2016 Conference Sessions

2016 OACRAO Conference at Deer Creek State Park

Graduation & Commencement Workshop

Pre-Conference Workshop

October 5, 2016 | 9:30am - noon

This workshop is designed to offer you various options on how to manage your graduating seniors. Representatives from both private and public institutions will be hand to present their best practices. Topics will include graduation applications, waivers/substitutions, communication tips/tricks, commencement ceremonies, diplomas, and dealing with difficult students. Learn how to survive last minute changes, enforce deadlines and prevent catastrophes. It promises to be a very lively discussion so please bring your own experiences to share!


 Preparing International Students for Study in the United States: Awareness, Application, Attendance, and Academic Integrity

Pre-Conference Workshop

October 5, 2016 | 9:30 am - noon

All students face challenges as they transition from high school to university; however, international students have the added pressures of living far away from family, adapting to new cultures, using second languages, and facing different styles of education.  These stresses can lead to student struggles and often result in failure to have a true American university experience both socially and academically.  Adequate preparation on the part of the university can give students a clearer understanding of what they might encounter in the United States and what is expected of them both in and out of the classroom.  Join us for a workshop where you will hear about some of the specific issues international students face and learn some methods and strategies you can use to help them prepare for and facilitate their transition to academic life in the United States.

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 2016 OACRAO Conference Sessions

Session 1 | Wednesday | 1:45 - 2:45

Session Title Description
1.1 Staying Healthy at Work We all know we need to stay healthy in order to get the best out of life. Come learn what campuses are doing to help their staff be healthy. From large, centrally-administered programs to things you can do on your own, we will share ideas to help you be your best. It's not just diet and exercise either. Come and learn how you can be at your best by taking charge of your wellness.

1.2 OACRAO and Military 
Affiliated Students - 
Zero to 90 in No Time!
Butler County in Southwest Ohio is home to thousands of military-affiliated residents, and Miami University is the school of choice for an increasing number. Come hear a veteran, now Senior Assistant Director of the Student Success Center on the Oxford Campus, talk through the process which has formed from zero, to fast-moving 90 MPH initiatives. Personal and Positional Power, and stamina, all rolled into success.

1.3 150% NSLDS Reporting Meet with other colleagues to discuss the impact of 150% NSLDS reporting.

1.4 Title IX: Role of the Registrar Institutions across the country are discussing the implementation of Title IX provisions relating to sex discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual violence and new guidance on the civil rights of transgender students. Registrars are in the heart of the discussion and serve an important role in compliance issues for their campuses. Come hear from a registrar and the person at her institution who serves as the Title IX Prevention Coordinator and Private On-Campus Student Advocate about how they are working through compliance issues.  

1.5 Class Scheduling Struggles? Attention department schedulers, registrars, central administrators and IT members: if your class scheduling process lacks online efficiency, data validation, transparency between related departments such as the STEM areas, easy access to past enrollment data for future planning, or ability to uphold policy, all while using a cumbersome interface to update your scheduling data, then our session will show you how CourseLeaf Section Scheduler(CLSS) can make your struggles a distant memory. Join us for a conversation and demonstration of how department class scheduling should be. 

Session 2 | Wednesday | 3:00 - 4:00

Session Title Description
2.1 Let's Get Organized! Project Management How-to Guide Large or small, manual or technical, we all have projects to manage, or at least giving it a band-aid. In this session, the presenters will discuss how project management is done (good and bad) including general approach, as well as tools to track, prioritize, and execute. Come to this session to get some good ideas about planning for and implementing projects to avoid the band-aid approach. If you already have some good practices, feel free to attend and share.

2.2 LGBTQ in Admissions/
Preferred Name
Our presentation will discuss action steps that admissions officers can take to support LGBTQ+ identified students through the college search/enrollment process. Engaging topics include what to consider when applying to schools. Other topics covered will include: basic terminology; language regarding names and pronouns; current trends on sexual and gender diversity on college campuses; intersectionality and programming; advocate training; national resources that ALL can access; and the importance of visibility and support. Presentation will include a general Q&A/discussion about current issues counselors face and how they can address them.

2.3 Going Paperless- Planning, Preparing, Implementing Now that your institution has decided to go 'paperless' what does it mean?  Will your desk suddenly be paper-free?!?  Can you imagine a 100% electronic filing system?   No more multiple copies of the same document,  plus the ability to access documents at your fingertip are just a few incentives for going paperless.  During this session we will share the experience of converting paper documents to an electronic system and the impact of this change on processing.  How do you deal with issues presented when other offices don't want to give up their piles of paper and expect you to still provide it to them?  During this open discussion we will share our experiences as we try to move towards a more paperless environment.

2.4 Co-Curricular - Is It All HYPE? Co-curricular is not a new concept but it is newer to the student's permanent record. Heidelberg University created a co-curricular program, worked it through transcription and even into a degree audit, in under one-year. This session will briefly discuss the co-curricular program goals and why the institution was determined that the program become a part of the permanent record while trying not to increase the software budget. The session will concentrate on actual mechanics to making this program functional using the Banner system. Even if you are not a Banner system, the process in which to make this work should have the same functionalities as your SIS.

2.5 Extending the Credential; Empowering the Learner At its core, Parchment believes that credentials matter. To senders, issuing credentials is their mission and charter. To receivers, in order to evaluate and provide entry to the next opportunity. And to students, who seek to better their life and circumstance through education. Parchment's platform empowers both administrators and learners. Come learn about the future of eTranscript and credential management including features such as mobile support, automation without IT involvement, and ordering and fulfillment for eDiplomas and other official documents.

Session 3 | Wednesday | 4:15 - 5:15

Session Title Description
3.1 Business Continuity Plans: You Need One (But Hopefully Never Have to Use It) Alright, pop quiz. You're in the middle of fall registration and your student information systems goes down. It can't be fixed for at least a week. What do you do? It's opening week for fall semester, but two thirds of your staff can't come in because of the flu. What do you do?? A tornado sweeps through campus and takes out your building. Everyone is fine, and classes will go on...what do you do??? In a disaster situation (large or small), ideally you have a business continuity plan to reference. This session is all about planning for the worst, hoping you never have to implement any of the plans, but being prepared to anyway. It will talk through what a business continuity plan is, how to create one, and how to keep it up to date.

3.2 Career Movement within Enrollment Management Listen to a panel of enrollment management and academics professionals who landed their current positions after working in other campus departments.  Presenters will discuss the skills and knowledge that has helped them in working with other departments, how their past experiences have served them well in their current positions, and the benefits and challenges they have faced moving within these fields.

3.3 Classroom Space Analytics Efficient usage of classroom space is a growing concern within Ohio and is a consistent challenge at many schools. Several schools will share information on their software, stragegies, and staffing for how they generate data and reports to help answer questions at their campus such as: Do we need more classrooms? (where the "we" might be the entire university, Registrar's office, or a specific division/department/program) Are we using existing classroom space efficiently? How often is our existing classroom space in use by classes and other uses?

3.4 Recording Non-Academic Actions on Transcripts: What Is Best Practice? Current discussions among higher education professionals have begun to focus on the posting of non-academic actions on a student's academic record. These notations may record students academic honors or distinctions, a listing of co-curricular or extra-curricular activities, and even disciplinary actions related to matters of student conduct. Data shows that most institutions are not recording this type of data; however, more and more schools are implementing plans to include this type of data in the near future. Some states have passed legislation and mandating schools to place this information on the transcript. What are the implications of including these types of notations on transcripts? And how can schools prepare for these conversations?

3.5 Take Charge of Your Catalog & Curriculum Feeling the pressure of yet another catalog revision cycle? Flustered by a broken governance process? No more! In this fast-paced session, learn how nearly 45 institutions build, organize and publish interactive course information in real time, while maintaining a comprehensive audit trail of every curricular decision. Save your staff time, your institution money, and yourself aggravation — discover a better way.

Session 4 | Thursday | 9:30 - 10:15

Session Title Description
4.1 Team Building: Recognition for Staff in an Era of No Money Trying to build your team but have no money to build your team? Come hear how supervisors are building their team with limited to no resources. This session will give you some real life tips/tricks to help motivate your staff to be their best for your students.

4.2 Minding and Mining the 9: Nine "Alphabet Soup" ODE and ODHE Initiatives Ohio Departments of Education and Higher Education continue various initiatives to benefit citizens of the state. This session from our Columbus colleagues will highlight the 9 overarching policies and processes currently underway: AP, ATC, CWID, CCP, CLEP, HEI, IB, OTC, and TAGs.

4.3 Automation of the Graduation Process Cuyahoga Community College will present this session illustrating their new online graduation petition process

4.4 Summer Orientation and Pre-Scheduling Students How are institutions handling the course scheduling of new students and when is this occurring? Are students scheduled before, during, or after the orientation event? Who is scheduling these students – faculty advisors or the registrar office staff? This panel discussion will offer various approaches to answering these questions and invite participation from the audience to determine best practices.

4.5 How to Rise Above? Utilize TES® and Transferology™ from CollegeSource Would you like to target the courses from other institutions for which students most want transfer answers? If your school has an active TES license, you can view TES evaluation information in Transferology and accomplish this goal. TES Evaluators in TES Mode may create evaluation tasks from courses appearing in two areas of the Transferology Lab, including the Course Bundles area and the Unknown Equivalencies page. Learn what this integration can do for managing your transfer evaluation review processes.

Session 5 | Thursday | 10:45 - 11:45

Session Title Description
5.1 Leadership: What Works for You? I can't believe my boss said that! Why can't I create my own priority list? There are many styles of leadership and the key is finding one that works for you and for those around you. This session will take an in-depth look at Leading Through Relationship Building. Discussing what characteristics are credited to good leaders while focusing on relationship building characteristics will provide participants an opportunity to reflect on their leadership styles, or for up and coming leaders to consider as they develop into leaders.

5.2 CCP and the College Classroom: The 9 Year Age-Span In One Classroom, from 7th Grade through College Senior Year College Credit Plus has replaced PSEO and is now in its second year. This session from our Columbus colleagues will provide an update to CCP including the year in review and a look to the future.  

5.3 Advanced Excel: Interactive Dashboards New features in Excel now allow even casual users to create interactive dashboards that enable end-users to explore data in previously un-imagined ways.  In this session we will explore techniques showing how surprisingly easy it is to turn out dashboards to impress!

5.4 Social Media 3.0 Social Media 3.0! Do you want to know what students really think? Get on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Yikyak, and Snapchat just to name a few. The University of Cincinnati has learned quite a bit in the past year and we are using social media to stay ahead of the game.

5.5 Verification and Transcript Solutions Built for the 21st Century Come learn how we are getting back to our roots! Announcing Credentials Solutions return to degree verifications with eduCheck®. Our verification solutions will eliminate the requirement to send large files to your current service provider, removing the hassles of syncing records databases. We will also discuss our fully automated transcript ordering and processing solutions, TranscriptsPlus® and RoboRegistrar®. Paired with our industry leading automation, the largest electronic transcript sending and receiving network in the industry allows our integrated system to deliver transcripts in EDI, XML and PDF formats in five minutes or less. Couple those capabilities with our print and mail service eRoboMail® and we are able to optimize all transcript fulfillment to anywhere in the world!

Fun Break | Thursday | 1:30 - 2:00

Fun Break The Deer Creek Dam: History, How It Works, and Why It Matters Bonnie Maki, Lake Manager with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Deer Creek Lake will give a presentation on how Deer Creek Dam reduces flooding, saving lives and property downstream. Manager Maki has worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for 28 years and at Deer Creek Lake for 24 years, first as a Park Ranger and as Manager for  16 years. Come learn from an expert about flood control and the inner workings of our dams and lakes.

Session 6 | Thursday | 2:15 - 3:15

Session Title Description
6.1 The Big Bang in Search of Gravity If you are a new professional, seasoned veteran, or somewhere in between, and you work at a small, medium, or large school, then this session is for you! This panel discussion is filled with people at different stages in their careers, from different types of institutions ready to tell their stories and give advice to the audience. The session is sure to have something for everyone. The group will discuss paths they’ve taken to get to their positions, struggles they’ve had (or continue to have) along the way, and ways they tried to find gravity and settle in the profession. Bring ideas and thought-provoking questions to jump start the conversation on topics like how did I get to where I am, how do I position myself for my next step, what should my next step be, how do I deal with my colleagues using vocabulary I don’t understand (What’s an xml tag? What’s a fax machine?), and much more.

6.2 SLATE: Utilization Beyond Admissions & Integration with Registrar Slate, a user-friendly CRM, has become the new interface for many admissions offices across the country. This session will highlight the role Slate plays in the admissions cycle while also highlighting the role it plays with other offices across campus. The integration of Slate with the Registrar's Office is one feature that Oberlin College has tackled this year and will highlight the success in this session.

6.3 Maintaining Good Relationships: Speaking the Same Language "It's all data to me!"  Have you ever heard that from your IT people?  Sometimes it may seem that the functional  and technical users of  an SIS are speaking two different languages.  This session will focus on how we can help create and maintan good relationships with our IT support people by learning to speak in language they understand.

6.4 Managing Multiple Academic Calendars This session will focus on best practices in managing multiple academic calendars over a variety of different academic careers and professional schools. The session will discuss strategies and tools for both system maintenance and communication of calendar data across all constituents in the university community.

6.5 What's New at the Clearinghouse? Come learn about the National Student Clearinghouse's newest initiatives in Higher Educatioin Compliance Reporting, Technology Solutions for Automating Processes, and the latest in Student Mobility and Research. Specific Topics Include: Enrollment Reporting and Financial Aid Compliance Updates,Verification Services, including how to generate revenue for your institution, Strategic Initiatives in Reverse Transfer, Veterans Compliance Reporting and International Verifications Transcript Services Updates and Technology Solutions for Automating Transcript Fulfillment and Data Exchange Student Mobility and StudentTracker 2.0. The National Student Clearinghouse is focused on not only addressing today's issues, but tomorrow's challenges as well.

Session 7 | Thursday | 3:45 - 4:30

Session Title Description
7.1 Tips & Tricks of Word & Mail Merge This 40 minute session will review Microsoft Tips & Tricks for Word and utilization of Mail Merge from an Excel document. We will cover items such as: Word (Discover the hide/show button to help understand editing and updating styles and references to work for you) and Mail Merge (What is it? Using Excel and Mail Merge to send a personal email to all students, even make labels & letters). All skill levels are welcome! Bring your laptop and follow along in this quick tutorial workshop. Question and answer session to follow.

7.2 Birds of a Feather SIS Systems Love it or List it?  Would you like to be able to list your SIS for sale and move on to something new?  Or do you love it and want to share your love and knowledge with other users?  This roundtable setting  will provide functional users of the various SIS systems to come together and share their knowledge - or vent - whichever is appropriate!

7.3 Pros and Cons of Parental Involvement Join us for a lighthearted debate on the pros and cons of helicopter parents. How does your office effectively manage Helicopter Parents, and what are the best ways to deal with their often difficult behavior?

7.4 Developing Positive and Effective Faculty-Administrator Relationships Cultivating good relationships with faculty helps to ensure regular consultation and collaboration with the registrar and other office staff and improves service to all campus constituencies. We will discuss specific tips and policies which lay the groundwork at one small university and have an opportunity to share concerns and advice from different institutional perspectives. Join the conversation with Scott Dittman, University Registrar & Secretary of the Faculty from Washington and Lee University.

7.5 Certified Electronic Diplomas: Where Paper and Technology Unite! Come and learn about the Certified Electronic Diploma (CeDiploma), a transactional document that provides the student with an alternative to the transcript allowing the recipient, from employers, Governments and Embassies, to independently validate the document and is already accepted by State Governments and the Federation of State Medical Boards. Join us for more information about this truly revolutionary product as well as the easiest and fastest way to order and deliver paper diplomas directly to your students.

Session 8 | Friday | 9:00 - 9:45

Session Title Description
8.1 Communication From a Position of Strength Well, gosh, if you have a moment perhaps you could consider attending this session. I'll hopefully be covering things that people do that they don't even realize undermine what they are trying to say. Not that anyone would intentionally try to communicate like this. Sorry, did that make sense? I mean this session, if the group is okay with that, will get you thinking about those unconsidered habits that might be undermining you at work. Oh, and at home. And, if you can't make it, that's okay too.

8.2 Document, Review, Repeat We have all been tasked with writing down our business processes to ensure business continuity, and then challenged to find and share that documentation months or years later. Can you find it? Is the information still relevant? In this session we will look at the process documentation design of two institutions and discuss mechanisms to create, store and maintain information about your business processes.

8.3 CCP Reporting: Tracking Who, What, Where to ODHE Do you know where your teenagers are?   How does your institution handle the tracking of high school students participating in the College Credit Plus program.  How do you report that information to the ODHE?   Who/which office reports to ODHE?   During this session panelists from several different institutions will provide information on their reporting processes with regard to CC+, and allow time for open discussion on the impact of CC+ on their campus

8.4 Admissions & Registrar: Building Relationships to Promote Student Success The Admission’s Office and the Registrar’s Office are important points of contact for students and faculty. Communication between offices is the key to effective collaboration. In this session, what can the Registrar’s Office do to help the staff of the Admission’s Office and what can the Admission’s Office do to help the Registrar’s Office will be addressed as well as a discussion regarding issues of mutual concern and explore areas of collaborative action. Both offices face the same challenges and should address them together to provide consistent communication to students.

Session 9 | Friday | 10:00 - 10:45

Session Title Description
9.1 Mindfulness at Work Research shows that being more mindful at work can help to reduce stress, improve memory, increase focus on tasks, and help redcuce toxins in the workplace environment. What does this mean? This session will explore the concept of mindfulness, introduce techniques and strategies that can transform day-to-day experiences in the office and relationships with colleagues.

9.2 Get Your New Job Like a Rock Star Tips and tricks for interviewing. In this session we show examples of weaker resumes/cover letters and contrast with some great resumes and cover letters. The session will cover different styles of interviews such as behavioral interviews, etc. We will also cover how to dress and how to prepare for the interview or multiple interviews.

9.3 Data Analytics - Impact on Registrar & Admissions Data and the Registrar Data  analytics -examining raw data with the purpose of drawing conclusions about that information - is increasingly important on a daily basis.   How are you managing retention tracking?  How are you coding students so that you can quickly and easily examine the data?   What software tools are available and how do those tools help you?  

9.4 Withdrawal Processing

Local Arrangements Committee Co-Chairs: Frank Yanchak & Shelly McMahon
Check out the fun from last year in our 2015 OACRAO Conference at Maumee Bay photo album.