Professional Summary
Jordan M. Davis, MA, beghins his new role as CCM's Assistant Dean of Admissions on Oct. 1, 2026.
Davis is an emerging leader in the performing arts admissions space whose work brings together extensive professional experience, a deep passion for the arts and a sustained intellectual engagement with the human condition. Through this intersection, Davis advances strategic, student-centered approaches to admissions and financial aid that meet prospective and current students where they are to help them navigate the most pressing questions and complexities of the admissions process.
Davis' experiences as an admissions professional have taken him through different academic units and offices to his most recent and significant experience at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) Conservatory. In this role, Davis was responsible for various improvements to the conservatory admissions process that improved the experience of inquiries and applicants, increased their ability to engage with the institution and its faculty, and produced year-over-year new student enrollment growth for the institution. He identified friction points in the visit request process for prospective students and revamped the process, utilizing the university's CRM system to create a custom request form that allowed students to input their ideal visit and that allowed his team to more quickly coordinate details of visits between unit staff and faculty. These changes increased the unit's visit volume by over 100% in the course of an academic year.
Davis has similarly focused on strengthening the role of faculty as partners in enrollment and recruitment. Understanding that performing arts recruitment is fundamentally relational — and that faculty often serve as an institution’s most compelling ambassadors — he developed and implemented a digital faculty recruitment toolkit designed to give faculty practical, accessible resources for engaging prospective students. The toolkit was complemented by a refreshed suite of physical recruitment materials and helped create clearer pathways between faculty-led recruitment conversations and the university’s formal admissions processes. This work strengthened faculty confidence in participating actively in recruitment while helping the Conservatory better capture and support the prospective-student relationships that faculty cultivate through performances, master classes, conferences, guest lectures, off-site auditions and other activities.
Davis’ approach to admissions is grounded in the belief that effective recruitment is not simply a matter of increasing application numbers, but of building systems that allow students to develop authentic relationships with the institution and visualize their futures as members of our community. His work emphasizes thoughtful communication, process improvement, cross-functional collaboration, and the intentional use of technology to remove barriers between students, faculty, staff, and the institution. In the performing arts — where an applicant’s decision to enroll is often deeply connected to professional training opportunities, community, and a sense of belonging — Davis is particularly interested in developing admissions practices that recognize the student as a whole person with uniquely situated opportunities, questions and challenges.
Davis holds an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Sociology and History from the University of Missouri–Kansas City. His academic background informs his professional interest in the ways that institutional and personal feelings of opportunity, belonging and access blend, as well as his broader commitment to understanding the social and cultural dimensions of higher education.
Outside of his work in admissions, Davis is a passionate artist and arts enthusiast. He is an active choral singer who has served as a substitute section leader with several Kansas City church choirs and performed with ensembles under the direction of Dr. Robert Bode, Dr. Jennifer Sengin, and Ms. Susan Klebanow. Davis has also been an active adult recreational ballet dancer since 2021. In addition, he is an avid fan of the Eurovision Song Contest which he had the privilege of attending in Basel, Switzerland in May 2025.