Pace Paw Print

Media Credit: Clevelandleader.com President Stephen J. Friedman

As the new semester begins, I would like to discuss one of our major objectives over the next few years: improving the speed and helpfulness of information and services provided to students by OSA, the Office of Student Assistance.

The Past. OSA combines the traditional functions of the university registrar, bursar and financial aid offices. For years those offices had been a source of frustration for Pace students trying to pay bills, finalize their financial aid, register for courses and keep track of their academic progress.

In a step intended to improve service, President Caputo combined the offices to provide one-stop service to students and reduce the number of occasions on which they are required to trudge from one window to another. In the event, the volume of three million transactions a year coupled with understaffing, high turnover, and not taking advantage of modern technology resulted in no improvement in service, and perhaps some backsliding.

Moving Into the Future. In the short time since the arrival of Steven Johnson as Director of OSA in November, 2006, major changes have been put in place or in train. (Steve is now Associate Vice President for Student Services and University Registrar.)

Sixteen new employees have been hired, nine of them to augment the number of staff members dealing directly with students at the windows. We have a good deal more to do, but lines are shorter, complaints are down, holds on student accounts are resolved faster, degree audits have sped up by four months for most students, the average time to get a transcript shipped out has dropped from ten days to three, and the office has consolidated many student records, like those on immunizations, in the Banner system, producing greater accountability and efficiency. We are instituting a plan to put all remaining student records into electronic form so the irritation of a "lost" critical document will become a thing of the past.

Interlocking responsibilities. As we work hard to improve service, it has become clear that some student administrative problems are not really OSA issues; they may arise, for example, from policies of the University finance department, student housing, enrollment, advising, human resources, the faculty, deans, or elsewhere. Because OSA is the central contact point for students, it becomes a kind of Grand Central Station for conveying and processing decisions made elsewhere.

Part of the responsibility of OSA staff members is to help students navigate the policies of other departments, but it is important to understand that they have little authority to interpret or waive those policies and that in exceptional cases, it may be necessary to go to the source.

A Broader Effort. The desire to improve the quality of the University's services for students is part of a broader effort to instill and deepen the service ethic - the notion that a primary job of all administrative functions is to be helpful, and that enforcing existing policies and rules can best be done by helping others navigate those policies and rules.

At the beginning of January an important component of the improved service ethic got underway - day-long service-training and consciousness-raising sessions for all executives and managers in every department. In the pilot session, for finance employees, participants used their up-close-and-personal experience to identify service blockages and worked together to find solutions, creating a sense of ownership and commitment.

The areas covered ranged from better ways to balance service with internal controls to "saying no with a smile," eliminating steps in approvals, communicating the requirements and benefits of new computing methods, and starting a new system of recognition for service-oriented employees.

The emphasis on a service ethic, in turn is part of a larger effort to reshape the management culture at Pace University, emphasizing the importance of speed and decisiveness, and eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy. One of the essential elements of that culture is "We are here to help others - have a service ethic."

These changes are an important element in the Three-Year Plan that I am sharing with the University community this month. As John Kotter, a professor of management at Harvard, said in a recent webinar on change that many Pace employees took, improvement requires "obsessive" focus. We mean to create that kind of focus on service throughout Pace.

Finally, I recognize that the changes that are being put in place sometimes take time to find their way to the points of contact between students and the administration. If you have problems with OSA or other departments, I encourage you to share them with Steven Johnson at OSAFeedback@pace.edu. If you have good experiences, please share them as well.

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Stephen J. Friedman is President of Pace University

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