What’s a Registrar Anyway, Revisited

In the very first official episode of this podcast, we explored the question of what even is a registrar. Now, with six more years of experience that included a global pandemic, it was time to once again take stock of our understanding of the role of the registrar. What do we do? And how do we explain what we do to people who work at our institutions or to people  all the way outside of higher education? Five brave souls responded to my request for input on the following three questions that guide this episode: 1) what do you think of when you hear the word, “registrar?” 2) How would you describe the registrar to someone outside of higher education? And 3) Why are registrars important?   

Key Takeaways:

• The registrar and higher education go hand in hand. Registrars were the second administrative position created, following only the position of president. Our title dates back to 1446 at Oxford. 
• Registrars play a variety of roles at our institutions, and there isn’t one right way to be a registrar. Because of the variety of institution type and missions, registrar responsibilities also vary widely.
• Registrars use a lot of metaphors to communicate how critical they are to their institutions; “plumbing,” “bridges,” “hubs,” “air traffic controllers,” “multi-tasking quarterback,” are all used. 
• Being a registrar is easy. It’s just like riding a bike. If the bike is on fire. And you’re on fire. And everything around you is on fire.  

Host:

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

Guests:

Dr. Reginald Garcon
Associate Vice President/Registrar, University of Maryland - Eastern Shore
rgarcon@umes.edu

River Gordon
Registrar, Minneapolis College of Art and Design
rgordon182@mcad.edu

Colleen Harms
Associate Registrar, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
harms231@umn.edu

Whitney Merinar
Registrar, West Liberty State College
whitney.merinar@westliberty.edu

Katie Rendon
Registrar, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion
krendon@huc.edu

References and Additional Information:

Records & Academic Services (AACRAO Professional Proficiencies)

Quann, C. J., & And Others. (1979). Admissions, academic records, and registrar services. A handbook of policies and procedures. Jossey-Bass, Inc.

The Registrar’s Guide: Evolving Best Practices in Records and Registration. (2006). https://community.aacrao.org/CPBase__item?id=a1H1L00000BjYRJUA3

Transcript

0:00

You're listening to For the Record, a registrar podcast sponsored by Acro. I'm your host, Doug McKenna, and this is what's a Registrar Anyway revisited. Hello. Welcome to For the Record. Thanks very much for listening. If you're enjoying the podcast, be sure to join the Acro mailing list or subscribe to it via your favorite podcast providing service, and please share it with your friends, colleagues, co-workers, acquaintances, family, whoever, the more the merrier. I'm Doug McKenna and I serve as the university registrar at George Mason University, which is the largest and most diverse public institution in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today we're going to be revisiting a topic that has been central to each episode of this podcast. Way back on February 4th, 2019, the first official episode of For the Record was published, and I posed the foundational question of what's a registrar anyway? That episode has since been downloaded a staggering 1,764 times as of mid July 2025. I relistened to it in advance of working on this episode and apart from not knowing anything about how to make a podcast at that point, there are some things that stand up. This episode, the episode you're listening to right now, won't be a complete rehash of that first episode, I promise, but there are some ideas that I think are worth reaffirming. And at this point you might be asking yourself, self, why would I listen to this episode when I could just go back and listen to that episode? And that's a valid question. Here's why I've circled around to this idea of what is a registrar. Honestly, in 2019, I'd only been a registrar for a couple of years, and at that point I'd only served as the registrar at one institution. Sure, I've worked in registrars' offices my entire 25 year higher education career and now at a total of 5 different institutions, no less, but I felt like I knew some things in 2019. The past 6 years have given me the opportunity to grow and develop and to have my understanding of my role and the role of the registrar overall evolve. Part of that is my own growth and development as a registrar. Part of that is informed by doing this podcast and putting me in touch with so many incredible people doing incredible things in tons of different ways. Part of it is that higher education is changing faster than it has in the past, and those changes are affecting the work that we do and the roles that we play in our positions. Some of these changes have created tension. Some of the changes have created opportunities for improved efficiency or increased collaboration. So I thought it was a good time to take stock of where we are today and where our understanding of registrar is currently. Let's start with a giant disclaimer because this much I know to be true. There isn't one right way to be a registrar. American higher education is made up of an enormous variety of institution types, from the very small to the very large, public, private, research focused, teaching focused, specialized schools, and professional schools. Higher ed covers a lot of ground. And so obviously the roles and responsibilities of the registrars at those institutions will vary. I've been in higher ed for 25 years now, and I am sometimes still surprised when someone describes what they do or what they're responsible for as a registrar. The diversity of responsibility is pretty amazing, honestly. So there isn't one way to be a registrar and there isn't one uniform set of responsibilities for all registrars. Given those two statements, how to proceed. There are a bunch of things that registrars do that are in common, but maybe we should start with the idea of a registrar. And so I posed the question, what do you think of when you hear the word registrar? Hi, Whitney Mariner, registrar at West Liberty University. What do you think of when you hear the word registrar? I think of how the position has evolved over the last 30 years or so. 30 years ago or so, we were oftentimes the Burgermeister Meisterberger of the institution with a big no button on our desks. Now, if you're at the right institution, you are part of the leadership team and collaborate with the leadership. But we also wear multiple hats and are often stretched thin. Hi, this is Katie Rendon, registrar at Hebrew Union College. When I think of the word registrar, I think of the repository of practical knowledge for an institution. Our holistic understanding of our institutions helps us to create policies, processes, and procedures that make our operations more efficient and more equitable to students, all while promoting student success. This is Doctor Reginald Garson, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, associate vice provost, overseeing student records and the university registrar. When I think of the registrar, we are the gap fillers. We're the glue. We are the we are the center that extends its tentacles to every part of the university because there's not a place where we do not interact with. Hi, my name is River Gordon, and I'm the registrar at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When I hear the word registrar, I think of someone who is exacting in particular and maybe a little stern, but is dedicated to the continued success of their institution, which in turn allows the students the institution serves to have the opportunity and access to achieve their goals. This is Colleen Harms, associate registrar from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. The registrar's office serves as almost as like the engine of a car, the part that keeps things. that depending on the structure of your institution or college, we are keeping the integrity, the policy, the student experience at the forefront of all of the work that we do. So a critical student services position that has evolved over time, a repository of practical knowledge, gap fillers, exacting and particular, working towards student success, the engine of the university. I also have to shout out the reference to the Burgermeister Meisterberger. Love it. I always like to start my definition of registrar with a focus on student data, specifically that the registrar is the steward of student academic data. What's a steward, you might ask. A steward is someone entrusted to provide responsible care to something of value. That's what we do. Some people use the word custodian to describe a registrar's relationship with student data, but I think steward is more appropriate. A custodian is responsible for the protection of something. They guard it and provide safekeeping. Sure. While accurate, that's only a partial description for what we do as registrars vis a vis student academic data. A steward, on another hand, responsibly manages something of value in a way that provides a benefit for a larger purpose. It's a subtle but important difference. As we get into the ways that registrars can and should be tapping into the trove of student data stored in our systems, we'll come back to this idea of stewardship and benefits for larger purposes again. Registrars and higher education go hand in hand. It's practically impossible to imagine higher ed without the registrar. The registrar was the 2nd administrative position created at a university following only the role of the president in the administration. Registrars were all around general purpose administrators who did anything and everything from taking attendance, making announcements in classrooms, collecting tuition, selling books, distributing financial aid, paying the faculty, and keeping the minutes of faculty meetings. By the turn of the 20th century, the title of registrar became a standard title for a full-time administrator of academic records. And by the 1930s, nearly every college or university had one. So from its first appearance as a named position in 1446 at Oxford, it only took about 500 years or so for us to be pervasive, and that's pretty fast in higher ed time. A kid, kid, those are the jokes. In the past 100 years, we've seen a significant professionalization of higher education, leading to the creation of much more specialized offices in the student services realm like financial aid, student accounts, and an entire suite of student support services in student affairs. As a result, some of those early responsibilities that fell to the registrar have also been split off. Today, the primary mission of the registrar's office is to keep the academic records of the institution, including what classes are offered, when, and sometimes where those classes take place, who's teaching them, who's participating in them, and what grades students receive in them, as well as keeping accurate records in perpetuity of who has earned a credential from the institution and when. Complementary to those records, maintenance and retention is the facilitation of the processes that enable those records to be created in the first place. And that leads us to some of the core components of registrar work academic schedule development, curriculum management, producing the catalog, managing the registration systems or processes, degree audits, awarding degrees, and obviously a huge one is producing accurate transcripts of students' records. The list of specific tasks and functions performed by the registrar's office is long and distinguished, and it differs from place to place, so I don't want to dwell on too many specifics. Instead, I want to talk about the main or sort of overarching roles that a registrar plays at an institution. Sometimes it's easier to start from an outside in perspective. How would you describe your job as a registrar or in a registrar's office to someone who doesn't work in higher education? For me, my metaphor of choice for describing the role we play at an institution is that of the hub of a wheel. All the spokes connect to us in order to keep things stable and moving forward. I almost always have to clarify that no, I can't get your student admitted nor provide additional financial aid. But beyond that there's a lot of metaphors. I start out by painting a visual. I tell people that we are often the gatekeepers of the institution. We are the air traffic controllers that need to land multiple planes at the same time on different runways with 100% accuracy. Then I paint the real picture, and I tell them that what we really do is that we graduate students, create schedules, manage academic calendars and catalogs, maintain academic records indefinitely. And that we're also the interpreters of institutional policy. If I were to describe the work of the registrar's office to someone outside of higher education, I'd have to use an analogy I've heard others use before. I would say that we're the plumbing of our organizations. We are present, though in the background throughout our institutions. When things are flowing smoothly, people might forget that we're here. We keep processes flowing and protect everyone from unpleasantries, but when things aren't going well, you're going to notice quickly. Registrars offices should make sure to take care of themselves, so we can keep taking care of others. How would we describe a registrar to someone who doesn't work in higher education? I would say the registrar is there to be that focal point to ensure that all the parties talk and are aware of something. So I think of financial aid, student accounts, admissions, uh, academics. There's not a thing that's gonna come through where our office is not impacted, so it's important that those lines of are open and that we are in the loop of what's going on. We're the quarterback to the team. Everybody has their different roles, but we help pass out the information to the tight end, the running back, uh, the wide receivers. It's our super powers, you know, we're about precision work and if they need somebody to explain something, we are there to do that, you know, and sometimes Being a registrar, as they say, it's like riding a bike, except the bike is on fire and you're on fire and everything is on fire and you're in hell. So it's all of the above, but you have to be a multitasker, a ninja. It's uh it's so many different things that when I think of being a registrar, it's just not one definition, but it's something that is fluid and needed. I would describe a registrar's role as coordinating and connecting all the moving parts of the school with registration and enrollment as the focal point. These moving parts can include data, technology, and student service initiatives, external regulations, curriculum changes, cultural changes, and so much more.-- The core ethos is always and always must be-- students first. It's often unnoticed. It's often confused. It's often difficult to explain. Hence, even my explanation, I feel sometimes within my work, it's even difficult to explain to people outside of the work that we do, the work that we do. Very simply, somebody that manages any and all official academic records. We are not only in charge of the integrity of records for the university, we also are driven by the mission. Of ensuring that we protect student data, that we protect the integrity of the student experience, and also the integrity of the programs that students pursue. Any individual that is entering into higher education, whether it be your undergrad or a professional degree, a graduate degree, there's a certain amount of trust that is built within that. And I feel that the registrar office really is. at the end of the day again, whether it's known or not known for being able to really truly in an unbiased way be able to authenticate and be able to give credence and validation to the work that students do and then also serving our programs in our colleges and our faculty and our staff and just being that non-biased office and viewpoint to enforce all of those policies. Air traffic controllers, interpreters, we're the plumbing of our organization. I love that. We're the bridge enabling communication across the institution. We're the multitasking quarterback. We managed the integrity of the records at the institution. Also, can we pause for a moment and just appreciate the visual that Reginald provided, which may in fact be my new favorite way to describe the work that I do. Being a registrar is easy. It's like riding a bike, but the bike is on fire, and you're on fire, and everything is on fire. Sometimes it feels like that. These are all great answers, and I want to share my elevator speech explanation. I think of the registrar role in a few different complementary ways. At a foundational level, registrars are functional managers directing a critical student services office. There are specific tasks the office is responsible for, and registrars have to lead and develop our teams to perform those tasks in a timely manner and at a high level. So category one for me, functional managers. Obviously, we're a lot more than that. And so the second role I think about is that of a collaborator or a facilitator. We know things about the institution that not everyone else does because we interact with so many parts of the institution. And we have a lot of student data that can help inform decision making and strategic planning, even that lower case strategic planning, like plans that are strategic, not the big strategic planning, kind of strategic planning. Anyway, here's where that stewardship idea comes in again. We're well versed in FERPA. We know what we can and cannot disclose. We want to use the data responsibly to help improve the student experience and improve overall institutional efficiencies, which, by the way, come back to buttress the student experience in a positive feedback loop kind of a way. We work with faculty. We work with other student services offices. We work with advisors. We work with deans. We work with student affairs. We work with the health center. We work with the police department. We work with housing. We work with traffic and parking. We work with emergency management. We work with events, and we work with every academic unit on campus. Reflecting on that stretch from early 2020 to mid 2022 or so, the registrar and the registrar's office was critical to the success of COVID era modifications to the academic calendar, to section offering modalities, to enabling COVID surveillance testing and ongoing safe distancing practices by knowing who was on campus and who was in what classroom, for example. So when there's a university-wide initiative, the registrar's office is almost always involved and in my opinion, should always be involved. Because of our vantage point, we're able to redirect efforts away from compliance pitfalls or system limitations. We're able to provide trend data to inform schedule development or program revisions. We are the secret sauce that takes any recipe from bla to oh yeah. So the second category is as a collaborative partner. The third category I use to help describe what a registrar does is that of a salesperson, and I mean that in the best way possible. We're often on the forefront of change at an institution, whether we want to be or not. So whether we're implementing a new product or upgrading an old one, we are change managers. And projects usually don't fail because of the technology, they usually fail because of a lack of communication and coalition building. So we have to convince advisors that this new thing is gonna be better than the old thing. We need to communicate and demo and handhold and support. The best salespeople are great communicators, yes. But they also know the details of their customer's business. They know their pain points. They understand how disruptive a change can be, even if the end result will be positive, and especially when the thing you're changing might be one of many changes going on all at the same time. Great salespeople are honest about what the thing they're selling can and cannot do, and they communicate those limitations in a way that is clear and easily understandable. So moving to a slightly more macro level than an individual project or implementation, the registrar has to sell the university community on their vision for student services. And we do this by being good storytellers. We can craft and deliver a narrative about the need for something, the effect of a policy or a practice or a system on the students or the staff supporting them, and then telling that story to anyone and everyone who will listen. The registrar can influence the direction of the vendor sourced products in use. They can drive improvements by communicating needs and articulating solutions. And in my experience, I have found that the more you're able to frame suggestions from a student-centered viewpoint, the more compelling those suggestions are. So that's the 3rd category, salesperson, storyteller, coalition builder. And there's a lot of overlap between those three, obviously. They are not three distinctive roles. As a functional manager, you're also going to be an internal salesperson for your own team, getting them to buy into your vision, creating compelling narratives to motivate and focus their efforts. You're going to be a collaborative partner supporting the work your team does and addressing obstacles and speed bumps. So my thumbnail response to that, what's a registrar question? I usually say some version of we're functional managers of a critical student services office. We're cross institutional collaborators who help the institution help students succeed. And then when they look at me blankly, I say we do registration and transcripts, and then inside, I sigh deeply. It's hard, right? It's a challenge to communicate what it is we do in a clear and succinct way, sometimes even within and among our own teams. So I guess part of being a registrar involves some level of acceptance that people just aren't going to understand, and that's OK to a certain extent. I'm not sure I completely understand what a dean of a college does. I know their role is important, and that's probably enough. And so while it isn't necessary to get everyone up to speed with everything involved with registrars' work, it is vital for the success and support of your registrar's office. That senior leadership at your institution has a decent idea of what your office does and how critical those functions are. One thing I've realized now with 10 years of experience as the registrar is something that Obama said about the presidency. It's a nonstop barrage of tough problems. If your team is functioning well, the easy issues are taken care of. They don't flow up to the registrar. So it's just the escalations and novel questions of application of policy, or how to fix a problem when something's gone wrong. And that's something that I didn't fully appreciate about the role when I was an assistant registrar and an associate registrar. And yes, I did just like him being a registrar to being the president of the United States. How much more complicated could it really be? Am I right? Right. But seriously, the best registrars that I know share a couple of professional qualities in common. They're knowledgeable, but they remain curious. They know things but demonstrate a commitment to continuous learning. This is great because everything keeps changing. So things you know you know now aren't going to be the same in the future. So it takes effort to keep the things you know you know from becoming things you know you knew. In that way, the best registrars I know continue to engage with professional development and lifelong learning. As a side note, involvement with Acro or your state and regional association or another professional association helps with this, and there are a lot of ways to engage with ongoing education and training that don't cost anything but your time. Another quality I've observed in really good registrars relates to the way they make decisions. Given the opportunity, they consult with stakeholders, they listen, they take in information, and then they make a decision. And once the decision is made, they communicate it widely. They provide a justification or explanation of how the decision was made and why and what the implications or consequences of the decision will be. But like I said before, registrars get a lot of challenging issues like a never ending string of complicated or novel questions or or applications of policy, regulations, or practices. And sometimes there isn't time to do the whole consult, listen, discern, gain consensus part of decision making. It's just what do we do about this or how do we fix that? Registrars need good professional judgment. This is made easier when there's a solid foundational knowledge of institutional policies and politics, of federal or state laws and regulations, of institutional strategic direction and ongoing or conflicting initiatives, and of office needs and priorities. All of these aspects factor into a lot of the decisions registrars have to make all the time. Sometimes they're easy and someone just needs the registrar to be the one to say we can't do that because of FERPA and here's why. But other times things are not so cut and dry. It takes a certain level of confidence in yourself, in your knowledge, and in your support systems to make difficult calls. It can be very stressful at times, and it can be lonely a little bit too. That's where having a community of registrars to lean on comes in really handily. Now I want to pause for a moment because I, I need to make clear that a lot of these qualities are aspirational for me as a registrar. I do not always feel like I'm just out here crushing it. I definitely don't want you to think that because I'm talking to you on this podcast that I have everything figured out with this whole registrar thing. I do not, but I'm committed to working at it, and it's hard work, it's complicated and it's sometimes messy. There's a lot of black and white, sure, but there's also a lot of gray. When I start to feel like I totally know what I'm doing, something inevitably pops up to remind me that humility is also an important quality for a good registrar. Registrars are critical to the success of any institution. We play a vital role in student success by facilitating all of the academic processes associated with the student's education. We enforce policy, yes, but we also guide and influence policy development and implementation. We establish and sustain positive working relationships with other student services offices across the institution. We support the work that academic advising does. We support the faculty. We push the institution forward in support of strategic goals. We curate and provide information for data informed decision making. We keep the grades. We issue the transcripts. We confer the degrees in the system and provide the diplomas. But don't take my word for it. Why do you think registrars are important? Registrars manage and maintain the student information system and degree audits, and those are two very important key factors in the retention of students. They also have a major role with compliance, whether it's with the VA, iPad, NCAA, to name a few. We are data stewards and without the registrar's office, the institution cannot run. Registrars are important because we're often the ones who form the connection points between various departments. We understand how a change in one area might impact the regulations or practices required in another area. We're able to take big ideas and initiatives and operationalize them into practical applications that make sense within policies and compliance needs. Why are registrars important for different reasons for compliance, for auditing, for making sure policies are in place, enforcing policies.-- Registrars-- are important precisely because of that connective work. We interact with nearly everyone on campus, if not directly as colleagues or through helping students one on one, and indirectly through the various aspects of what we do every day. We may or may not be in an executive role, but part of our responsibility is to be a powerful force for both stability and transformation. Registrars protect the integrity of the academic record. We ensure that there is, again, fairness, but truly like a non-biased lens, both with the student experience, student progress, the process that they've gone through within their academic career. I love the emphasis on serving the student and student success that has come through in each of the responses. A huge thank you to Whitney Mariner, Katie Rendon, Doctor Reginald Garson, River Gordon, and Colleen Harms for their contributions to this episode and their ongoing contributions to the acro community. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. And I appreciate you for listening. Send this episode to a friend who has never understood what you do. Hopefully they get a better sense of the magnitude of the contributions we make to our respective institutions and the students who we serve. It's almost the start of the fall semester. I hope that you are taking good care of yourself, mentally and physically, and that you are gearing up for the start of the academic year. There's a lot going on in the world, and not a lot of it is super great at the moment. So, be sure to check in on each other, to give each other grace, to give yourself grace, and to continue to be the change that you want to see in the world. Until next time, stay hydrated, cultivate kindness, look for and celebrate the beautiful things in your life and in the world. I'm Doug McKenna, and this is for the record.