RO team honored with campus-wide award
Recently the recipients of the Administrative Improvement Award (AIA) were announced and the Office of the Registrar (RO) was among them. The AIA recognizes excellence in process design or redesign, innovation, development, or customer service that resulted in improved efficiency, increased revenue channels, cost savings, and/or improved service delivery. This year there were more than 20 nominations, and the Academic Standing Project team was one of three teams to receive this prestigious award.
Associate Vice Provost and University Registrar Scott Owczarek nominated the team for this award. Upon the team receiving the recognition he commented, “I am so excited that this important work was selected for this year’s campus Administrative Improvement Award! The teamwork, commitment, perseverance and collaboration of the team are wonderful examples of what drove the Academic Standing project to the top of the list.”
Academic Standing is the result of a student’s grades and GPA calculated at the end of each semester to produce a standing. Some examples of academic standing are “Good Standing,” “Probation,” and “Restricted Probation;” the criteria for these differ for each school/college. These standings are intended to provide a status to the student of their progress towards their degree, as well as indicate when a student is experiencing academic difficulty and needs additional resources and support. They are also reflected on the student’s transcript and it is the RO’s responsibility to ensure these are accurately calculated and reflected.
Since 2018 the RO has been leveraging opportunities to optimize the business processes and functions in SIS. After the SIS 9.2 upgrade in 2018-2019, there were anticipated academic governance-approved changes to academic standing actions, which required changes to the academic standing process to maintain compliance with school/college policy. One of the primary governance changes and benefits to students and advisors was the representation of “Good Standing” on the transcript. In the original process, a blank academic standing on the transcript meant a student was in “good standing.” This was a disservice to our students when transcripts were viewed by graduate school admission committees and employers. Additionally, including “Good Standing” complies with best practices used by many competitor institutions, and is recommended by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO).
The project’s primary focus was to streamline, update and modernize the 8,627 lines of custom code housed within SIS that enforced the school/college academic standing policies and set the transcript notation for undergraduate students. Additionally, it gave the RO the opportunity to build the subject matter expertise in technical and functional team members who inherited the academic standing process, providing a full understanding of how the academic standing process functions, what it is expected to do, and more reliability in maintaining the rules set by each school/college. It also better positions the SMEs and the process for future modification as governance rules inevitably change.
Through the completion of this project the RO built data integrity, bettered its service to students, collaborated effectively across several different stakeholder groups, and developed its internal developer and functional teams. The RO worked collaboratively with experts from across undergraduate schools/colleges to maintain data integrity related to their respective policies. Collaboration among campus colleagues was essential throughout this process. This was truly a team effort involving over 20 partners from schools, colleges and divisions across the university. We worked extensively with the Academic Advising Policy Leaders (AAPL) and Associate/Assistant Deans in each of the schools/colleges. The success of the project reflects the dedicated, often behind-the-scenes, work that was necessary to support student services and general administration across campus.
Associate Registrar and project lead Beth Warner responded to the recognition by saying, “We are so appreciative of the recognition of the work that went into and the benefits that have been achieved by the Academic Standing Project. I know I speak for everyone involved when I say that it means the world and we are beyond humbled that, with all the work that’s been done on campus, our team’s work has been chosen.”