Edward Mills has been selected as the new vice president of Sacramento State’s Student Affairs department.

The former vice president for enrollment, Dr. Mills has been serving at Sac State since 2007. He said he was honored to be selected by President Gonzalez.

“This is the position that I’ve been working toward my whole career, so I’m really excited to be able to serve Sacramento State as the vice president,” Mills said.

The appointment is effective Jan. 1, 2015.

One of Mills’ main goals as the vice president is to help “reduce the time to degree.” He is currently working with various departments, looking at issues of remediation and priority registration.

“There’s a lot that goes into that (process) that I think we can really look at from a university perspective and see how we can help better support the students and provide more streamlined opportunities … that can get (them) through their degree programs faster,” Mills said.

Mills, who has a Ph.D in higher education, has a passion for students and is determined to help them succeed. He says he’s impressed with the hard work Sac State students put in to get their degrees.

“A lot of our students are working, commuting, have families, so it’s not an easy thing to get their degree, but it’s really inspiring to see how our students overcome those challenges and graduate,” Mills said.