ïAACRAO Spotlight interviews are published twice weekly before major professional development meetings. They feature our conversations with industry experts, highlighting key issues and promoting sessions and workshops at the upcoming conference.
Below you'll find brief summaries of three recent Q-and-As with links to the full interviews.
See these and other sessions at AACRAO's 100th Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado. Register today!
Business process improvement from the ground up
Colleges and universities are perfect candidates for the kind of business process improvement championed by the Denver Peak Academy, according to Brian Elms, manager of the academy, a training program run by the city of Denver. “The Peak Academy is designed to train employees on continuous process improvement,” Elms says. “The program comes out of five years of recession-driven budget cuts, furlough days, training cuts, pay cuts and layoffs. We’re finding ways to be more efficient by reinvesting in our employees.”
Read our interview with Brian Elms here.
The Poor Person's Data Modeling Survival Guide
"Enrollment managers need specific data sets very quickly for their studies so they can make those essential, timely decisions. I and many of my colleagues have found that, generally, there is no infrastructure set-up to handle these needs. For example, I might ask for a report that links course-choosing behavior to financial aid to see how it affects time-to-graduation – the traditional institutional research format won’t be used to looking at data that way, so I will probably end up waiting too long for that information to get into my hands, in a useable format. We must find quick and dirty methods to capture that data to inform our decision-making process, outside of the traditional data-reporting infrastructure. I thought I would share some methods for accomplishing this."
Read on to learn more about his presentation.
Implementing the FRED Factor of Customer Service
"Sometimes we and our staff get so caught up in rules and regulations - FERPA, institutional policies, admissions decisions and so on – that we don’t then have a chance to step back and remember that our work really matters to these students. It opens up access to education, which not only helps those students, but potentially future generations of students."
Read on to learn more about Tammy's workshop.
How Do I Know You Are Who You Say You Are?
Mark McConahey, Associate Vice Provost and Registrar at Indiana University Bloomington, and self-described “Brad Pitt of Identity Management,” and Mary Beth Myers,Registrar at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, will be getting existential at this year’s Annual Meeting with their session “How Do I Know You Are Who You Say You Are?”
At the session, they’ll tackle some of the fundamental issues around verifying student identity and offer Indiana University’s model as an example of effective security practices.