LETTER: Registrar could be simpler
To the editor:
The September 11th issue of the Statesman featured a column by the editor titled “The Registrar’s Office a Necessary Evil” which I assume must have been written by university staff in a blatant attempt to promote the propaganda that this is true. The author of this article clearly has no outside experience with other universities.
After reading this article I discussed it with two of my colleagues to determine the validity of the claims it made regarding the operation of this universities registrar’s office versus that of other universities. The conclusion was unanimous: this universities registrar’s office is a joke. Including my colleagues and myself we represented three separate universities, University of New Mexico, Western Washington University, and Western Illinois University respectively. My colleagues stated that during their time at their respective universities, a collective of 7 years, only once did either of them even step foot inside the registrars office. My own experience only led me to the registrar’s office once in five years, and that was to pick up an extra transcript.
To be fair though it’s not just the registrar’s office, many other administrative offices on campus suffer from the same dysfunction. In fact, I would personally go so far as to say that this university has some of the worst run internal offices that I have ever had the displeasure of being associated with. No other major institution that I have had to work with has such dysfunctional computer systems, internal communication, or knowledgeable staff. It seems like I am constantly running like a lab rat between offices because something online didn’t go through, this office can’t take care of things of that nature or don’t know how solve my issue so I must go see someone in a different office, or I don’t know the secret password and handshake to add a class.
At Western Illinois University, adding, dropping, or withdrawing classes was all done via the computer with absolutely no need to ever go to the registrar’s office. To make things better, the one time I did go to the registrar’s office there was no line and only one person behind the desk. Why only one person you ask? Because when a system works the way it should you don’t need a whole office and long lines to add frustration to a process that should be simple.
Andy Brehm