Matt Boyce Named Vice Provost for Enrollment Management

In an email to the university community on Oct. 9, Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, announced that Matt Boyce has been named Vice Provost for Enrollment Management, effective January 1, 2026, filling the position of retiring Vice Provost for Enrollment Management James Roche.

The complete email can be found below.

Dear members of the UMass community,

I am pleased to share that Matt Boyce will become our new vice provost for enrollment management, effective January 1, 2026. An accomplished team leader in higher education enrollment management and collaborative strategist in the areas of prospective student recruitment and retention on both the West and East coasts, Matt succeeds Jim Roche, who retires at the end of 2025 after serving as the university's inaugural vice provost for enrollment management for 14 years. Matt and Jim will work closely together through November and December, before Matt assumes his new role full-time in January.

I want to thank Jim for his vision and tremendous contributions to our enrollment strategy and share my appreciation for his dedication to serving the entire university community. He built an impressive team to meet the changing needs of our students, parents and university colleagues and spearheaded our enrollment efforts during the university's remarkable trajectory in distinguishing itself as one of the world's preeminent public universities. Under his leadership, first-year applications rose to more than 50,000 annually and each year our student population has become more diverse and academically talented.

Matt comes to UMass Amherst from Emerson College in Boston, where he has been serving as vice president for enrollment management since July 2024, overseeing the recruitment and support of the college's creative and diverse undergraduate and graduate students across its three campuses, including Los Angeles and the Netherlands.

Matt's notable accomplishments at Emerson include improving application volume within a single admissions cycle and increasing the incoming international class by 25 percent over the prior year. He improved marketing and staff outreach efforts, developed and launched a centralized enrollment marketing arm to drive consistency and yield, designed and deployed a new financial aid leveraging model, and strengthened cross-functional collaboration with academic leadership. He also implemented an AI-based recruitment solution that increased prospective student inquiries.

Prior to Emerson, Matt served as vice president for enrollment at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. There, he oversaw a 17 percent increase in new first-time student enrollment and a 15 percent increase in transfer student enrollment through targeted partnership development. Serving as the chief retention officer, he developed holistic retention and completion strategies and spearheaded a student success strategy that resulted in an increase in first-year retention.

Over nearly a decade, Matt also held positions with increasing responsibility and leadership at George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, Virginia. He advanced from associate director of K-12 partnerships-where he oversaw the vision and growth of college access programming and partnerships for the K-12 team-to senior associate director of admissions, director of undergraduate admissions, director of enrollment management and then executive director of enrollment management.

As executive director, he oversaw enrollment strategies during a period of rapid institutional growth, driving a 10 percent increase in out-of-state prospect and applicant funnel activity through expanded regional recruitment and aligning enrollment strategy with academic planning and budget modeling.

Matt received his bachelor's degree in psychology and philosophy from Villanova University. He also earned a Master of Education in School Counseling from Boston University and his doctoral degree in education, specializing in higher education, from George Mason University.

I would like to thank the faculty and staff, as well as academic leaders from across campus, who participated in the search process and served on the search advisory committee. I appreciate and value your time, commitment and dedication to this search. Thank you also to committee co-chairs Farshid Hajir, senior vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, and Kalpen Trivedi, senior vice provost for global affairs, for their leadership.

Please join me in welcoming Matt to UMass Amherst and wishing Jim all the best in his retirement.

Sincerely,
Fouad Abd-El-Khalick
Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
University of Massachusetts Amherst