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Monday, September 21, 2015

Update on system One Stop meetings

After the upgrade, representatives from the various One Stop offices across the system decided to start a working group similar to the SR, FA, and SF functional steering committees to discuss and work through issues that face students and other customers. The group has started to meet every other week on Thursday afternoons. Representatives from each campus are: Jill Beauregard & Lori Kurpiers (UMM), Brenda Herzig & Jody O'Connor (UMD), Laura Walker (UMR), Melissa Dingmann (UMC), and Carrie Otto & Nate Peterson (UMTC).

One Stop Student Services begins with a busy start of the term

One Stop's fall traffic has been feeling the effects of upgrade related changes in business processes and systems problems. Within the week prior and the first week of classes there were 6,058 calls answered, 6,566 walk-ins, and 6,677 emails sent to customers. Overall, this is approximately a 15% increase in traffic from last year at the start of the term.

Destiny One Registration System (DORS) update

The Destiny One Registration System (DORS) is live and the rollout continues across the University community. There are currently 9 units live in production with 12 more testing and soon to be live. There have been over 200 users trained in the system and the interest keeps growing. Duluth will be the first system campus to utilize the new solution. A few additional fun facts to date:

  • $395,000 in registration revenue 
  • 1,423 enrollments in 107 different courses and 179 sections

If you are interested to learn more about this solution visit our website or contact us at dorshelp@umn.edu.

Office of the Registrar (Twin Cities) - September 2015

In addition to supporting the Bundle 38 regs release, SR IT has several initiatives that we are looking forward to delivering soon including: a new Mid Term Roster Report for Advisees; improvements to the Official Degree Granted report and the Discontinued Students Report; a fix for deleting Education Abroad data; Student Attribute update process setup fix (QBU); correction to auto drop Facility ID (room) for class changes when appropriate.  Also, transfer credit backbridge issues continue to be a focus.

ASR-IT (Twin Cities) - September 2015

The BA's are working on getting Bundle 38 (Regs 4) tested for September 27,migration date. And along with the bundle, FA has production fixes going in for MSG, Work Study and FA Term for the september implementation. The Student Financials team continues to work with each campus to refine the setup for the payment plans. A production fix for the issues with the direct deposit set-up for adding a bank account is also being tested.

Rochester Updates - September 2015

Updates/Projects

Finish in 4 Scholarship Gift
A gift from a Rochester area businessman helped the University of Minnesota Rochester reach a milestone with a gift that puts total donations received since the school opened in 2006 at more than $1 million.

Sophomore Suppers
Recognizing the challenges that sophomores encounter, UMR has created the Sophomore Supper Series—a free, sophomore-only monthly event that is part of a broader Student Stress Inoculation initiative. The first event, held September 8 at the People’s Co-op with the theme of nutrition, was well received by students.

Comings & goings

New Hires

  • Barry Standorf - Facilities & Operations Coordinator
  • Cassandra Bologna - Executive Office and Administrative Specialist - Human Resources
  • Crosby King - Admissions Representative
  • John Hachtel - Director of Marketing and Communications
  • Rachel Nguyen - Admissions Representative
  • Robert Reese - Health CORE Coordinator
  • Will Harmon - Residential Life Director


Morris Updates - September 2015

Kudos

UMM named a Top Public Liberal Arts College
U.S. News and World Report has released its 2016 college rankings, naming UMM one of the nation's Top Public Liberal Arts Colleges. This is the 17th consecutive year in which UMM has been included on this list. The campus also was included on the "A-Plus Schools for B Students" and "Foreign Student Factor" lists.

Duluth Updates - September 2015

Updates/ Projects

Records

  • The Reverse Transfer project with Lake Superior College will begin next month. 
  • The ELSi program at UMD will begin spring 2016. 
  • UMD successfully supported the new MN Board of Teaching requirements for spring and summer graduates but is interested in confirming what other campuses having students do in order to comply. 
  • This week the ABET accreditation team was on campus. Their questions for the Registrar centered around prerequisite checking, enforcement of prerequisites and exception decisions.  
  • Duluth is looking forward to seeing demo of APLUS and learning from the implementation experiences of our colleagues. 
  • Associate Professor Jill Jenson has been appointed the director of the Center for Writing and Learning Excellence; there are some exciting collaborations underway in this area. 

Student Finance
The ECSI to Campus Partners conversion has been delayed by one month; the conversion will now happen on November 1. Implementation planning is already in progress.

Kudos

Among the top in the region
UMD is ranked 7th on the list of Top Public Schools in the Midwest in U.S. News and World Report's "Best Colleges 2016." Placing 36th in Regional Universities Midwest, UMD also received high rankings for its business and engineering programs.

Comings & goings

  • Steve Keto has been hired as the vice chancellor for finance and operations. A UMD alumnus, he most recently worked as the associate vice chancellor at North Carolina State University, where he oversaw the Budget Office, Controller's Office, Office of Contracts and Grants, and Office of Cost Analysis. Keto begins Oct. 1
  • Melissa Honkola has been hired as the director of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity. 


Crookston Updates - September 2015

Updates/Projects

Higher Learning Commission seeks public comment on UMC
University of Minnesota Crookston is seeking comments from the public about the University in preparation for its periodic evaluation by its regional accrediting agency. UMC will host a November 9-11 visit with a team representing the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association. Learn more >

Transcript Evaluation
Transcript evaluation will be transitioning from Admissions to the Office of the Registrar during the fall semester.  A job description is being developed and will be posted in the next few weeks.

Kudos

UMC in U.S. News rankings
For the 18th consecutive year, the University of Minnesota Crookston ranks among the top public colleges according to U.S. News and World Report's "Best Colleges 2016." The campus placed second in the Midwest Top Public Regional Colleges category. Additionally, the campus ranked 34th nationally in the Best Online Degree Programs category and 29th in the category, Best Online Bachelor's Programs for Veterans. Learn more >

Analytics & Data Integration

Analytics & Data Integration is one of this year's formal communities of practice (fCoPs). As part of the annual IT governance process, fCoPs are developed by IT leadership and charged with specific work and clear scope. The Analytics & Data Integration fCoP is being led by Ingrid Nuttall. This fCoP will improve the University's ability to make data-driven decisions by researching common business needs, sharing best practices, and creating enterprise service recommendations around data integration and end-user analytics. Kick-off meeting: September 21 at 10 a.m. in HHH-50B. Join the Google group.

Board of Regents meeting held September 10-11

Agenda items of interest:

  • University Progress Card – President Kaler presented for Board review the University Progress Card, a new university-specific benchmarking and goal-setting tool for driving progress at the U of M.
  • Affirmative consent – The Board ratified changes to the administrative policy Sexual Assault, Stalking and Relationship Violence.
  • Budget work session – The Board of Regents discussed fiscal year 2017 budget assumptions with CFO Richard Pfutzenreuter, Associate Vice President of Budget and Finance Julie Tonneson and President Eric Kaler, to initiate the University budgeting process.

Meeting  minutes have not been finalized, but will be posted on the Board of Regents website once ready.

September 17: Constitution Day

On September 17, higher education institutions around the United States honored the U.S. Constitution for Constitution Day. So, just how important is the U.S. Constitution? Do you know how it was created? Can you imagine being one of the founding fathers who helped shape an entire nation with their words and ideas more than 200 years ago?

The importance of the U.S. Constitution to these United States of America can’t be overstated. From its inception in 1789, this ever-changing (27 amendments) document has served as the backbone of the laws that govern our country. Find out more about the U.S. Constitution or take a quiz to find out what founding father you are.

Big change to Federal Aid Application

President Barack Obama took executive action on Sunday, September 13 to allow the use of prior-prior year (PPY) tax information on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Using two-years prior tax information on the FAFSA (as opposed to one-year prior information) will increase the form’s accuracy and give families an earlier and more accurate idea of their anticipated financial aid and college costs.

Beginning with the FAFSA for the 2017-18 academic year students will be able to submit their FAFSA applications as early as October 1, 2016, rather than January 1, 2017 – a move that will allow them to see their federal aid offers sooner, and ideally make better-informed decisions when applying to college.
With the switch to PPY, students and families will be able to:

  • File the FAFSA earlier. The FAFSA is made available January 1 of each calendar year, yet it is uncommon for a family or individual to be prepared to file an income tax return in the month of January. Under the new PPY system, the 2017-18 FAFSA will be available in October 2016, rather than January 1, 2017, and students can use the PPY’s completed income tax return.
  • More easily submit a FAFSA. The IRS Data Retrieval Tool (DRT), which allows automatic population of a student’s FAFSA with tax return data and decreases the need for additional documentation, can be used by millions more students and families under PPY, since tax data from two-years prior would be readily available upon application.
  • Receive earlier notification of financial aid packages. If students apply for aid earlier, colleges can in turn provide financial aid notifications to students earlier, ensuring that students and families have more time to prepare for college costs. Early notification also means more time for financial aid administrators to counsel students and families. 

In the near future we will start our institutional conversations about what this means for us. More updates will be provided as we know more.

Perkins Loan Program

The University of Minnesota is one of approximately 1,700 public and private U.S. colleges and universities where low-income undergraduate and graduate students borrow money from their schools through the Federal Perkins Loan. However, this option may soon expire. Without congressional approval to reauthorize the Federal Perkins Loan, the program will end September 30 of this year.

The University has packaged and offered Perkins per usual but the September 30 deadline means that first time Perkins borrowers will need to have their Perkins money disbursed prior to the September 30 deadline. Students who have had a Perkins loan disbursed on or before June 30, 2015 are grandfathered into the program as long as they remain in the same academic program.

Daily updates

With the busy start of the year and issues popping up, we want to make sure that we share information broadly, but do not further inundate you with multiple messages. We have a process in place for providing early alerts of reported issues via the ASR Emergency list where each campus is represented. And as of this fall, we have begun providing further follow up and updates to the All Campus group daily (as needed). We hope this both consolidates the information and ensures everyone is aware of both issues and progress toward resolutions.

Sue's Update - September 2015

I appreciate everyone working through the many issues that have arisen during the last few weeks and keeping the focus on serving the students. I told the executives that the student stream would not feel the true impacts of the upgrade until fall term. However, I didn’t anticipate all of the system issues which I apologize to all of you. I usually have contingencies ready for our processes and did not plan well this time. I do appreciate the OIT staff working 24/7 for two weeks to address the problems as quickly as possible. They were relentless on trying to solve the issues and reached out immediately to Oracle, IntraSee, and GreyHeller which I appreciated. I know this was hard on all of you as well and we will evaluate and plan for registration later this fall as well as look at how we can make the start of spring flawless. Thank you for working as one University team.

Eleanor's update - September 2015

Happy fall term—and what a start it’s been! Do you need something to look forward to?  Preparation for the fall All Campus in-person meeting is underway. The invitation and lodging information will be shared this week with a drafted agenda to follow.

As the agenda is coming together it’s clear to see we are in a period of adjustment as we fully exercise the PS V9 system. You’ll see many of the topics for the meeting are from our post go-live lists, but there are a few new items that we’ve encountered with the start of fall term; this includes several cross functional topics.

We have some work to do but if any group can pull together and figure it out, make a plan, and execute to a successful resolution for students, you are the group working together that has always gotten the job done.

Since not everyone can attend in-person, there will be remote access via WebEx for the All Campus meeting on Tuesday morning. Whenever possible, each team will be offering Google hangout for sessions; check the agenda to see which sessions will offer remote access.

There is a great deal of information to share, and teams will have lots to work on but don’t dismay, even with all the work there will be time for networking opportunities. I am looking forward to our gathering next month!