Self Study - Maharishi University of Management

S E L F - S T U D Y R E P O R T 2 0 0 9 173
In the last decade, one-stop registration has been offered as a combined function of the
Registrar’s Office, the Financial Aid Office, the Student Accounts Office, the Housing Office,
and the Mailroom. The time required for registration by most students is now about 15 minutes.
Transcripts are provided upon written request. The typical turnaround time has been reduced
from one week to two days due to an electronic, automated system.
REGISTRAR DATABASE DEVELOPMENT AND SUPPORT
MUM staff member Matt Jaffey programmed the Registrar’s RAMA database in MS Access and
has maintained and improved it for more than a decade. The Registrar staff are very pleased with
it. The graduation module in RAMA provides excellent support to staff doing graduation checks.
Through RAMA, the front desk staff can send faculty class lists in both Word and Excel by email
at the touch of a button. We looked into purchasing a registration package from a commercial
vendor, only to find that the $150,000 package did not have a module to do degree checks or
classroom assignments, nor could it handle a separate accounting of grades for instructional
courses and Development of Consciousness courses.
When the staff noticed that many drop-add requests occurred when students discovered
unexpected fees for courses (e.g., art supplies, lab, or field trips), the staff asked that the Schedule
of Courses show fees, prerequisites and class size limits, and this was easily programmed into
RAMA.
RAMA can generate customized reports of almost any type. When the Database Programmer
receives a request, he creates a report generator the staff can then run from their desktops at any
time. For example, as enrollment began to grow in some departments several years ago, reports
were requested on class sizes by course and by degree program and were easily executed through
RAMA.
In the recent past, the Registrar had one staff person focused on preparing IPEDS reports and
the many other state, national, and general voluntary reports (Peterson’s Guide, College Board,
College News) that must be completed each year. Beginning in the spring of 2008, the Database
Programmer began creating report generators for the eight IPEDS reports.
EVALUATION OF THE REGISTRAR FUNCTION
There is not currently a systematic means for evaluating the Registrar’s performance. At a small
university such as MUM, the office personnel know many of the students by sight and are in
regular contact with them. Student satisfaction with the Registrar’s function could be evaluated as
part of an overall assessment of the level of customer service at the University.
Academic Advising
Every student has an academic advisor in the Registrar’s Office to help design an appropriate
course of study. The academic advisors are experts both in general education graduation
requirements and in the requirements for each major.