February 2011 Archives

As the graduate education student administrative processes project moves forward, ASR and the Graduate School will employ an incremental approach to review current Graduate School processes and create new processes that incorporate collegiate responsibility.

This means that, as a general rule, current procedures maintained by the Graduate School will remain in place until representatives from ASR and/or the Graduate School can document, analyze, and assist with implementing redesigned processes that better fit a decentralized model. New processes will be developed in collaboration with collegiate units and/or academic programs. Transitions of work or responsibility will be preceded by communication to and/or training for affected individuals.

From a student services perspective, this general principle is especially important when it comes to matters related to degree progress and degree clearance. We anticipate that existing Graduate School procedures for degree progress and degree clearance will remain in place at least through the 2011-2012 academic year.

For an overview of the work involved in the student administrative processes part of the transition, along with key transition dates, visit the Work in Progress page on the project website.

As a part of the graduate education transformation, the student administrative processes project is the framework through which administrative tasks related to graduate education will be reviewed, new processes will be created, and (where appropriate) responsibilities will be transitioned to the collegiate or other units.

The list of administrative tasks that will be reviewed as a part of this project has been revised, categorized into seven basic topic areas, and assigned target beginning and completion dates. That information is available in this project plan spreadsheet on the project website.

As you review this spreadsheet, please keep in mind:

• This project plan will be in constant development as processes are reviewed and new information is discovered. The spreadsheet on the website will be updated once per week.
• Processes may be added or removed as work progresses. 
• Specific dates will very likely be adjusted as work progresses.
  

Near the end of fall 2010, a transition team made up of staff from colleges, academic programs, ASR, and the Graduate School reviewed the current procedures for approving or denying certain registration exceptions for Graduate School students. That group determined that this process should be transitioned to an online format, using the software product Workflow Gen.

In January, a Workflow Gen project team was created. This core team, made of up ASR and Graduate School staff, is meeting with groups of staff from colleges and academic programs to review and revise a streamlined process draft. The first meeting with stakeholders from three colleges (held on February 2) generated significant useful feedback. That feedback will be incorporated into the next process draft, which will be reviewed by all colleges over the next few weeks.

Once the revised process has been finalized, development in Workflow Gen will begin. The project will be complete before fall 2011. To review documents as they are completed, visit the Registration Exceptions page on the project website.