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Registrar’s Office Audit Loyola University Chicago. Reid Kisling, Senior Consultant October 8-9, 2009. Project Summary. This audit will include a review of: Processes, procedures, and policies. Organizational structure. Staffing levels, responsibilities, and cross-training of duties.
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Registrar’s Office AuditLoyola University Chicago Reid Kisling, Senior Consultant October 8-9, 2009
Project Summary • This audit will include a review of: • Processes, procedures, and policies. • Organizational structure. • Staffing levels, responsibilities, and cross-training of duties. • A focus on transfer credit practice processes. • In addition to this report summarizing observations and preliminary recommendations, this project will include sample job descriptions for key office positions noting potential modifications to organizational structure to support the office role within the institution.
Pre-Visit Activities • Conference call with Clare Korinek • Discuss project deliverables • Review policies and procedures and job descriptions provided in advance.
On-Site Activities • Interview the following management staff: • Clare Korinek • Eric Pittenger • Kris Daggett • Diane Hullinger • Nick Jones • Interview some office staff: • Betty Ramirez • Niki Rigas • Review of office space
Role of the Registrar: Observations • The organizational chart for the office reflects separation of duties into key service areas (i.e., systems, transfer evaluation/entry). • Many office staff are responsible for lower-level tasks that may be able to be automated with technological solutions that are in use by the institution. • Some service areas have changed very little even with the advent of these technological solutions (e.g., document imaging).
Role of the Registrar: Observations • No distinct measures of staff FTE to student headcount exist (student headcount vs. FTE is the better service determiner since each student requires similar service levels regardless of number of hours taken at the institution). • Office management desires to “upgrade” staff responsibilities so tasks that can be automated are done through technology and service to students, faculty, and other staff are “professionalized.”
Role of the Registrar: Observations • Though the Registrar’s Office serves the academic organization through implementation of records and curricular requirements for students, the office appears to be seen by various academic units as performing primarily a data entry function rather than a participant in the process of delivering a quality education for students. E.g., communication of curricular changes often occurs late in the process rather than participation of office staff within university decision-making structures. • Difficulties with integration of office staff with academic programs may be due to perception of academics that may need to be adjusted to consider more of a partnership between the two areas.
Role of the Registrar: Observations • Staff workload in some areas is heavy at key times of the academic calendar. Some work has been done to evaluate workload but inconsistencies still exist. • One key office unit, Academic Requirements, is separated from the office physically which complicates communication and processes. • The layout of office space limits interaction of all staff in meaningful ways. In addition, the limitations of space place many staff “up front” where interruptions may be common and prevent efficient workflow.
Role of the Registrar: Observations • The institution has reorganized structure and placed certain functions and people (e.g., transfer evaluation, academic requirement programming) into the Registrar’s Office organization. These moves may “fit” the nature of the work for which the office is responsible but the integration within the university and defined processes for these functions are still underdeveloped.
Role of the Registrar: Recommendations • Organization around functional areas can work well but staff responsibilities should be reevaluated to determine what may be automated, what may be done by others (i.e., self-service), and what must be done by office staff (see Transfer Evaluation below). • Staffing benchmarks should be developed for specific tasks (i.e., transcript evaluations per person) or programs (i.e., 1.0 FTE per 400 students) to determine appropriate levels of staffing compared to process or student headcount demand.
Role of the Registrar: Recommendations • Office staff should be empowered at the lowest level possible in the organizational structure to make decisions that affect their work. This includes the ability to make exceptions to policy when interacting with faculty, staff, or students and should be in the student’s best interest in line with mission. • The office should clarify who has authority for making specific decisions and empower staff to make those decisions in the best interest of students. • Implementing such changes may require staffing changes, particularly to insure competent staff who are capable of interacting across campus.
Role of the Registrar: Recommendations • Office leadership should consider how to develop strategic partnerships with academic programs and faculty. • Perhaps one opportunity is interactions with the University Policy Committee for consideration of policy changes and implications for student services. • Facilitate better interactions with key programs who can serve as a model for integration with other programs (i.e., Graduate School of Business). • Staff responsibilities and job descriptions should be modified to reflect the key changes desired to move staff from fulfilling merely a tactical role to a strategic role for the institution (see attached job descriptions for recommendations).
Communication: Observations • Curricular changes communicated late often result in delayed development of necessary system changes for student services (i.e., degree audits) which can result in imbalanced work load for office staff during peak work periods (which often coincide with start dates on the academic calendar). • The office does not have a defined process for proactive communication to students, faculty, and staff (i.e., deadlines). • The office does not have recent student satisfaction data that can be used to assess effectiveness of efforts from the perspective of students themselves.
Communication: Observations • The office has developed online forms (fillable PDFs) for many of the key functions that students or faculty must complete. This has decreased response time for some of these requests.
Communication: Recommendations • The office should consider a triggered communication calendar (can be as sophisticated as a defined CRM system) that communicates key messages to faculty, staff, and students on a predefined calendar (date or process driven). The use of 3C’s by Financial Aid can serve as a model for implementation for Student Records. • The office should consider how to automate student form data as much as practicable. Emailed forms may be able to be routed via Groupwise email rules to particular staff based on form data submitted (i.e., academic program, alpha).
Transfer Evaluation: Observations • Transfer articulations that do not exist in the PS system require evaluation be done by faculty. Office staff gather course listings to be articulated and send spreadsheets to faculty for evaluation. These articulation requests must then be tracked (often requiring follow-up) and entry into the PS system once evaluations are received. Student transfer articulations can then be completed once the transfer rule exists for a course. • The university subscribes to the CollegeSource Transfer Evaluation System (TES) for access to course description data but is not using the system for managing or maintaining articulations.
Transfer Evaluation: Recommendations • The institution should review the approval process for transfer articulation rules and determine if authority can be granted to well-trained registrar staff to create course articulation rules for courses with standard descriptions (or those that closely match the course descriptions of LUC). • It is very common for this function to be done by registrar staff at other institutions. • Non-standard course descriptions can still be sent to faculty for evaluation. • Course articulation workflow should be improved to track missing articulation rules and receive information in a timely manner. The institution should explore the workflow built in to the TES system.
Transfer Evaluation: Recommendations • The institution should consider metrics for assessing completion time of student transfer articulations. • Turnaround time on missing articulation rules. • Turnaround time on completed transfer articulations. • The institution should consider the use of 3C’s (perhaps checklists or comments) for evaluation tracking.
Class Scheduling: Observations • The office has worked with IT to develop security functionality in the PS system to allow academic programs to enter and manipulate class schedule data. This functionality allows academic programs to change data until a date (determined by the registrar’s office staff) when access is removed after which time office staff must make all changes. • Office staff would like to grant additional options to academic programs to update class times/days and faculty but limit access to specific functions but that is not possible with the current system.
Class Scheduling: Observations • Classroom assignments in the R25 system are managed by one key staff member but there are no other staff cross-trained on the system.
Class Scheduling: Recommendations • The institution should explore bolt-on functionality developed by other PS users (e.g., Duke University’s Department Center) to see if such options are viable for the institution and if they meet desired outcomes. • The office should consider if/how R25 functionality and access can be granted to other staff who can assist with the room assignment process. • Access to Schedule 25 (which may need to be limited strictly) • Access to assign missing rooms (which could be distributed to individual staff who understand unique program or location needs).
Registration Observation Waitlist functionality is not being used in the system at this time though the institution would like to explore its use. Recommendations Waitlist functionality was explored during the site visit but more development is necessary to determine business practice regarding its use. • Can it be used for all class types? • Does institutional policy allow for the PS built-in process for waitlist management to be used (i.e., bypassing students with time conflicts)? • Do service indicator impacts allow for use of waitlist functionality?
Graduation Observation Students often call the office inquiring about the status of their diploma. Tracking diploma distribution is difficult for the office and consumes much more time than desired. Recommendations The institution should consider the use of a 3C Comment within the PeopleSoft system that allows staff to note diploma distribution method (e.g., picked up, mailed) and distribution date. All staff should have access to such comments so immediate answers can be given to students who inquire at the point of inquiry (typically, on the phone).
Staffing Levels/FTE • Office leadership should develop metrics for staffing levels to determine appropriate workload for tasks and student headcount. • Office leadership should evaluate current staffing levels and develop a plan for necessary changes that correspond with enrollment projections for specific programs over the next 5-10 years. • Office leadership should consider how to strategically re-engineer staff responsibilities to foster increased partnerships with academic programs (will require automation of more office functions and increased responsibility of staff).
Student Information System The institution should identify the data elements that need to be added to the Recruitment Plus system that can later be passed to the PeopleSoft Student Records module and used to drive processes, services, and assessment. Some examples may include: • Interest Codes • Major/Minor plan information
Institutional Effectiveness • The office should develop an Institutional Effectiveness process whereby assessment of current practice can inform continuous quality improvement through appropriate feedback mechanisms. • Office leadership should strongly consider student satisfaction measures (preferably using the same instruments in use by the institution) to consider appropriate service levels to students and where continuous improvements can be made.
Thank you! Reid Kisling rkisling@gmail.com consulting.aacrao.org
