Three Services of Note

Universities are complex organizations. Their primary mission is the educating the next generation, pushing the frontiers of human understanding and knowledge, and serving the larger community. Like all complex organizations, the primary mission is directly delivered by a subset of personnel, but indirectly by many.

What may not be fully salient to faculty and students, busy with their day to day activities, is that all of their work depends on a set of services that are provided by administrative staff. There are many such staff at a research university. They care for buildings and common spaces; they provide food, transportation, health and recreation services. Without the work of this staff, the faculty and students could not succeed in their joint endeavors.

This is a post to highlight the pandemic impact on three services, key to identifying enrolled students, supporting their academic progress, and serving them post-graduation – admissions, registrar, and financial aid functions. It’s a bit of a fan letter.

Traditionally, admissions services are involved in advertising, meeting with potential applicants to describe programs and visits to the campus, counseling potential applicants in completing the application process, supporting evaluation procedures, preparing decision letters, interacting with accepted students, hosting visits among accepted students answering questions about their future experiences. At the undergraduate level, these activities are centralized in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, and Schools’ deans’ offices. At the graduate level, individual degree programs partner with Graduate School staff on some of the duties. Much of this work is tailored to individual student needs.

The pandemic eliminated for some time organized campus visits. Stored videos and zoom interactions replaced in-person interactions. A staff expert at in-person interactions evolved their expertise to internet-mediated communication. To our initial surprise, applications to Georgetown continued to grow; indeed, at the graduate level, Georgetown received an unprecedented volume of applications. The applications led to increased throughput by all those involved in admissions/recruitment/enrollment. Hiring of new staff did not keep up with this increased workflow, so our colleagues in these offices took on more work.

As one would expect, the larger volume of students affected the financial aid staff as well. But, in addition, their work was increased by the effects of the recession in the initial months of the pandemic. Households of many students experienced job loss and reduced income. At the undergraduate level, where Georgetown has pledged to meet full need, those changed financial circumstances led to unprecedented requests for reconsideration of aid packages. Staff in these offices faced large numbers of incoming emails, telephone calls, and zoom sessions. Further, while Georgetown attempted to be generous in dispersing CARES act monies to students, that, too, was a task unprecedented requiring speed, great care and effort by financial aid staff.

Finally, the registrar’s office was also rocked by the pandemic. As the steward of classroom spaces, the Classroom Educational Technology Services (CETS) group was at the center of upgrading the technology in all the classrooms, facilitating the possibility of internet-assisted instruction of a variety of sorts. Then, we asked the registrar’s office to plan and replan the use of classrooms over the early months of the pandemic. Georgetown offers thousands of courses in hundreds of teaching spaces. Changing the configuration of seating requires careful coordination across times of day and days of the week. Then, once a plan was chosen, the registrar’s office partnered with facilities staff to move desks across the campus – an enormous task. Not many students and faculty (and indeed other staff) were aware of the successful management of such activities.

All of us – students, staff, and faculty – have had to work very differently over the past two years, quickly adapting to changed circumstances. Some of the changes are quite visible to all of us. Others are visible to only a few in the community. These three functions of a university, among others, make the tasks of other staff, students, and faculty easier. They continued to support us all through uncharted territory. They deserve our thanks.