Casey Bullock (Weber State University) on The Future of a Student Centric Registrar's Office

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, host Amrit Ahluwalia was joined by Casey Bullock to discuss the importance of understanding the new learner demographic emerging in higher ed and how to create a more accessible experience. 

Transcript

Voiceover (00:00): Welcome to Illumination by Modern Campus, the leading podcast focused on transformation and change in the higher education space. On today’s episode, we speak with Casey Bullock, who is Executive Director of Enrollment Services and University Registrar, Weber State University. Casey and podcast host Amrit Ahluwalia discuss the importance of understanding the new learner demographic emerging in higher ed and how to create a more accessible experience. 

Amrit Ahulwalia (00:02): Casey Bullock, welcome to the Illumination Podcast, man. Thanks so much for joining me.

Casey Bullock (00:06): It's great to be here.

Amrit Ahulwalia (00:08): So now for those of you who are familiar with The EvoLLLution, may have seen Casey's interview that we published last year we're going to be hitting on, on a lot of those topics because Casey's got some really interesting perspectives on, on the evolving role, the registrar and this sort of transforming space are also very active with, with AACRAO. I'm going to kick off just by asking you, you know, how would you describe the registrar's office current landscape and sort of how it's evolved over the past decade?

Casey Bullock (00:37): You know, that's a really good question. Because right now I, my, my general feeling about the registrar's office that we're all kind of dealing with is having to deal with a mass amount of data that we are trying to mine in a way to get answers to questions that we had bef that we've had all along. And never at a point in registrar history have, we had so much data at our fingertips. But it's almost to a point that it's overwhelming that we don't know what to do with this data or how to organize this data so that it's digestible. It's just a ton of data that's on top of us, which in the past we've had that data, but we're now starting to get into this predictive analytics side of things. And I think that we are starting to get more sophisticated in how we are approaching our own students, because you can read an article and it can be somewhat generalizable to your student base, but what we found was we need to ask specific questions for our students at our institutions, because our students are a little bit different than other institutions, just like other institutions.

Students are going to be different than ours. So I, I think it's really important to consider your own students in this data evolution that's happening and try to answer the research questions that are specific to, to your student body. And so as I've talked with other registrars, that this kind of seems like the, the general theme that's been happening over the years. 

Amrit Ahluwalia (02:36): You know, it's so interesting.  I mean, I think this is, it's an issue that's affecting almost every corner of post-secondary institutions today is, you know, we, not to cast dispersions, but <laugh>, but I think we've, we've run on sort of gut feel and ego for the better part of, of two or three centuries. And it's served us, you know, okay, as an industry. But with all the data that that's becoming available, the biggest issue is, is not so much is the data available. And I feel like that's, you know, something we see more and more of, like, you know, make sure that you have this data, make sure you have this data, but no one's really talking about how to analyze it, and no one's really talking about how to ignore it. You know, you, you mentioned predictive analytics. What are some of the pros and cons that you see the leveraging predictive analytics from, from where you sit as in the registrar's office?

Casey Bullock (03:24): Yeah, so  I think the biggest challenge when we started to get into predictive analytics is that we have data points in different databases that we have to try to pull out, match together to try to get some understanding of analytics. So the big one that I think most registrars are struggling with is the supply and demand of courses. And that's a really difficult equation to get to because you essentially have to predict what's in the student's mind of what they want to do. We're a very open enrollment institution at, we're at Weaver State, and we can't often predict what our students are going to do from semester to semester, but we can start to build in some data points that can help us get answers to those questions. And so you have your degree evaluation system that's going to provide some information for you.

(04:22) You're going to have past history that's going to provide some information for you. It's, it's a question of how do we get those things together to really understand what are what predictive analytics that we can get. So we know that this is how many sections of English that we need to offer in a semester or let's better utilize our resources that not many students are interested in this class but they are interested in another class that fills the same requirement. Let's, let's reallocate resources. And I think that's one of the more difficult parts of our department is they want to offer the classes. They just don't have the resources to offer the amount that may be needed, but they also don't know if their resources could be better utilized. And that comes down to these predictive analytics of saying, here, here's what your demand is going to be for this course. Yeah.

Amrit Ahluwalia (05:24): Well, it's, it's interesting, right? Because what, there's two pieces that you're kind of referencing here. One is the operational change required for, for a modern registrar's office. And the second is how to shape or reshape the, the post-secondary institution to be more responsive to students. And in a lot of ways, those two things go hand in hand. And I'm curious, you know, as you think about some of the traditions of the registrar's office, like what are some of the, the, the, the cultural I icons those, the status quo elements of the way the registrar's office works that needs to start to transform if we're going to really serve the needs of modern learners?

Casey Bullock (06:05): Yeah. So the history of the registrars, we're kind of the curmudgeons of the campus, right? My answer is no. But I think we have to evolve as a registrar's office to look at policy from what can we do and what can't, rather than what can't we do. We have to get out of our own way with some of the technology that we need to have in place. And the example that I would give of this is when, when I came into the registrar's office in the first two weeks of school, we had lines going out the door, and I was kind of like, why, why do we have so many? Why do we have such a big line going out the door? We were, we were going out and triaging the line because sometimes they would wait a half hour to get to our front, front desk and then realize they didn't have a signature, or they didn't have something that they needed, so they had to go back and, and that you're just really upsetting students.

(07:09) And so we really started to dig in and find out what questions were they actually asking, what were they trying to do? And a big portion of the line was graduation applications. And so we said, there's got to be a better way and more convenient way for students to, to apply for graduation. And so we built an online graduation system so that they can apply for graduation. So that cut down the line quite significantly. The other question that they were asking for was transcripts. And so they were, they were coming to the window to order the transcripts. We had to send them up to the cashier's office to pay the fee, come back down with the receipt, and then we can print the transcript for them. And so with, with services like National Student Clearinghouse, or some of these other transcript services that are out there, that's helped us eliminate the, the need to actually come in and ask for ask for a transcript because they can just go online, order it themselves.

(08:20) And then the third question, that was kind of a big one, because we saw an uptick in the second week. And for, for Weber State, we, we allow students to register for, for classes up until the Friday of the first week. After the first week. They have to get instructor permission to get in. And so we had these purple slips that I just despised because they were just they just weren't great. And it was called an ad drop slip, but most of the campus called it a purple slip that they needed. And so the student had to go to the, to the department, to the professor to request permission. The department would have to get the instructor's signature saying yes, they, they could be allowed into the course. And then they had to have a department stamp on it.

(09:15) Reason why for the stamp was, we know that the student can't forge the stamp, but they can forge the signature. That that's fine, but, and then the student had to take that slip back to our office and then we could go register them for the class. And so we, we really were like, this has got to change. And so we were looking at, well, how do we solve this issue? Because do we, do we create an online system that we can go back and forth in? And one of my staff members was like, you know, what we can do is leave registration open and then just change all the classes to instructor approval. Then all the instructor has to do is put in an override and the student can register themselves for the class. And it was such a simple thing, but it was so brilliant.

(10:06) I didn't have to create anything. Only thing I had to create was a script that changed all my courses to instructor approval after the first week of class. And so all these things in place that we had are, we barely have a line out there during the first couple weeks of school. This has made it so that we've had, we've had to transition what our services are, are now going to be, because students don't have the need to come in. But that student that does come in, usually their needs are quite significant. And, and we're there now to be able to address those issues.

Amrit Ahluwalia (10:48): You know, it's interesting. And for those, you know, the, those of you who follow the research that we do at Modern Campus, we've done we did a report last year with, with AACRAO on the evolving role of registrars and enrollment affairs leaders and sort of their perceptions on the industry and where they see the space going. And one of the things that came out of that was that registrars feel that they have a larger role to play in, you know, driving student enrollment in supporting student retention. And this is an example of how a registrar's office can start to make a real difference in, in a student. Because, you know, if a student has some serious problems, they might not be up for waiting an hour to two hours in a line, but if they're able to, to get, get helped and, and to, to be working with staff that aren't dealing with 50 or 60 of the same manual repetitive tasks, you know, there's really more of an opportunity for the registrar's office to make an impact.

Casey Bullock (11:45): And we started to ask the question. So back when I was doing my graduate work, I read, read this article by Pierre Bau he was a French author but he kind of coined this phrase of cultural capital. And it was kind of an interesting concept to me because I, I can apply that today of what that actually is. So cultural capital is having the knowledge of how something works. And so if I get invited to a fancy dinner party I may not have attended one of those, so I would lack the culture capital about how to act, what fork to use, all that type of stuff. And so we're requiring students to come to higher education with a large amount of cultural capital. And so what we've really started to kind of look at from a registrar's perspective is, is how much do we require the student to understand the structure of the institution?

(12:48) So to get your major, if you want to change your major, you've got to go talk to the department. Well, you have to know what a department is first. And you have to know what a, what a college is within the institution. And that was something that we realized our students didn't really understand. They, they kind of understood it, but they really didn't understand it because we had asked, what college are you in? They'll be like, Weber State. And it was like, no, like school business, like health professions. Yeah. Like, what college are you in? And they, and that concept wasn't something that they understood. And that's what kind of triggered me to go, how much are we requiring them to know about our campus to get things done? And is there a better way that we can do it and provide services so that they don't have to have as much cultural capital to, to navigate it.

Amrit Ahluwalia (13:42): What have you done to, to address it? Because you know, this is, that is not a unique challenge. You know, we hear about that time and again, especially as it's becoming more and more important for higher ed institutions to create access to underserved traditionally underserved communities. You have significant numbers of first generation students. You have significant numbers of, of students who stop in and stop out and might not have that, that cultural alignment with what's required in a modern post-secondary institution. How have you addressed that, that obstacle?

Casey Bullock (14:12): You know, there we have, part of our mission here is that we want to meet students where they're at. And it, it's an interesting topic of what does that actually mean? What do we, what do we mean when we meet students where they're at? And I think it's understanding the generation that's coming in that what we're competing with. And so we're competing with industry like Amazon or, or Google or Apple, that they've designed their systems so that it's convenient the shopping cart concept with Amazon and checking out even creating this subscription. So it's very intuitive of, of how they interact with that, that institution. And they do not want to call anybody can I get it done by going online? Can I do a chat? Can I do a text message? And so those are really things that we started to consider is, is how do we meet students where they're at?

(15:12) And so I've, I've coined a phrase on my campus that's that our, our services need to pass the pajama test. And by the pajama test, it means that the student can do it in their pajamas from home. And so if we look at our services, it is like, well, are we requiring them to come in to speak specifically to one person or can they do this service at home? And so we've really gone through like all of our services and tried to figure out what can we do to get it to that point of a pajama test? And it requires IT resources, it requires some programming to, to kind of figure out how do we get that service out to them.

Amrit Ahluwalia (16:02): That's so interesting. Like what, what does the shift to a self-service model really require? Like, it's not really within the culture of a post-secondary institution, but we're starting to get into to elements of a, of a customer experience that are really mirroring a consumer experience, you know, a digital consumer experience specifically.

Casey Bullock (16:22): So I don't think higher education is quite understood yet. The amount of investment that you need in IT resources. And that's such a big deal in today's world of how do we get there because we're, we're all competing for the IT resources on, on our campus. And I could just have a, a team dedicated to my office so that I can resolve all these issues that I have in front of me. And so what I've started to do though, is kind of come up with, a product roadmap kind of in a way. But it's, it's more of, okay, let me develop a roadmap. Just like, just like our, our partners out there that provide services for us. They've, they've got a product roadmap out there of what their features are going to be and what's going to come out. And, and I started to do the same thing with, with my office of, okay, we need to get this project in place and following that project, this is going to be our next project.

And we can predict those out of like how long it's going to take going forward. But the challenge still is, is do we have the IT resources for that? But we, we do this evaluation of whether we need IT resources or can we get it done in a different way. And so we start to have those discussions about the planning of, okay, we want to create an academic petitions form that's online, easy accessible. And so the planning for that is actually going to probably take about a year to do just because it's so complicated. Because yeah, I can put doubt out in academic petitions, piece of software, but I need financial aid to be a part of that too, because Yeah. What we do affects financial aid and our cashier's office needs to be a part of it too, because what we both do affect cashiers. And so that, that planning kind of comes out. But as long as I know what's coming up on this roadmap, I know what project I need to do next in this environment. 

Amrit Ahluwalia (18:41): You know, one thing I'm curious about, cause I'd say we're talking a lot about advanced level concepts. I'd let you know, let, let's be honest. We're, we're, we're kind of framing out these ideas and they very much frame an interesting vision for the future of a registrar's office, especially at a student-centric institution. What's the baseline? Like, what's the infrastructure or the structure that you need to have in place in order to start innovating to this level? You've already mentioned sort of high-touch, high tech services in terms of making sure that students can address some of their own needs. They're able, you know, when they're coming into the office, if there's something significant, like what are some of those things.

Casey Bullock (19:22): So that's an interesting question because there, there's a lot there. I joked when I finished my PhD that I was going to go get a computer science degree, because that's kind of what's required of registrars now, is that you have to have a significant understanding of computer science principles and how data's stored and what structures of systems are. But it's now getting to a point that I need my staff to understand it at that level as well. It's no longer just processing widget A to widget B, that type of processing. It's, it's understanding how our systems work and how we can better utilize the system. And so I've told my staff that, or over specific areas like registration or records or graduation catalog and scheduling that they need to be the expert knowledge the funky tech in a way of those systems.

(20:31) And they need to understand it at that level. And they need, and, and if we need to provide training for them, we'll provide training. You know, it's, it's like I want to eventually get to my, to a point of my staff that they all understand PLC SQL so that, that they know how their data is being stored and, and how it can be pulled out. So the, the level of where the registrar's office has been at is that for decades we were this processing machine and it was people just processing things. I mean, I think back to, luckily I wasn't part of this generation, but I heard a lot about it, which was students would have to reg how they register for classes is that there was a registration day, they had all these tables set up in the gym, and they had these cards, and the student would go up there and say, I want to register for the class.

(21:28) And then, and then they would sign their name in on the card and then the registrar's office would take those back and then set them all up in the system. We then got a little bit more sophisticated. We got being able to register by telephone mm-hmm. and then we got even more sophisticated where we got to the point that it was online. So it's that that evolution of the registrar's office now is requiring the staff to be not just this processor, but to have a broader knowledge and a deeper understanding of how database systems work. So I think that's where it kind of starts. But if you don't have that, then it's, then we're really dependent on it to provide a lot of that for us to help us understand. And sometimes there's a disconnect between the, the functional user and the IT folks, because we understand how the screens work, but we may not understand how the data goes into the system and the, it knows how the data goes into the system, but they don't understand how the screen works or the policies behind it.

And so how do we, how do we merge those two things together to get a better understanding of how we look at our systems?

Amrit Ahluwalia (22:54): That is interesting. And, to that end, you know, one of the things that, that I see more and more of, you know obviously the evolution has its roots. And in the non-traditional education space, that's certainly, you know my background where we saw microcredentialing and non-degree credentialing really grow over the last decade, certainly the last, call it four or five decades, but we're starting to see a migration of those principles into what would be considered the main campus. Yeah. What role can or should the registrar be playing in championing alternative credentialing models? Like, you know, whether they're stackable, whether they're micro, whether they're, you know, pure certificates and where does that responsibility stop?

Casey Bullock (23:36): So the registrar if they're not already, and if any registrar's out there going, I'm not part of curriculum, you need to be part of curriculum. Because that's, that's one of the big components is that I can help guide faculty and department chairs about how they want to structure their curriculum. And so, an example of this is our master's of education program. We had in, we had curriculum and instruction, and then they wanted to add education leadership, higher education leadership and a couple of other areas. Well, the big question was well, if a student is already got a master's in curriculum and instruction are we going to make them go back and do a master's degree all over again to get the ED leadership? Because it's required by the state that you have to have that credential in place.

(24:49) And so that's where we started to kind of really kind of think about it and say, why don't we create a credential that's like a post bachelorette certificate in that area so that they can just come and get what they need and not have to redo the entire master's program. The other thing that we've now found students doing is that we set these up as kind of concentration areas. So they're a master's of education student, and then they can do curriculum and instruction, but they also can do ED leadership. And so they can pursue both at the same time without having to really do two master's degrees. And so I started to take that concept down even further, and I've been trying to challenge my departments to really think about what are the areas that a student needs to come back and retool, because education's always advancing.

(25:48) The information's always changed. And so what I learned in psychology in the, the early two thousands is not what we understand about psychology today. And so how do we provide opportunities for students to retool or to, to get a level of learning? Because what we're starting to see is the industry the employment industry is like, they want the soft skills, but they're like, they need to be able to perform these tasks. And so if students already got a bachelor's degree, and we have a lot of students that are like, well, I did what I thought I wanted to, so I did history, but they're not working in history, but they might need computer essentials for the type of job that they're doing. And so how do we provide that out to them so that they can do that?

(26:41) And then we're also trying to work with businesses. So we've got a professional sales program where we've contracted with one of our local cell phone companies about sales tactics and, and we're giving them college credit for it. We're giving them kind of this micro-credential certificate for it. But we're hoping that it's going to spark something in that student as, as they're getting into it going, I can do the full degree with this. And so that's where the stackable part comes in. It's like, if you've got something out there that's going to create a spark, what's that pathway to get to the degree to get to the bachelor's degree? Because that's ultimately what we want them to have. And so there's a lot there that we need to kind of consider. 

Amrit Ahluwalia (27:41): A lot to unpack in that. And I love it. It really does broadly speak to this changing role that we're seeing. I am curious, you know, we mentioned obviously microcredentialing and, and innovative programming models are there. What are some of the other trends you're keeping an eye on when it comes to student engagement retention from, from the perspective of that registrar office role?

Casey Bullock (28:02): So one of the big things that we've been working on is prior learning assessment. And so we know students are coming in with a level of knowledge, but how do we assess that level of knowledge? And it kind of, an experience that I had a little while ago was had a student come to me and said, I've worked in the environmental type of workplace for 25 years. I want to get your environmental degree. Can you just give it to me? Cause I already have the knowledge. And I was like, I don't think we can just give you a degree for working 25 years in an industry. But it did make me kind of think, well, how do we, how do we, how do we look at what his experience was, and how do we fill in the gaps?

(28:59) And as we've been having conversations about it is that we might have a student that comes in and if we really understand our learning outcomes for our courses and, and for our programs and, and we realize, oh, students that are having this experience, they're getting two or three of the learning outcomes but they're missing some. So can we create a badge that fills that gap so that we can give them credit for the course? And so it's, it's challenging. It's really difficult to do. But that's, that's one of the, the big things that we can look at is, is how do we how do we fill in the gaps of the students knowledge as they're, as they're coming through. And so that they feel like they're, they've been recognized as validated for their, for their knowledge and, and it's a partnership now that we can say that, let's move forward with that. So

Amrit Ahluwalia (30:04): That's interesting. Well, Casey, I mean, that pretty much does it on my, and, and I know folks listening won't realize this, but I've now kept Casey over the agreed upon time. So one thing I will ask you in closing, and this is how we close out our episodes is for a restaurant recommendation. Now you're based in in Ogden, Utah which is where Weber State is. It's a little bit north of Salt Lake City. Where should people go for dinner if they find themselves near town?

Casey Bullock (30:29): So if they find themselves in Ogden, you have to go down Historic 25th Street. It's right there by an old train station. And this used to be one of the most in history. It was like one of the most violent streets in the wild, wild west. It’s not that way anymore, but it was like wild, wild west. It was like, duals out in the middle of the street type of stuff. Because right north of us is Monetary point where the Western and eastern continental railroads had met. And so that golden spike is just north of us. So we would get a lot of people coming through. But on Historic 25th Street, there's a ton of restaurants there that are really good. It's really good place to kind of start with. But the one that I often take people when they're around here is to Roosters, which is kind of like a pub in a way. And that one's always been a winner. 

Amrit Ahluwalia (31:37): There you go. Roosters on Historic 25th Street. Casey, it's been a pleasure, man. Thank you so much for taking the time.

Casey Bullock (31:44): Yep, yep. It's good talking to you.

Voiceover: This podcast is made possible by a partnership between Modern Campus and The EvoLLLution. The Modern Campus engagement platform, powered solutions for non-traditional student management, web content management, catalog and curriculum management, student engagement and development, conversational text messaging, career pathways, and campus maps and virtual tours. The result innovative institutions can create learner to earner life cycle that engages modern learners for life, while providing modern administrators with the tools needed to streamline workflows and drive high efficiency. To learn more and to find out how to modernize your campus, visit moderncampus.com. That's moderncampus.com.