Pace Paw Print

At Nov. 7's community meeting, several faculty and staff members as well as students complained about the Office of Student Assistance (OSA)'s service to students, claiming they frequently called to a full voicemail box. Since then, however, OSA has undergone several changes, resulting in improved service, according to the Pace University White Paper: OSA

Progress as of Jan. 2008. "Students' memories should revolve around the classroom and their social experience, not OSA," said Steve Johnson, Associate Vice President for Student Services and University Registrar.

Some changes include:

- A staff increase of 16 people, three of which are in the Pleasantville office.
-Increased training for staff members. Within the past two years, the OSA staff has attended national conferences on topics such as financial aid, student records, admissions and the Banner computer system. The staff members completed a workshop on service ethics last month. They also attend regular OSA meetings which address service issues.
- More information available to OSA staff, enabling less "runarounds" and as a result, quicker service.
-OSA, rather than the Provost, now has the authority to approve final course grades and course completions within the current academic year. Fifteen OSA staff members can now also approve changes in majors for students.
- Staff members are required to have more professional experience such as a college degree and experience in customer service, higher education or financial services.
- OSA also claims to have friendlier attitudes based on positive feedback received from parents, students, and staff.
- These changes have created a higher efficiency rate and faster service. For example:
- Students who have been at Pace for at least one term can now register online.
-Waiting lines are faster. Last semester, the lines were reportedly out the door, now OSA claims the lines are usually no longer than ten people.
- Degree Audits are now four months quicker.
-The amount of calls about transcript issues and the time it takes to deliver them have decreased. Last year OSA estimated there were about 70-80 calls a week and the time to ship a transcript was ten days. This year, the calls are down to approximately five a week with a three day delivery time.

Some changes, however, are a work in progress. Improvements currently being addressed are:
-Creating an additional way to measure student satisfaction.
-Learning more about the Banner system and using it to its full potential.
-Hiring a staff member focused on transcripts.
-Transforming written documents, such as high school transcripts, and change of major/grade forms into digital form.
- Installing Automated Call Distribution technology which would simplify the routing of calls from busy to less busy campuses in peak times.
-Setting up sessions between incoming and experienced students about handling paperwork.
-Hiring more experienced staff members.

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