Fulfilling a mission with several national presentations

The Office of the Registrar had a strong presence at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) annual meeting, held April 3rd to 6th in Portland, Oregon, with several members of leadership presenting at the conference. Beth Warner and Katie Block presented on the recently completed – AIA winning – academic standing project, Eric MacKay and Will Lipske presented with a CU-Boulder colleague on the various, out-of-the-box uses of a degree audit, and Aaron Apel presented with a peer at Oklahoma State University on project management. Beth and Katie’s presentation told the story of why the Office of the Registrar decided to crack open the black box behind the technical coding of academic standing in SIS. They discussed the issues leading up to the project and the approach to document, fix and improve the process, implement changes, engage stakeholders, and ultimately create a sustainable “funky tech” solution; a solution that is both functional and technical. Beth and Katie were able to refine their presentation by sharing about this Academic Standing Project at a RO Tea @10 event, prior to the national conference. The presentation was well attended and connections were made with other institutions who are facing similar challenges with their academic standing process. Eric and Will were joined by Jenny Primm, associate registrar for academic services at CU-Boulder, to discuss ways both campuses are using the degree audit for more than a means to audit degree requirements. Eric and Will highlighted the degree audit updater, the DARS API in Course Search & Enroll, and reports designed for pre-health advising as examples from UW–Madison. Both campuses discussed their efforts of incorporating degree audit data with other systems on their campus. CU-Boulder, UW–Madison, and session attendees all reflected on the unique reporting and analytical opportunities that come from the audit. Additionally, attendees discussed the various audiences who could benefit from degree audit data: students, faculty, academic planners and more. Aaron presented with Rita Peaster, registrar at Oklahoma State University, on project management for registrars and admissions officers. Rita provided some general information on project management and covered key project management principles, processes, tools and best practices. Aaron then leveraged his experiences with the Course Search & Enroll app project to provide a case study overview of how those project management principles were used to ensure project success on a large-scale, long-term campus project. The pair also demonstrated why project management skills are needed in the profession and how they can best be applied to a variety of projects both large and small. The presentation was very well received, standing room only, and the attendees were engaged and asked some insightful questions. Stay tuned for a possible future AACRAO webinar and podcast on the topic! Through these presentations the UW–Madison continues to strive for and fulfill its mission to become a national model known for creativity, innovation and services, which places us at the forefront of our profession. Registrar team members, through their participation in meetings and conferences, continue to be wonderful representatives of the office, division and university.