Responding to Change

Change is a constant occurrence in a registrar’s world, but it does seem that the amount and rate of change has increased. Responding to change and managing through it are skills that we all employ, but could all improve. In this episode, we talk to members of the registrar’s office from Middle Tennessee State University about recent changes their office has faced, how those changes unfolded, and how they managed their way through them.    

Key Takeaways:

• Initial reactions to change will vary; even if the initial reaction is negative, encourage people to move past that quickly and approach things with an open mind and a positive attitude.
• Communication throughout a change is critical. People aren’t necessarily afraid of change, they’re afraid of the unknown. Communicating through changes helps reduce those fears and increases buy-in. 
• Focus on the positive outcomes, even in the middle of challenging situations. Not everyone will get everything they want out of changes (we all have our Barbie dreamhouse), but focusing on the positives will go a long way.  

Host:

Doug McKenna, University Registrar
George Mason University
cmckenn@gmu.edu 

Guests:

Tyler Hensen, Assistant Vice Provost, Registration and Student Records & University Registrar
Middle Tennessee State University
tyler.hensen@mtsu.edu 

Cindy Johnson, Associate Registrar, Curriculum and Graduation
Middle Tennessee State University
cindy.johnson@mtsu.edu 

Anne Ford, Associate Registrar for Registration, Records, and Scheduling
Middle Tennessee State University
anne.ford@mtsu.edu 

References and Additional Information:

AACRAO Core Competencies - Change Management

AACRAO Core Competencies - Leadership & Management

AACRAO Professional Proficiencies - Records and Academic Services

Transcript

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You are listening to for the record, a registrar podcast sponsored by Acro. My name is Tyler Henson and I am the Assistant Vice Provost for registration and student records and university registrar at Middle Tennessee State University. I am Cindy Johnson and I am the associate registrar for curriculum and graduation and I'm Anne Ford, the associate registrar for registration records and scheduling and this is responding to change. Hello, welcome to for the record. I'm your host, Doug mckenna University Registrar at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. It seems like the amount and rate of change has increased exponentially in the registrar's office over the past 10 years maybe. And because of, and since the pandemic, especially managing change is one of those things that we all are doing in some way currently in big ways and in small ways, but it's something that we can all do better at. And so today, we're going to hear from members of the registrar's office at Middle Tennessee State about the changes that their office and institution have been through recently and ways that they responded to those changes.-- So, Tyler Cindy and welcome to the podcast.-- Hi. Hello Thank you. Thank you, Doug. Thanks for having us. So by way of introductions, would you tell us each in turn who you are? What you do and then a little bit about your institution, Roman size location, student information system, other little tidbits that make Mtsu whole. Sure. Um So I'm the university registrar and the king of long titles, but in short, I'm the registrar. And so my job is overseeing registration, record, scheduling, degree audits for undergraduates graduation. We do pretty much everything. Well, I always say everything that nobody else wants to do, that's what we do in our office. And so all that falls under under us. And I have two amazing associate registrars uh here with me who oversee those important functions as well. Uh Middleton Sea State University is a public university regional University that serves about 20,000 students. We serve a lot of uh students regions. We serve a lot of Pell grant students. We serve a lot of low income students here. We serve a lot of students that are coming in from uh the surrounding rural counties. We have a lot of students that are coming from out of state for some of our fantastic programs that we offer in aerospace concrete industry. And so we have a wide range diverse group of students that attend this campus, both from in the state and all over the world. So you're in the middle of Tennessee. But where is that? Exactly. We're in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. We are a stone's throw away from a statue that represents the exact geographic middle of Tennessee. In fact, you can walk over there on your lunch break if you really-- want to know how close to the middle of Tennessee you-- are, Cindy. Well, as I said before, I'm the associate registrar of curriculum and graduation. And basically what that consists of is I have a staff that consists of six undergraduate graduation analysts that report to me, they are all physically within their college that they uh are responsible for as far as uh degree auditing. That is their primary role. But they also work with the core substitutions waivers, they work with curriculum within their college. Uh And then on the curricula side, our degree works coordinator also reports to me and uh she is a fantastic staff member that takes care of our degree audit changes, program updates. We have an initial review committee that meets twice a week and we are the initial review for all curriculum changes going through our institution. And uh the five of us make those course and program reviews and then they move forward to the colleges and then eventually to UCC. So those are the areas that large scale I'm in, in charge of Cindy. This is so great because it really reinforces something that I was just talking about with degree audit. So, I it's so great to hear that there's an initial review process that the registrar's office is involved in that, you know, you have to vet some things before they turn into reality so that you're involved in planning instead of just responding. We, we really do have, I wouldn't say a strict, but I guess it is, it's a very well planned out role of approval for anything that goes through the changes. You know, Anne is very involved and has to process all the prerequisite changes for the courses and anything like that. So we have a very strict signature role that we go through in any of the for any of those changes. That's awesome. And tell us a little about you. I jokingly say I do everything else. Um I'm the associate registrar of records, registration and scheduling. So I oversee the lovely ladies who do the transcript processing, enrollment verification, withdrawal processing. Um Judy does grading and academic reporting there. And then I also oversee our course schedulers who actually make all of our scheduling changes inside of banner um for our courses. And then I also oversee registration which is a lot registrations are big here. So um we oversee that as well. And then I also serve as the liaison to our one stop for the records office. That's a big part of my job. Um Any questions that they have about records, they come and see me. Um mainly because we're, our locations are different, Tyler and Cindy are on a different floor than us and I sit right behind the one stop. So, um I get a lot of those questions, but we kind of oversee everything up here in regards to records that is student facing other than graduation. So, right on. So big question right out of the gate before we get into specifics of what's been going on at middle Tennessee. What is your philosophy on change? Well, I've had the same haircut since 1999. So I'm not real big on change in general, but I think my philosophy is that change is gonna happen whether you want it or not. You know, sometimes you're the one who proposes the change and sometimes you're the beneficiary of somebody else's great idea and either way it's, it's gonna happen. And so you have to be ready for it when it, when it comes about and just assume it's probably gonna come about during the worst possible time of the year when you have everything else going on for me. When we start talking about more details of this particular change that our office went through. This was a very welcome change for me. This was something that we had thought about for quite some time and regarding our graduation, analysts and the reporting structure, this is something that I had been interested in for a long time and it, and it just hadn't happened. It, it included a division change. That's a huge change, which of course, had to uh come first and then all the approvals after that, which Tyler was highly involved in heading that up for me, change is difficult, there were some difficult parts to this, but I was excited about these changes that we're gonna get into so many need details here shortly. Again, another big question before we do details and we're sort of doing this in a reverse order. Like what is your advice for people on managing change? I think my biggest piece of advice I can give to people is is to give yourself very little time to freak out. Give yourself a 24 hour period of, I can, I can freak out and cry and throw things against the wall and, and not like it, but then come back to work and, and be ready to, to tackle it with a good attitude. If you don't approach it with an optimistic, good attitude, regardless of how you feel deep inside, you're not going to do anybody any good. You're not going to do your, your team any good. You're not going to do your colleagues, your peers, your boss, you're not gonna do them any good by fighting that change the entire way. So you got to dig real deep, find that, that optimism that maybe is natural to you or not and, and come at it with, you know, that positive, you know, can do attitude-- for me.-- It's don't react immediately. Take a moment I'm a person who personally likes change, but professionally does not like change. I like things to say the same and we joke that if you work in the registrar's office, you don't like change because you like things to be very neat and clean. Um But in this change specifically, I had to learn when Tyler said, hey, here's what's happening, not to react to kind of digest that information and then ask questions that I felt were important because my staff is gonna take their cues from me. And if I'm freaking out because I've just got a directive and I don't know how to do something. I need to be calm and present that calm front to them. So for me, it was more of don't react, take a deep breath, digest that information and then move on. I completely agree with what Anne just said with my team, particularly with the analysts and our degree works coordinator was is always very involved with the analysts as well. I always wanted to present everything as we are a team. This is going to make us nothing but stronger. You now have the backing of the registrar's office which you did not have previously. And this is really going to do nothing but strengthen your positions within the institution. I love all of that. So positive attitudes don't react immediately, digest it and then also focus on the positive effects and the outcomes that the change is gonna bring about. I think those are really good pieces of advice. So let's cast our memories back and if you could describe what the situation was prior to this set of upheavals that the registrar's office there has been through. And so what was the situation that you were trying or what was the situation that you were existing in? And then what elements of that situation were pain points that you um tried to address through these changes. So what, what did the before picture look like? So there was this event back in 2020 called COVID. And I'm not sure if many people remember when this happened. Um but there was a small pandemic uh that that occurred and might have thrown all our lives in the upheaval. So coming out of COVID after we had spent a year, you know, just flying by the seat of our pants and trying to survive fall 2021 the records, the registrar's office at that point was in student affairs. Here had been for many years in kind of a very unique structure for the way that enrollment services was, was put under student affairs. But the registrar's office at that time was led by uh someone who'd been here for many years as well as the registrar and they opted to move to a different school and graciously stayed on through our census state that fall, which was a lifesaver, but, you know, people leave. And so this person left and the university took that opportunity to say, hey, you know, we think the registrar's office should be under academic affairs rather than student affairs, which is very common. A lot of registrar's office are under academic affairs. And in fact, you know, I think three decades ago, that's where we were as well. So it was just sort of that idea. Hey, let's take this opportunity, the registrar leaving to move the registrar's office. That was the, that was the entire idea. There wasn't a whole lot after that other than we should do that. And if my provost is listening, I love him so much, then the next step of who's going to be the registrar who's going to lead that effort. And that's where I came in. I was like, hey, you know, I'll, I'll take on this interim registrar role. I was currently in the one stop as the director. And, uh, I said, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't mind to jump in there and try it. You know, I, I think I'm vastly Underqualified for something like that. I don't know what I'm doing, but, hey, you know, I'll try, you know, I'll try anything, let's do it. So I jumped into it just thinking it was gonna be an interim role to try to get us through that sort of a transitionary period. And here it was it three years later, um, sitting here in the registrar's chair still, but at that point in, in fall 2021 there was this, you know, let's move it under, under the, under the Provost office, which made a lot of sense for the, the curriculum and scheduling and record side. You know, I, I think that was really a great home for the registrar's office. But how do we do that? And that's where I got brought into to kind of lead that change. That is a very common model. I report up through academic affairs to the Provost software makes good sense. It does. And I think at that point, we also were looking for a vice provost to lead that. Um And so there was a lot of uh uncertainty about how the model was going to look and that was one of the bigger I won't say concerns, but bigger question marks laying in the air is, you know, ultimately, you know, how is this reporting structure going to land? How are we going to exist, you know, outside of our enrollment services area that we've been in for so long? How do you, I don't say break apart but, you know, in essence, break apart certain aspects of an office and bring them in somewhere else. Uh But I also still have to coexist and work together, you know, we had our one stop that was still operating and functioning for a lot of what we do and how do we work with them? You know, despite that you're reporting to different division leaders. And I, I want to pause for a second and just acknowledge how great it is that with a departure, the institution took the opportunity to actually analyze what might be best. And even though there's a risk involved in making or proposing a change, like moving the office of the registrar under a different entity, even though it makes sense, that is a risk. But every time there's a position open, it's an opportunity for whatever unit that's in to look at that position and to think seriously about what are the needs of the unit, what are the needs of the division? What are the needs to the institution? How can we make sure that we're hiring people into positions that make sense? And sometimes it just means, yeah, we, this position makes sense. Post it, let's get somebody good. And sometimes it's like, what if we move the registrar? So how did that unfold? What were the, were there meetings? Was this someone's brainchild? And then they came and presented it, was it a, a collaborative conversation discussion who was involved in that initial? Like we should move the registrar's office? Uh It was, I believe the brainchild of our provost who um is still a provost at this time. And so he'd been in that position for a while and I think he could see, you know, he could see that big picture and see that the registrar's office made a lot of sense. Working under academic affairs, I don't want to speak for him, but I believe that's, that was his, his vision that, you know, we could have a lot more uh accomplished, working cohesively under the academic affairs unit and working within the provost office. So there were some high level talks, I think between uh the provost and his counterparts and student affairs and the people that were, that were above me. And eventually I was brought into some of those conversations once it was determined that I could uh take on the registrar role to ask, how can this look and what, what could this look like and what do we need to do to make this happen? But I'll give all the credit to the idea to the provost because that was, that was his idea. And uh in my opinion, it turned out to be, you know, the right, the right move. Now, Cindy, you were in the registrar's office when it reported up through the other side of the house, what were, what were some of the pain points that you were experiencing as part of that reporting structure? Right. So before Tyler came on as our registrar, of course, I worked with our previous registrar. The graduation analyst reporting structure was completely different at that time. So they all reported to their associate or their dean within the college they were assigned and they were under academic affairs and of course, we were under student affairs. So even though their reporting structure was within the dean's office and they worked very closely with their advisors, physically within the advising centers for each college, we really worked with them or I worked with them directly more than anyone else had contact with them. But yet I was not their supervisor in any way. So the only thing the registrar's office could really do at that time is give them any information they needed regarding policy, obviously, degree policy, any questions that came up with that. But we could really only suggest, you know, this is the way that, that I think that you should do your auditing process or this might be a tweak you could make to a form that you're currently using, you know, every college did their own thing. We all had very similar processes but the forms weren't the same. The process wasn't the same. The communication going out to the student was not exactly the same because they were spread out within the different colleges and it made it very difficult. The communication just wasn't flowing and the to the ability to share processes that could be improved upon wasn't possible. I'm just over here giggling a little bit because this is such a common refrain that I've heard from people at institutions across the United States, like everybody in their colleges does it a little bit different and we don't really have that much control over that. So-- it's, it's a, it's not uncommon what you were experiencing.-- Oh, no, not, not at all. And, and, you know, at Sacro we actually talked to a lot of different, uh, schools that were there and, and we heard that over and over. But so that, that's where we were. And then at the same time before Tyler came in, I was also handling any issues with transcripts, anything within the records office. Uh It was really just a mishmash of everything. So I didn't have the directive that I really wanted to have with and the graduation side because that is, has been basically my bread and butter since I have been at this institution. So I came up as a graduation analyst. I did what they did for years and I think that has been my biggest assist through this whole thing because I know exactly what they do. I know exactly what they go through, you know, the problems they've had. And, you know, we always had, I, I had a really great relationship with the registrar the whole time I was in that role. But because of the way that things were set up and who you report to. We did not have regular meetings. It was hard to sometimes get the updates that you wanted to get regarding policy changes, curriculum changes. And I could just sit there some days and think there are so many ways this could be made better and I hope that happens at some point. And then I was promoted to associate registrar. And so, you know, I've always had that thought in the back of my mind knowing how things worked. So that is why I said earlier, I was excited about these changes because I knew what it could be. And were you there at that point, Cindy said that she was doing transcripts and stuff and in records, but I thought that was where you came in. I wasn't in records. Technically. Um when I started at MTSU, the Scheduling Center reported to records and then we moved over to report to the one stop when the one stop came in because the one stop does our registration process for students. They're the first line for them. And so we wanted the one stop to take ownership of registration. So we moved under the one stop. And then when Tyler moved back to be the registrar or to be the registrar, we came back to the records office with everybody, which made more sense at that point in time to all be in one place. My favorite part of that is that now I'm involved in the curriculum aspect. I make all the prerequisite and restriction changes yet. I wasn't involved in that at all before Tyler came on board and just makes so much more sense to me now, how we do things and why we do things and I can say on the front end, hey, this is gonna cause a big problem if you make this change. And oh, wait, we can't do this when they submitted this huge change and we're like, wait, we can't do this in banner. So there's no reason to even go there. It makes all of our lives a lot easier. Me being a part of records in our office being a part of records. It was a big change for us though. I had more people come under me, Cindy said she did the oversaw transcripts and stuff and that came under me. So we added a lot of people under me and for us like I think our big change was moving from the one stop to records. We're still scheduling has never been in the same place that the rest of the records office has been location wise and it's shocking how much of a divide that is for certain people not being in the exact same room or even on the same floor in this case. Um So we had some bumps to work through, but overall moving back to records I think was the best thing for scheduling and registration. I, no, I think that's a good segue. Let's talk about some of those bumps because what you're describing is a pretty significant upheaval of organization charts and multiple charts, multiple because you're taking away from student affairs, putting into academic affairs, you've got individuals and responsibilities, moving from the one stop into the registrar's office. I assume that everyone just smiled and nodded and went along with all of those changes happily and go luckily happy go. Luckily, tell me that that is the case. Yeah, nobody said a word. I just handed them an organizational chart and they said that looks great.-- And we walked away and said, cool.-- Done, done. Great episode y'all. Thanks for being here. Talk us through that process. Um I, I'd love to show you how many iterations of organizational charts I have on my computer from that time trying to figure out how we were gonna make, make it all work. Of course, you know, you're combining offices, but at the same time, we had a very flat structure in the registrar's office, pretty much registrar, associate registrar and everybody underneath them. So, you know, I just took a step back and said, you know, you know, what makes sense in terms of job duties, you know, who falls under who, what duty should fall under this side, that side. It really started with splitting out the associate registrar positions to say, you know, what are the things that should fall under this position and what should fall under here? Uh And then just kind of letting the, the position numbers fall, you know, as, as they made sense. And so we, we had a lot of talks about it, you know, this wasn't done in a silo, this wasn't me just sitting in this office and making those decisions. You know, I, I tried to involve everybody in those conversations that I could, especially an and Cindy since they were going to be directly affected by all those changes, but definitely trying to make sure that that was a conversation because I didn't have all the answers, especially as a new registrar trying to figure out what Ferpa was much less, you know, how to operate. Um the, the office as a whole, I didn't have all those answers. And so I had to make sure that I brought in everybody who, who could tell me more about what they're doing. Um And so, you know, we, we worked out probably three or four different options and then that's what I presented to the Provost as you know, here are some things that we're thinking about. And, and ultimately, you know, said this is the one that we think that it makes no sense. And um that was the one that we were able to go forward with and was there buy in from everyone by that point because of this iterative and collaborative process upfront? Or were there still people that needed to be convinced after the provost, after the provost basically affirmed one of the options. I've, I do not think anybody had an issue with it by that point because we had already told him this is the way that we think as a group is going to make the most sense. It tried to have the least amount of negative impacts on people. You know, you don't want to go into this and, and think, you know, how many people can we make mad today?-- So-- that's how I wake up every day as a registrar. That's how people view us as waking up, I think. Exactly. I think to myself, self whose life can I make difficult today? I have a wheel with all the colleges on it and I just, it, and I'm like, this is gonna be feeling my wrath. And so, you know, I think we had enough buy in from everybody that they were fine with whichever chart we went through. But we had our, what we affectionately call our Barbie Dream house of these are all the things that we'd love to get and we ended up getting most of our Barbie Dream House in, in this process. And I think it's a testament to everybody working together. Also a testament of having a super supportive provost and vice provost that are buying into it and trusting you that you're making the right call for how your division is going to work. I don't think I can understand how important it is to have that buy in and support from the top. Um When you're doing a change like this, that, that means the world. One of my most concerning pieces of that, that Tyler just explained was the buy in from all of the college deans because we did not want them to think that, you know, we're taking away your graduation analyst, they're not gonna be available for your advisors anymore. Your communication with them is going to completely change now. So that was my most concerning piece of this and the support of our provost with the deans in that transition was imperative and he supported us completely and Tyler and he went before the deans in one of their meetings and explained it and we moved forward. I'm not saying they were all to death, but uh it, everyone's adjusted. And honestly, as far as I know, I have not heard any negative feedback from the change. It, you know, it took time, it took everyone time to get used to the reporting change, but it has worked out well from what I am aware of. So let's talk about the timeline real quick. The former registrar left in fall of 21 you said, and so how long did it take for these conversations to happen? And then when was the new structure sort of finalized? And then when was the new structure effective? We were given a date or I was given a date when I, when I started in, I think it was September of 21 as the interim to have everything done by the beginning of the next fiscal year, which was July 1st. So, you know, nine months, roughly to, to figure all this out and how we were going to make it happen. We tried to have the structure in place by the end of that fall. You know, that's when we sent the proposals in right, here's what we're looking at structure wise. Um that was approved and we started moving forward with job descriptions and changes to the organizational chart in the spring and we had, we had everything in place So that by the time that June 30th rolled around, we were ready to make the official moves in the system and everywhere else that we had to go through. So we had a very generous timeline, you know, there wasn't a, you know, get this done next week, kind of a impetus on it, you know, it was, you know, definitely, um definitely good to have enough time but that nine months went by-- so quick.-- Yeah, super fast. It is nice to be time bound as well because that gives uh some limitation on the kinds of discussion or let me think about this for another month. We we don't have another month. Let's let's make some decisions and move forward. So it, it's nice that there was that leeway of about nine months. But also it's nice that there was a, an end date that had been articulated as well. I think that's important. What were some of the surprise get as part of the, the reorganization? You've, you've described some of the desired outcomes of pulling the grad clearance coordinators or what's their title,-- graduation analyst,-- graduation analyst. Sorry. In the schools under the registrar's office, were there other things that, you know, showed up and you were like, oh, we hadn't anticipated this, but this is amazing. I think one of the biggest not surprises, but we knew it was going to happen was in the middle of this. We, we had a new vice Provost that we knew we were gonna get assigned to. Well, that Vice Provost was in the process of being hired during this fall semester. And so I, I think if I'm not mistaken and I have to c for corroborate, but I believe our new Vice Provost was told after she accepted the job, hey, by the way, this wasn't in your interview, but we're going to put the registrar's office underneath you. Is that still cool? Are you still a comedy? So our, our uh Vice Prost Amy Alder Sanford came in from Texas A and M Corpus Christi and I think she started in January and so she came in right at the same time that we're doing all this. And so that was a little bit of a are we gonna get to January and this person that I've never met, you know, I've never talked to before, are they gonna be like, I hate all this out done? You know, we're trashing the whole thing that was, you know, nerve wracking ended up being, I mean, she's, she's the best and so she came in and she was just like, yeah, let's do this. What, what sounds good. Let's make it happen. And she's been one of our, you know, biggest advocates on campus, but that was a scary thing not knowing who that person was and what their ideas were going to be about. A registrar's office coming in while we're saying here's all the changes we're gonna make and then some resignations, retirements, you know, people just naturally, you know, they're, you know, it's, you know, they're 65 it's time to go. And so we had a couple of, uh, folks that, that left. Um, not because they were mad about the changes, I don't think, but just because it was, you know, they've got another job because it was time for them to stay home with grandkids, whatever the case may be. And so while you're doing all these changes and then say, ok, well, now we have to figure out how to hire somebody while we're doing all these changes. That was, that was one of the more stressful points of, of what we were doing. I don't know if Cindy and Anne had any more, but those were the two biggest ones through the whole process. I don't know if you remember this, but I was training two graduation analysts at the same time. So we're going through all these changes, just training one analyst is quite the task. It is not a job that you train someone on in three months. It's, it's really a training of an entire cycle and because of that, that was enough. And then I have two that I'm trying to do at the same time within a few months. And it was, uh, it was pretty intense for me. Um, the biggest surprise is our team gelled very well together. The registrar's office has always been kind of split. Um And so when now that the three of us are all on the same page and all in the same department, you automatically have someone. So you don't feel alone. And I don't think I had necessarily felt that before just because my job is so different than everyone else's. It was very nice to now feel like we had a team of three of us that were fighting this battle together. Some days. There are some fun times too. I got a um new person, one of my people left to go see Cindy. And so she works for Cindy now, but I got a new person who has never been in higher ed. And I know that probably sounds scary because it was scary to me when I hired her, but it's turned out to be good. There's a lot of things that I learned in our processes that don't make sense to people who aren't in higher ed. So I learned a lot from the process of changing over departments and changing people of how to do things not just focused on higher ed, but people outside of higher ed. So I think our team bonding experience, we like to give each other a hard time. But I think we're very close and we fight battles together, which is nice because I don't think everyone has that and good on you too for accepting the sorts of questions and interrogation of process as you bring somebody new in, especially someone external from higher who's coming to hire it for the first time to be like, what are you doing? Why that phrase has been a lot? What do these letters mean? Well, and not even like, why does it go there and then come back here before it goes over there, just go there like understanding and having someone else external to processes, look at them and say, you know, we could again, Cindy to your point like living in that world, you say, you know, we could do this better, we could do this differently but and well done on encouraging that kind of questioning and then actually taking that and responding to it in a positive way. Couple more questions for you before we close out our time here today. What strategies did you employ to keep yourself from losing your minds during all of the upheaval? And, and you're laughing. So we're gonna start with you for me, it's communication. Um Tyler and I have worked together for almost 10 years now. Um, and communication for me is very important because I like to know what's going on. And Tyler is very good about giving me the information that I need, but not all the information necessarily only what I need and which is a good thing because I do, you can get overwhelmed when everything is just brand new. Um But for me being able to have that communication and then talk through that communication, having a leader who listens to the people below him and listens to the ideas because they've done that job forever. It's very helpful in this process because you don't feel like you're ostracized. I mean, I think a lot of people through change feel like they have no voice and I think we had a lot of voice. So that really helped me work through this transition. It didn't all go the way. I think we all wanted it. We all had our Barbie Dream Houses as we say, but it's worked out very, very well. And I think in the end, we can all say this was a great transition.-- It was just difficult sometimes to-- get through. Would you also say that you got out of it? Yes, definitely Sidney. What about you? How did you keep from losing your mind? Well, we have a weekly registrars meeting now that uh we've never had in the past and we obviously review things that are going on and what we're working on. But we also take time in that meeting. It's just the three of us to vent and to share and it's very, we all trust each other. And it's a, it's a, what do we call it, our circle of trust area. And that has been very helpful. And even though Tyler and Ann worked together for many years, and of course, I knew them, Anne and I didn't know each other as well because like she said, she's physically on a different floor and I never leave my office. And so, you know, I kind of had to, even though I was the old school person that was here, I had to become a part, we had to all learn to, to work together and learn how we all communicate. And so those weekly meetings have been very helpful. And then also again, because I had worked with several of the analysts, they weren't all the same as I said, we had change going on. But there were analysts that I had worked with for a long time that I was now supervising and that was a big change. You know, I didn't know how they would take that and, and it ended up working out very well. And I tried to do a lot of open communication, but it also allowed me to ask someone who I've known and worked with for years. Hey, listen, am I doing this? Right. Did this come across? OK. Are there some other ways or do you believe that some of the analysts uh either didn't understand this or there's another way I could put this and I had that relationship uh with a couple of analysts where I could do that and it was really helpful and they were nothing but wanting to help me succeed in the position and with the change. And so I was very lucky in that sense and good on you as well for seeking that feedback and being willing to engage in that conversation. That's a sometimes a scary question to ask of someone. And so again, like putting yourself out there and wanting to be the best leader, the best supervisor, the best manager that you can be. Sometimes you have to ask those scary questions, but good for you for doing that. And also I'd encourage you to get out of your office a little bit. I've heard that you can just walk to the center of Tennessee right there-- just on your lunch break.-- Sure, lunch break. What's that?-- Oh,-- lunch, ok. Yeah, you guys are getting lunches around here. Yeah, Tyler, how did you keep calm while you carried on? Well, um, as they will tell you, I never get excited about anything here. I'm just-- calm-- from the core. Um, I wish you could see eye rolls on podcasts. Um You know, they've already talked a little bit about, you know, our weekly meetings and, you know, and, and, um, communication I think is just the critical part of all this, you know, making sure that we're all staying in communication. It can get lonely at the top sometimes though, you know, where, you know, you feel like all the stress is kind of falling on you, you know, regardless of your support from the top and below. And I, I swear I'm not doing this because this is an Acro sponsored podcast. But it really did help to be involved at that point with Acro which I've been involved with before becoming a registrar, you know, for one stop reasons and scheduling reasons. But actually, doug, I don't know if you remember this. I, I came to the, to the, uh registrar 101, I think is the name of it when I first started, which was immensely helpful and then just getting to know other registrars and talk to them. We started meeting with other Tennessee, uh registrars on a monthly call, you know, about a year or so ago. But getting to know other people who were in this position and, and hearing them say, you know, they're experiencing all the same things that I'm experiencing, made it not so lonely, you know. Ok. So I'm not, I'm not in this boat by myself over here. You know, I've got a whole slew of people who are, are feeling the same things. Um, so being involved professionally with people outside of the university who are in similar jobs has really been, you know, a godsend to, you know, be able to bounce things off other people and go hear from them at, at conferences and, and whatnot. And through the state and regional associations, obviously you're involved in active with Sacro and then it's good to hear that within Tennessee as well, you're having conversations with other Tennessee registrars. I think that that's a good model for people to follow at any level in the registrar's office. It doesn't, you don't have to be the registrar to reach out or to be involved. And so that's a good plug. I appreciate that. Are there closing thoughts that you want to share with people about managing change, engaging in the process uh whether they are contemplating it or currently in it? What would you say to someone who is in that situation? I would say that we spend so much time as registrars with trying to manage our job change that we can sometimes let that get unhealthy and amidst all the change you might be doing to make your job work and to get a new SI S in place, a new third party software and figure out your new organizational charts, finding time for yourself and making sure that you're taking care of yourself and not letting it physically harm you is, is critical. I've been really trying to stress to everybody that works with me to take your time, you know, you have leave, you have, you know, you're sick, you know, just because we all figured out how to work remotely during COVID doesn't mean when you're sick you have to just work remotely that day. And Cindy's laughing because she does this all the time where she's just like, I'm not feeling well. So, you know, you want me to just work from home, like, no, I want you to take a sick day. I want you to just lay around and be super lazy with your cat and watch TV, all day. We feel very attacked right now-- and maybe I'm, I mean, this is, you know, the-- best way in the best way.-- He means those things, of-- course. And it's ironic coming from me because they'll, they'll yell at me about the fact that I'm answering emails from vacation or something like that. So I'm, I'm the world's worst about, you know, walking my walk here. But, you know, I, I've really tried to impress, you know, hey, this, you know, this is not something that we should be spending 24 hours on. We have families, we have other things we want to do. I'm a cheer dad. I have plenty to do when I leave here to go watch people screaming at me, um, in, uh, in a gymnasium. So, you know, you've got to take care of yourself. You know, you gotta make sure you protect that that mental health a little bit because otherwise, I mean, this leads to burnout and we talk about burnout all the time at professional association gatherings and how to avoid it. And the best way to do that is to take time and make sure you're not just overloading. I think it's good to have a circle of trust of people that you can freak out on a little bit for a moment and then gather yourself back and go back to the masses and say, OK, this is what we're gonna do and this is how we're going to do it. That circle of trust has been big for me because up here, our structure is very different. And so having that circle of trust with Tyler and Cindy has been nice because I've having that freedom to freak out a little bit about the change, but then get it back together has been wonderful. And I think that's the way that we've made it through. So I think having that circle of trust and can you just communicating with people? I think the reason that we have come through this so well is Tyler has communicated every step of the way to us and given us stuff to take back to our people to communicate how this change is gonna work for them as well. Um And letting your people know, we really do have your best interests at heart. We want this to work, but we want you to be able to work here and work well, too. So that they're not afraid they're gonna lose their jobs. I had several people say, are we gonna lose our jobs? Moving back to the registrar's office? Well, no, we have to have course, schedulers, we can't not have you or we don't have courses. So I think being able to communicate all the way down the chain of positivity is very, very important because I think that's how we survived. I think that to feed off of what Ann was saying, Tyler was really excellent with communication throughout this process. And as gaining Amy in the process, as a strong backer for us along with the provost in their office, which it, it is an improved relationship than what we have had in the past. And that was a very welcome thing. But always, Tyler would always make us feel like you have the ability and the skills and the knowledge to do this. So have confidence in yourself to move forward with this, to take on these new staff members and, and all the changes that we're going to make because we did make a lot of changes after all this happened, of course, in many different ways in small details. But to just make sure that we knew we had backing, we had support if we needed it. And basically as corny as this sounds that you can do this, I have confidence in you to do this, go do it and you know, gives you that push and to go out there and go for it.-- And that's what I think we've done. This-- is so great. I appreciate you taking time to share these thoughts and reflections about managing these changes. You're not the only office who's dealing with changes across higher ed. And I think this is some really good advice that people will appreciate. So, thank you for taking time to share-- today. I appreciate you being here.-- Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity to talk about what's been going on here. And I'm always open for people who are going through change to reach out and, and if they just want to vent, you know, to contact me, but if they need advice to, I, I don't view myself as an expert, but you know, we have to, we have to have others to rely on. You gotta have to have their support system, you gotta have someone that can, that can be there for you. So I'm always here for people if they need help.-- Thank-- you.-- Thanks so much. I enjoyed it. This-- was fun. Thank you for the opportunity. Thanks very much to Tyler Cindy and Anne for sharing their experiences with their reorg and the reassignment of the registrar's office. Those key takeaways of communication, taking a moment to process and digest information instead of just reacting to it, focusing on the positive outcomes that will be realized with the change. And then of course, taking time for your own mental and physical well being are also important. Today's guests. Contact information is in the show notes in case you want to take Tyler up on his offer to be a sounding board as you are navigating change. Thanks for listening. I hope you're doing well. If you're enjoying the podcast, share it with a friend or a colleague. And if you have ideas for episodes, please reach out to share them. Until next time, stretch your legs, drink some more water. Make sure you're registered to vote. Reach out to a friend and say hello, I'm Doug mckenna and this is for the record. All right.