Records, Recruitment, Registrar

 

We are a record keeping people.  At least for the most part, records are needed to carry out almost any business or important function or transaction.   This is very true in the field of education.  A record is kept that identifies each student who is enrolled in a college or university.  Each student is assigned a unique identifying number.  Names, birthdates, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, major interests and programs of study, classes registered for, added, dropped, or withdrawn from, location, time, and instructors of said classes, tuition and fees charged and paid or waived, grades received, and degrees awarded.  All of these objects are data that needs to be recorded, stored, and reported on in various ways.  Record keeping pretty much sums up my working career.

Records were important to me as a student, but weren't really what I thought about much.  I knew that the University needed to known when I changed my address, my name, and my program of study.  I trusted them to keep accurate records of the classes I attended, my grades, and my progress towards meeting the requirements for my degree.  I still trust them to keep these records.  I receive mail and emails from my alma mater from time to time, and I trust that if I were to order an official transcript of my classes, grades, and degree awarded, they would be able to provide that information to me in a timely manner for a minimal charge.

Our Admissions Office here at the community college is in charge of keeping many of these records of student data.  Admissions is our name, and Recruitment is our game.  Our job is to recruit and enroll as many qualified students to our institution as is possible.  Our CRM or Customer Relation Management software stores students names and contact information, and also is a place where we can record different recruitment outreach emails, text messages, and phone calls made to each prospective student, along with the student's admissions application and any required documentation needed for their specific admissions situation.  We don't require much information from most of our students, generally just their name, birthdate, contact information, educational history, and academic goals.  We also ask for information needed to grant in-state tuition rates to qualified students as required by state law, since we are a state-funded institution.  Accuracy and confidentiality of the records are of vital importance.  Depending on your perspective, that may be a lot of required information that we request, but then again.  Records.

Once a student is admitted to the college, the record keeping responsibilities are passed along to the Registrar of the college and her staff.  The office of the registrar and academic records is another vital area of the college.  Accuracy and confidentiality are again of vital importance.  We work together to create a record of each student's academic history at our college.  We are a record keeping people.