiring committee for the chief of staff and assistant vice president position.
“I found her to be incredibly genuine and interested in the University of Oregon,” said Sheeran. “She had done her homework, she knew everything about everyone on the search committee and she already knew about the structure of how we work in the registrar’s office.”
Jim Brooks, assistant vice president and director of financial aid, served as chair of the search committee.
Thompson described Pomerenk as “an outstanding professional” and a “people person.”
“I was impressed with how they spoke of her ability to effectively keep all constituents part of the change process and her integrity in all that she does across the WSU campuses,” Thompson said in a post from Around the O.
The registrar position is heavily involved in the student enrollment process. Pomerenk’s predecessor helped develop the uoregon.edu emails that all UO students use.
“If the registrar is doing a good job most students will not know who she is,” said Thompson. “Julia’s position impacts all 24,000 students at the UO.”
Pomerenk  has a bachelor’s degree in English and Psychology from Pacific Lutheran University, where she also worked as registrar at one time, and a master’s in English from Ohio State University.
“University of Oregon is a very attractive institution which I admired from afar and when I spent two days on campus for my interviews was very impressive,” said Pomerenk. “The overall positive impression was how pleased everyone I talked to seemed to be to be working at the University of Oregon.”
Pomerenk is quite familiar with the pacific northwest: in addition to working at WSU, she grew up in Longview, Washington and has vacationed often in Oregon for the last 30 years.
“My first impression really when I flew into Eugene was that it felt like home, having grown up on the western side of the state of Washington,” said Pomerenk. “It is very green in Eugene in April and it felt like home and my memories of what my growing up years were like.”
Follow Casey Crowley on Twitter @CaseyCrowley55 .