Lotus D. Coffman became the fifth president of the University of Minnesota in 1920 and served in that role until 1938. Two new colleges were established under his tenure: General College offering two-year degrees and University College, intended for students whose academic needs were not being met by other existing colleges. This article provides…

Each year, roughly 30% of first-year students at US baccalaureate institutions do not return for their second year and billions of dollars are spent educating these students. Yet, little quantitative research has analyzed the causes and possible remedies for student attrition. What's more, most of the previous attempts to model attrition at…

An account of the renovation of the Office of the Registrar at the University of California, Davis, is presented. The task was to redesign existing space to utilize it more effectively; the ultimate goal was to better serve the university community. Placing units that were functionally interdependent in closer proximity and arranging high volume…

The involvement of a large regional university's institutional support units in a self-study is discussed. The university had initiated its first experience with a comprehensive and systematic approach to planning. Attention is focused on the self-study procedures in the support units and on the resulting reports. Four support units with diverse…

Three major constraints on admissions and records offices in the next decade--enrollment stabilization or decline, technological improvements, and steady-state funding--will have the greatest effect on staff, faculty, administration, and students. Appropriate planning in these three areas can serve to bolster the entire academic system. (MSE)

Proceedings from the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers that pertain to office management are summarized including: calendars; commencement procedures; publications; records; registration; reports; scheduling; staffing; testing; transcripts; and certificates. Names and addresses of conference…

Communications between college admissions/records officers and the computer center can be enhanced by examining stereotypic ideas about computer personnel and operations, and increasing computer knowledge and the ability to communicate in this language. Barriers can be overcome either by interfacing with a computer-oriented assistant or through…

This document consists of four papers that were read as a joint presentation on learning in the workplace and credentials in employment. Reported in the first paper, "Educational Credentials in Employment: A Nationwide Survey" by Andrew G. Malizio and Douglas R. Whitney, are the results of a survey in which 1,500 members of the American…