John Jay College’s
At our school John Jay College some department are located separately and rest are located in one place. The departments that are located separately are: counselor’s office and major departments. Rest of department is all located at “one stop”. “One stop” is a service that was created for students to conduct multiple departments’ functions in one central location. “The ONE STOP at John Jay College provides Admissions, Bursar, Registrar, as well as Financial Aid, and Testing services and functions in one convenient location.
The ONE STOP is a fast paced, high volume office that provides friendly, quality, and accurate information to students, faculty, staff and the community in general. We are the face of John Jay to anyone that walks into the North Hall building seeking assistance”. (One Stop) One stop suppose to help people to answer any questions they have faster. However, there are problems with it. It is very important to fix problems with “one stop”. Waiting in line to ask a question at John Jay College’s one stop takes up a lot of time and students often leave without having all of their problems addressed.
This is a problem that must be corrected. Enrollment management and college administration come in a variety of service models ranging from ‘centralized approach, such as an enrollment management unit under a senior administrator… to a highly decentralized approach, such as an enrollment management committee (Forest & Kinser, p. 192). Kramer and Gardner (2007) have highlighted the fact that approximately 80% of the earnings come from student enrollment. A reduction in the enrollments has an adverse effect on the institution’s capacity to retain staff and provide high standards of education (p.
102). The two-fold effort of educational institutions is to provide: • Education services to a diverse student population and • Revenue earning through the effort The dramatic increase in the number of educational options available to the students makes it necessary for the institution to focus on providing administrative services with the convenience of the student community being uppermost. Some thinkers have put forward the concept of involving students in the task of enrollment management and college administration to improve the level of student-institution fit.
Kramer and Gardner quote Astin’s (1968) suggestion that There are somewhat distinct peer environments, classroom environments, administrative environments, and physical environments – each of which shapes student behaviors. The more student activities are consistent with the norms embedded in these environments, the greater the degree of student-institution fit (2007, p. 101-105). The authors further highlight the finding that the chances of students dropping out of studies is particularly high in the absence of this ‘student institution fit’.
They emphasize the need for creating socializing agents to aid the students in their transition to college and creating a culture of caring for the students. ‘One-stop shopping’ became a buzz phrase on many campuses with large numbers of commuting or working students. The emphasis on convenience can be critical – research has clearly shown that working students’ enrollment and persistence are strongly influenced by negative experiences like having to spend time away from work or family to wait in line at the registrar’s window’ (Forest & Kinser, 2002, p. 194).
The need to provide easy enrollment to a diverse student population requires significant collaborative efforts among several college departments to meet the goals of admission and retention especially in profit oriented educational institutions. Use of modern communication facilities like the internet provides students with a snapshot of guidelines and clarifications to students. The University of Technology Sydney provides a one-stop student administration website that provides individual information about courses taken and withdrawn from, progress status, web-based forms for entering new courses and study and reference links.
This virtual form of one-stop administration is utilized to carry out course enrollments and provide students with progress feedback. Bureaucratic organization Manning, Kinzie & Schuh (2006) have stated that institutions adopting a student services approach can use an administrative perspective as the logic for organizing programs and functions. Institutions provide ‘functional silos’ and ‘student services’ and place the administrative perspective at the center of student affairs. They find that centers of higher education prefer to stay with the bureaucratic model of organization.
The specialization inherent in this model allows for efficiency but the flaw of low integration provides an experience of ‘red tape’. Coordination of efforts between different specializations provides for a highly connected organization wherein different silos work towards a common goal (p. 61). These efforts are capable of reducing the inconvenience to the student community. University of Miami follows the concept of ‘cradle to grave’ that starts from the moment of first contact by the student and continues right through till the stage of graduation. This concept is successfully implemented and aids the faculty, staff and student community.
Participation into the Enrollment Management program is invited for those who want to gain perspectives in higher education. Bradica (2001) has mentioned that historically, enrollment management stopped once the formalities of entering into the course were completed. There was no perceived need to work on student retention to contain drop-outs. However, market and community pressure and criticism from parents and students led to the evolution of the function to involve activities that allow the student community’s comfort and the capability of the institution to meet its fiscal targets.
The function converted to a concept that covered the gamut of activities like campus management and higher coordination. The president of the institute, faculty, staff and maintenance department found it necessary to coordinate their efforts and represent a holistic view to the community and parents. Creative initiatives were designed to impress visitors with the capacity of the institute to create and manage a variety of programs both within and external to the curriculum.
Research institutions provide online aid to their students with details for development and submission of grant proposals. The site of Ivan Allen College provides a one stop shop for research administrative needs. The University of London has drafted a proposal for re-organizing some part of the administration process to provide a single department that is responsible for marketing the college and selecting students and another department for student registration and providing central support services to aid student retention in the academic course.
The first department is responsible for a host of functions that include: brand management and maintenance, information gathering on competitor practice, coordinate with academic departments to ensure an attractive education program. The second department is responsible for advising students on appropriate academic courses and maintains the integrity of the institute’s selection criteria. This sort of bureaucratic model is designed to cater to student needs while protecting the image and brand value of the educational institution.
Student engagement model Harvard Student Agencies Inc. (HSA) is a non-profit organization run by students for residents of the Harvard community: faculty, staff and students. It was established in 1957 with the mission of providing top quality jobs to students of Harvard with practical business experience. For those interested in strategy and operations, managerial roles are available while technical and design specialists find work to suit their skills and sales roles allow students to hone their networking capabilities.
The agency provides services in bartending and serving, laundry, landscaping, moving, advertising campaign design and implementation and part-time jobs for those with very limited expendable time. Students are provided experiences of: • Learning as they earn and pay their way through the course and understand real world business and working • Experience the impact of business decisions and take responsibility of every action taken • Getting to know people on the campus and contact with future business leaders
• Balancing academics, work and social life in normal, everyday settings In the course of working with the agency, students are given the exposure to managing employees, market research, business planning and strategy, budgeting, analyze financials, negotiation and relationship management. While this model does not account for enrollment, it takes student engagement into day to day administration and converts it into a focused learning experience that is useful to the student at the time of approaching job opportunities.
CONCLUSION The utilization of the one-stop shop model is commonly seen in colleges that offer distance learning programs enabling online courses and examinations and courses that cater to a diverse population of working students. The utilization of web technology and online registrations and payments is useful in aiding the student in saving time on the administrative tasks that are connected with the course that is undertaken.
Student involvement provides administrative perspective while creating sensitivity and igniting innovativeness in getting things done more effectively. In bureaucratic models, it is often seen that students find ways to avoid ‘getting stuck in the red tape’ by communicating and networking with a select few who can help the machinery to move faster. Similarly, the utilization of the students in the enrollment programs can lead to the creation of new ways of working. However, this is an area to be considered in line with the culture of the institution.
If the culture is not open to an approach that allows change from the student community to impact its administrative working, it is preferable to avoid utilizing the student involvement method. References Enrollment management at the University of Miami. University of Miami. Retrieved April 27, 2009 from http://www6. miami. edu/UMH/CDA/UMH_Main/0,1770,3564-1,00. html Forest, James J. F. & Kinser, Kevin (2002). Higher Education in the United States: An encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. Harvard Student Agencies, Inc. Retrieved April 27, 2009 from http://www. harvardstudentagencies.
com/corporate/agencies. asp Jones, Hugh (2009). Re-organisation of the Administration – final proposals. Goldsmiths, University of London. Homepages. gold. ac. uk. Kramer, Gary L. & Gardner, John N. (2007). Fostering Student Success in the Campus Community. John Wiley and Sons. Manning, Kathleen, Kinzie, Jillian L. & Schuh, John H. (2006). One Size Does Not Fit All: Traditional And Innovative Models Of Student Affairs Practice. CRC Press. University of Technology Sydney (2008). Retrieved April 27, 2009 from http://www. uts. edu. au/onestop/studentadmin/
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