Recently, Ard spoke with a cousin whose success in children's television made him think that aardvarks might just be more popular than purple dinosaurs. So, two weeks into the spring semester, Ard decided to change majors from accounting to theater arts. He also thought that it might be best to take only one or two classes to make time for the offers which were sure to come flooding in.
While these may appear to be two relatively simple changes to Ard's
schedule, they actually involve a good deal of interaction between
many offices: the Advising Center, to help Ard figure out what
credits he has and what will apply to his new major; the Registrar's
Office, to change Ard's major and register him for new classes; the
Financial Aid office, to decide if Ard has enough credits to be
eligible for financial aid; and finally the Bursar's Office, to
reimburse Ard for the courses he has already begun. In addition,
meetings had to be scheduled, forms completed, and Ard probably had
to stand in line more often than he cared to.
The Administrative Re-Design group called Services to Students has
set out to streamline this complicated process. This group is
considering three important aspects of improving the services
available to students. First: using technology to provide certain
basic services when the student needs them, where ever the student
might be. For example, transactions like changing an address, paying
a bill or declaring a major could be conducted at home or at a kiosk
on campus without involving a staff member or filling out a form.
Second: integrating more complex services. In other words, schedule
changes like Ard's which involve many offices and cross
organizational boundaries could be simplified if the necessary
information was centralized and accessible to all the offices.
Third: making information about services available to students at any
point in their academic career. That is, delivering information on
options like career counseling and studying abroad whenever the
student needs it.
As the Services to Students group continues its work this semester,
it will be focusing on some specific benchmarks or "milestones of
service" to find out how these services can be improved in the three
areas mentioned above.
This is certainly good news to Ard, a naturally shy aardvark who has
since decided to change his major back to accounting.
- - By Ellen Evans