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Mike Russell, WNE Director of Transfer Admissions, Wins Highest Honor from New England Transfer Association

SPRINGFIELD, MA (05/03/2022) Western New England University Vice President for Enrollment Management and Marketing Bryan Gross is pleased to announce that Mike Russell, Director of Transfer Admissions, was awarded the Sarah Elizabeth Crane Distinguished Service Award at the New England Transfer Association’s (NETA) 2022 annual conference on Thursday, April 21. The award is NETA’s highest honor.

“The award recognizes the most outstanding and accomplished transfer admissions professional in the Northeast U.S.,” Dr. Gross said. “Mike was applauded for his consistent dedication to working with students in a positive manner to help them through the transfer process and for his positive contributions to the field. He is one of the only people to receive both this award and the NETA Rising Star Award in their career. Those of us who work with Mike on a regular basis know that this is a very well-deserved recognition.”

The New England Transfer Association recognizes and honors professionals who have made a difference in the lives of their students, their institutions, their profession, and/or the association.

Russell started at WNE in January 2013 as Assistant Director of Admissions and Coordinator of Transfer Admissions before advancing to larger roles as Associate Director and then Senior Associate Director of Transfer Admissions. After working at UMass Amherst from August 2019 to October 2020, he returned to WNE in his current role as Director of Transfer Admissions.

“This was truly an honor to receive this award from colleagues and peers across New England. I am really touched by this honor,” said Russell, who won NETA’s Rising Star Award in 2014. “NETA is an amazing organization of transfer professionals, and I am very appreciative of the recognition. I am very proud to be able to work with transfer students at WNE.”

Western New England University (WNE) is a private, nationally ranked, comprehensive institution with a focus on preparing work-ready and world-ready graduates. Founded in 1919 in Springfield, Massachusetts as a division of Northeastern College, WNE’s 215-acre suburban campus serves more than 3,700 students, including over 2,500 full-time undergraduates. More than 47,000 alumni have earned degrees through its 90+ undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs at Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering, and Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and School of Law. Students come from 39 U.S. states and territories and 23 countries. Of 45,104 living alumni, 30% remain within the region, residing in the four Western Massachusetts counties and northern Connecticut.

WNE is classified among nationally ranked universities in US News and World Report, and among the Top 100 Undergraduate Engineering programs, and in the Doctoral/Professional Universities category in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.