AACRAO 2023: Attendance, presentations and everything in between
During the week of March 27th many members of the Office of the Registrar team attended the annual AACRAO (American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Offices) meeting. The AACRAO Annual Meeting is an opportunity to learn, network, and advance higher education. Professionals from a variety of higher education disciplines gather together at AACRAO’s Annual Meeting to engage and discuss the ever-changing landscape of higher-ed. This allows attendees with the opportunity to collaborate with a worldwide, higher education network as it comes together to explore, engage, and learn. Each year higher education professionals face new and unique challenges in their work and AACRAO’s Annual Meeting is the place to find solutions to those challenges. The UW–Madison Office of the Registrar not only had several people attend, but many of them also presented at the meeting.
Aaron Apel and co-presenter Rita Peaster, Oklahoma State University Registrar, gave an encore presentation of their ‘Project Management for Registrars and Admissions Officers’ session to a packed house of attendees with standing room only. In the session, they provided an overview of project management methodologies and best practices, and shared examples of project management in action as it applies to both large and small projects in the Registrar’s Office from their respective institutions. It’s great to see the continued interest in project management, and Aaron looks forward to sharing more information on the topic in the future.
Beth Warner participated in a panel presentation, titled ‘Coming TogetHER’, and facilitated a follow-up ‘Roundtable: Exploring TogetHER’, both of which were focused on empowering women in the workplace. In the panel presentation, Beth and her colleagues/friends – Becky Keouh, Senior Associate Registrar at Michigan State University, Rhonda Kitch, University Registrar at Cornell University, Tiffany Robinson, Associate Vice Provost and University Registrar at the University of Texas-San Antonio, and Sara Sullivan, Senior Associate Registrar at the University of Iowa – shared stories from their personal journeys, as well as information about perceptions of women in the workplace, the portrayal of women in the media and the erasing of women’s roles throughout history, and how the experiences of women differ based on intersecting identities. The follow-up roundtable provided an opportunity for session participants to share their own experiences, ask questions, seek advice and generally support one another.
Katie Block attended a pre-conference workshop FERPA 2.0 where FERPA experts shared information on advanced topics such as sharing data with campus partners, the intersections with research data and FERPA, handling FERPA breaches, responding to data requests, and more.
Scott Golueke attended a two day pre conference workshop where he learned strategies and best practices in international credential evaluation. This workshop presented strategies for success in international admissions and taught participants the basics of international credential evaluation methodology, including educational system models and benchmarks, researching the status of foreign institutions, working with foreign academic records, the use of official and reliable resources, fraud awareness, approaches to applying institution policies to make admissions decisions and applicable transfer credit. In addition, this workshop included a focus on evaluation records from China and India and provided opportunities for hands-on group work and discussion using sample documents.
This year’s annual meeting theme was “Implementing Success,” and all those who were able to travel and participate are definitely excited to implement things that they learned and brought back to create successes on their teams, in the office, and across the division.
Beth Warner participated in a panel presentation, titled ‘Coming TogetHER’, and facilitated a follow-up ‘Roundtable: Exploring TogetHER’, both of which were focused on empowering women in the workplace. In the panel presentation, Beth and her colleagues/friends – Becky Keouh, Senior Associate Registrar at Michigan State University, Rhonda Kitch, University Registrar at Cornell University, Tiffany Robinson, Associate Vice Provost and University Registrar at the University of Texas-San Antonio, and Sara Sullivan, Senior Associate Registrar at the University of Iowa – shared stories from their personal journeys, as well as information about perceptions of women in the workplace, the portrayal of women in the media and the erasing of women’s roles throughout history, and how the experiences of women differ based on intersecting identities. The follow-up roundtable provided an opportunity for session participants to share their own experiences, ask questions, seek advice and generally support one another.
Katie Block attended a pre-conference workshop FERPA 2.0 where FERPA experts shared information on advanced topics such as sharing data with campus partners, the intersections with research data and FERPA, handling FERPA breaches, responding to data requests, and more.
Scott Golueke attended a two day pre conference workshop where he learned strategies and best practices in international credential evaluation. This workshop presented strategies for success in international admissions and taught participants the basics of international credential evaluation methodology, including educational system models and benchmarks, researching the status of foreign institutions, working with foreign academic records, the use of official and reliable resources, fraud awareness, approaches to applying institution policies to make admissions decisions and applicable transfer credit. In addition, this workshop included a focus on evaluation records from China and India and provided opportunities for hands-on group work and discussion using sample documents.
This year’s annual meeting theme was “Implementing Success,” and all those who were able to travel and participate are definitely excited to implement things that they learned and brought back to create successes on their teams, in the office, and across the division.