The University of Wyoming Registrar’s Office recently underwent reorganization its internal structure, adding new roles and responsibilities in a bid to better serve students.
The Registrar, which serves the largest percentage of the student body of any UW office, announced Jan. 29 it will reassign some positions to coordinate better with Central Scheduling on classroom locations and to improve access to Distance Education courses. The department is primarily responsible for class registration, transcripts and degree evaluations.
“The Registrar’s Office has not been organized to function optimally,” said Kyle Moore, assistant vice provost for Enrollment Management. “We’re putting our focus on re-optimizing the Office, so that we can improve the level of service for students.”
Two employees from the Central Scheduling Office and one employee from the Office of Distance Education Support have been transferred to the Office of the Registrar. In addition, various employees of the Registrar’s Office have been given new titles and responsibilities, and current Head Registrar Lane Buchanan has been named senior associate registrar as the university searches for a new Head Registrar.
“We’re aligning Central Scheduling with the Registrar’s Office,” said Moore. “By aligning our schedule capabilities, we hope to present a better experience to students.”
Central Scheduling is the UW department that decides what rooms are allocated to certain classes at varying times. Until this change, Central Scheduling did not work with the Registrar’s Office in any major way to better utilize UW’s classrooms.
Moore hopes that the Registrar’s Office will work further with Central Scheduling to make sure that student’s classrooms are closer together. Before this change, students that were taking required classes right after one another could expect to see those classes scheduled on opposite sides of campus. With this reorganization, Moore expects that classrooms for required classes will be closer together.
“When it’s cold and windy like this, we don’t want students running all the way across campus. We’d like to prioritize the student experience, and by bringing all these points of impact under one roof, we hope to streamline things,” said Moore.
In addition, the Office of Distance Education Support will work closely with the Registrar’s Office to ensure that professional development and non-credit coursework is easier to access.
Moore oversees a myriad of departments, all of which are related to enrollment. He looks for opportunities to optimize the duties of these departments along with staff members hoping to do the same. This reorganization is the newest in many strategies that are focused on giving these departments attention, and more departments will be evaluated in the future.
“We’re still pretty new here at UW, so our role is still in flux,” said Moore. “We have to make sure that we don’t settle for good, but that we aim for great, so that this reorganization can be successful.”
