Her office looked empty by late Wednesday afternoon. One circular wood table was cleared off except for a candy bowl in the center; two, tall imposing bookshelves were unfilled except for a few three-ring binders; and neat stacks of papers lined her desk, which stretched from two large windows past a bulletin board that now had more push pins than papers hanging from it.

And behind the desk sat an excited yet somber Youlonda Copeland-Morgan — in her office at 200 Archbold North on her last day at Syracuse University. While shedding a couple of tears and fighting back more, Copeland-Morgan tried to put into words how hard it was to leave the university she had worked for since April 2008.

‘I told the secretary today, ‘I’m not going to cry, I’m not going to cry.’ It’s really difficult. It’s really hard. This is just an incredible place. The students are great, the parents are great,’ she said.

Copeland-Morgan, SU’s associate vice president for enrollment management and director of scholarships and student aid, accepted a position at the University of California-Los Angeles in September. She will start as the associate vice chancellor for enrollment management at UCLA on Feb. 1.

She made it a point to stay in her office until Wednesday to help the university transition through the early-decision process and student registration. It also gave her a chance to say goodbye to fellow university employees, several of whom say Copeland-Morgan was a driving force behind expanding SU’s commitment to access and affordability for students. Many of them also call her a friend.

Though she plans to come back to Syracuse to visit and catch a couple of basketball games, Copeland-Morgan is excited to begin at UCLA — a university that approached her before and she turned down multiple times. But this time, she sees it as an opportunity to draw on her strengths to help meet the challenges at public institutions and an opportunity to return to California, where both she and her husband have family.

‘I really have met lifelong friends here in Syracuse, so it’s just another part of the journey of life,’ Copeland-Morgan said. ‘You’re not really closing any chapters. Syracuse will always be a part of me.’

The journey so far

Copeland-Morgan never knew she wanted to work in financial aid or enrollment management — until she went to college.

She planned on going to Wall Street.

‘I was a product of the ‘70s. I was woman,’ Copeland-Morgan said. ‘Women weren’t on Wall Street at that time. … The world was just beginning to change in the ‘70s, so I was going to go off to Wall Street like any woman in business to make a lot of money and that sort of thing.’

But as a first-generation college student who grew up in California, her parents couldn’t afford to send her to college and she needed financial aid. Included in her financial aid package at Loyola Marymount University was a work-study job.

While looking for a job on campus, the director of financial aid at Loyola Marymount hired Copeland-Morgan.

‘I thought, ‘This is pretty cool,” Copeland-Morgan said. ‘‘I can help all of my friends and make money at the same time.’ And that’s when I got interested in it, and I realized that working in financial aid, I wasn’t the only one stressed out about money.’

Her friends and classmates would come to her with questions once they found out she was working in the financial aid office. She would hold sessions with them and every conversation became about financial aid. It was then that a career in financial aid became obvious.

‘Wall Street wasn’t the place for me to be — still isn’t, by the way.’

After graduating from Loyola Marymount with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, Copeland-Morgan worked for a couple of years before going back to get her M.B.A. at the University of La Verne, also in California.

She’s been in education ever since — 33 years to be exact.

Copeland-Morgan began her career as director of financial aid at International College in Los Angeles and moved on to the University of La Verne five years later to fill the same position. From La Verne, she worked in both admissions and financial aid at Occidental College in Los Angeles before moving on to Harvey Mudd College, where she spent 10 years and was the vice president of admission and financial aid.

Then came Syracuse. Now UCLA.

Time at Syracuse

While at SU, Copeland-Morgan worked on several projects to increase access to higher education. She worked on the ‘I Otto Know This’ financial literacy program and the Syracuse Responds campaign to help students and their families during the 2008 financial crisis.

But neither of these are what she considers her biggest accomplishment. That is reserved to the team she built in enrollment management — a team that understands the goal of enrollment.

‘Enrollment is not just about recruiting students and bringing them to the university,’ she said. ‘It is about building a lifelong relationship with students.’

She pushed the university to broaden its recruiting efforts and look beyond the Northeast for budding students. She also taught her team and SU to keep its focus locked on students.

Don Saleh, vice president for enrollment management, said Copeland-Morgan helped transform the university’s admissions and financial aid since her arrival.

‘She’s been really leading us as we recognize the importance of financial aid in retention and graduation,’ Saleh said.

Saleh said Copeland-Morgan’s connection to the students, her network of colleagues around the country and relationship with senior members of the administration and faculty at SU will be difficult to replace.

Copeland-Morgan acted like an adviser who Saleh could always go to when he was having trouble with a decision or needed more information. Her constant attention to the needs of students and their parents is ‘never failing and it’s never compromised,’ he said.

‘I think everyone kind of knows it’s going to be hard to replace her,’ Saleh said. ‘We’re working on that. But just on a personal level, I’ll miss her as a colleague and as a friend. She’s going to be a continent away.’

‘A moment among friends’

As Copeland-Morgan was on her way to a meeting Wednesday inside Crouse-Hinds Hall, Kal Alston spotted her.

When Copeland-Morgan got off the elevator, Alston decided she was going to try to block Copeland-Morgan from leaving the university.

So Alston, senior vice president for human capital development, got down on the floor and grabbed Copeland-Morgan’s legs, sending her to the floor next to Alston.

‘It was just a moment among friends where we laughed, and we were laughing so hysterically that people began to come out of their offices and ask what’s going on,’ Copeland-Morgan said. ‘And we’re just two great colleagues and friends saying goodbye to each other.’

Alston, who first met Copeland-Morgan at a basketball game when she was being recruited to SU in 2008, said she thought her effort to stop her friend from leaving was worth it.

‘I think that is part and parcel of how warmly people feel about Youlonda,’ said Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina, who came out of his office when he heard the commotion. ‘They really regard her as a friend even more than a co-worker.’

Through it all — the policy making, the constant involvement with students and the loving tackle of a beloved co-worker — Copeland-Morgan has no regrets.

‘I think our successes and our failures are very meaningful,’ she said. ‘We learn from them and they help to shape who we are as people and broaden our perspectives on things. But I have absolutely no regrets for coming to Syracuse. I feel very blessed to have had this opportunity, and I think it’s a terrific place, and I’ll always be fond of Syracuse. Always.’

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Published on January 23, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Jon: [email protected]