Mission driven
Strategy rooted in each institution's culture and community.
Human centered
People are at the center of every enrollment and success strategy.
Outcomes focused
Turning institutional priorities into measurable progress and lasting impact.
Our Approach
Strategy begins with understanding
Institutional listening, stakeholder perspectives, and data come together to uncover what matters most and where the greatest opportunities exist.
Listen
We start by listening to leadership, faculty, staff, and the broader campus community — to understand the institution's culture and challenges from the inside.
Analyze
We bring data and national context together with what we've heard, identifying where the greatest opportunities and risks actually lie.
Align
We translate insight into a strategy built for that institution specifically, one that fits its mission, people, and capacity to execute.
Our Services
Focused on what drives outcomes
Every institution faces a distinct set of pressures and possibilities. We work across the areas that shape long-term institutional health, bringing strategy, structure, and story into alignment so that mission and outcomes move forward together.
Strategic Enrollment
We optimize the enrollment funnel for institutions through innovative strategic planning and operational excellence. Our team delivers measurable outcomes that ensure long-term institutional stability and student success.
Student Success
We support every stage of the student life cycle, from recruitment and access to graduation and career placement. Our expert consultants design holistic frameworks that ensure learners persist through their academic milestones and transition seamlessly into the workforce.
Enrollment Marketing
We help institutions build enrollment marketing that connects with the right students at the right moments. From brand positioning to storytelling and campaign strategy, we align messaging with enrollment goals to strengthen recruitment and yield.
Institutional Health
We optimize organizational effectiveness by refining internal structures and enhancing core processes. Our approach targets cultural transformation to build a foundation for long-term vitality. We partner with leaders to ensure every operational layer supports a resilient and sustainable future.
About Us
Leadership shaped by decades inside higher education
Alma Via was founded and is led by a higher education leader with more than two decades of executive and advisory experience. The team includes support and expertise from experienced consultants who bring additional depth in marketing, communications, and institutional strategy. Together, they bring executive-level perspective and hands-on operational expertise to every partnership, shaped by having led inside higher education. Alma Via was founded on the belief that mission, people, and strategy are inseparable, and that lasting institutional impact comes from aligning all three.
Gabriel Castaño, Ed.D.
Founder & Principal Consultant
Gabriel Castaño, Ed.D., is the Founder of Alma Via, bringing more than 20 years of higher education leadership and strategy experience to partnerships with colleges and universities. A cabinet-level enrollment management and student success executive, his experience spans community colleges, public research institutions, private universities, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Across these environments, he has transformed enrollment and student success strategies, organizational structures, operations, and the use of technology and data to strengthen both the student experience and institutional outcomes.
​
A first-generation college graduate, Dr. Castaño brings a human-centered, data-informed approach to institutional strategy. He believes the rapidly shifting landscape of higher education requires institutions to be agile, willing to transform, and deeply connected to their mission, people, and communities. He founded Alma Via around the belief that sustainable institutional health and student success are inseparable, partnering with institutions to understand their opportunities, sharpen priorities, build organizational capacity, and turn strategy into measurable action.
Lilian clemente, M.Ed.
marketing & Communications Consultant
Lilian Clemente is a Consultant at Alma Via, bringing more than 15 years of marketing, communications, and institutional strategy experience to partnerships with colleges and universities. She has led marketing and communications at some of the largest institutions in the country, currently serving as a senior communications executive and advisor to college presidents and cabinet. Across these roles, she has built and repositioned brands, guided senior leadership through reputation and issues management, and transformed fragmented communications units into modern, data-informed marketing organizations.
​
Lilian brings a strategic, narrative-driven approach to institutional marketing and communications, believing that a brand's strength depends on the clarity and alignment of the strategy behind it. She partners with institutions to translate mission and priorities into messaging that builds trust, strengthens enrollment, and elevates institutional visibility, while helping leadership teams build the organizational capacity to sustain that work.