Hernan Bucheli

Hernan Bucheli, Ed.D., is the Vice President for Strategic Enrollment Management, and Student Success at Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Throughout his more than 25 years of career, Bucheli has successfully led efforts at several institutions to increase student enrollment, diversity, and tuition revenue.

His credentials include achieving extraordinary results in higher education administrative leadership, organizational development, strategic enrollment management, new academic program development, new business and partnership development, and building institutional brand awareness grounded in inclusive excellence serving diverse student populations.

Bucheli joined VCU in April 2023. During his tenure, undergraduate new student enrollment has increased, and VCU experienced its first increase in overall enrollment in over a decade. Bucheli also oversaw an increase in the retention rate of first-time students to their second year, which reached 85.6%, an eight-year high.

He joined VCU from Saint Joseph’s College of Maine and was recruited through The Registry, which specializes in placing skilled and experienced academic leaders in interim positions. He worked this past academic year as SJC’s vice president for enrollment. Before that, he developed an enrollment plan at Schreiner University in Texas that boosted applications 44% and first-year enrollment by 50% and attracted the largest first-year class in university history. He had similar success at Albion College, where he served as vice president for enrollment management and strategic initiatives from 2019 through 2021.

Prior to Albion, Bucheli served as vice provost for enrollment and communications at Saint Mary’s College of California, vice president for enrollment management at Notre Dame de Namur University, and assistant vice chancellor for enrollment and student affairs at Chapman University College (now the University of Massachusetts Global).

He currently serves on the board of directors of the Latino Education Advancement Foundation, a charitable organization supporting charter high schools operated by the Foundation for Hispanic Education and is an emeritus board member of the Peninsula College Fund in Silicon Valley.

Bucheli earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from San Francisco State University, a master’s degree in communications from Barry University, an Ed.D. in education, communication, and organizational development from Northeastern University and a certificate in organizational analysis from Stanford University.