Good people tell me I shouldn’t write this column because it might ruin a career. Friends tell me I must be careful. So, I’ll stick to facts and let others speak.
Let’s start with the Dec. 7 “Peer Review of the Registrar.” Its “owner” is Albert Colom, vice president for enrollment management. The authors are outside consultants he hired from Tampa. Colom worked at Tampa’s University of South Florida from 1986-99. The review is limited to that part of enrollment management. Allow me to quote the review:
“The Assistant Vice President for Enrollment Management developed a new organizational structure … this structure has not been implemented … in many instances staff members are still performing their old duties … this has resulted in confusion … the most critical needs for services are not being met satisfactorily …
“Long-term Registrar’s staff who are familiar with the business can only provide the training that is critical for Customer Service employees. It will require an effort and an outreach to improve the morale of staff who believe they have been marginalized and relegated to a back-office operation to train staff who have in essence taken over duties previously performed by them.
“It is not an overstatement that many OSU Office of the Registrar employees are demoralized and this has notably polarized the unit and affected its performance.
“Immediate action is needed to reverse the tide of sentiments expressed by a number of members in the OSU academic community that long-term employees in the unit received ‘a raw deal,’ were ‘stripped of their dignity,’ or were ‘forced out.’
“The negativity not only affects the outlook of long-term employees in the unit, it may also begin to tarnish and erode the perspective of employees who are relatively new to the unit.”
The “review” does not criticize its “owner,” the vice president for enrollment management.
Instead, it implies fault lies with the assistant VP for enrollment management and the registrar. Recommended “actions to improve staff morale” include “meet regularly with the unit and share with the staff the benefits of the vision, goals, and objectives of the Vice President of Enrollment Management.”
Last summer, I started to hear tales of longtime employees who were demoralized, stripped of their dignity and forced out of the registrar’s office and admissions. No one I talked to thought sharing “the benefits of the vision, goals, and objectives of the Vice President of Enrollment Management” on a regular basis would help.
Robert Sutton’s best-selling book, “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t,” notes that “assholes, those who deliberately make coworkers feel bad about themselves and who focus their aggression on the less powerful, poison the work environment, decrease productivity, induce qualified employees to quit and therefore are detrimental to businesses.”
Hmmm.
Look up the registrar’s office in the campus directory from 2004-05.
Joan Payne, interim registrar, has gone to A&S Student Personnel. Her replacement, Jerry Montag, former president of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and recruited in 2004 from Rice, has gone to Grand Valley State University.
Of the two assistant registrars, Lori Klimkowski is gone, and Ada Davis died.
There were two undergraduate admissions directors: Gordon Reese, director of admissions, is still there but no longer a director, and Don Pitchford, interim director of high school and college relations, is gone.
Other “long-term employees … received ‘a raw deal,’ were ‘stripped of their dignity,’ or were ‘forced out.’”
Hmmm.
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