Rethinking the Degree Audit: Manual Work to Strategic Lever

Universities increasingly view a modern degree audit system as a strategic tool to address diverse priorities and challenges. These solutions are transforming access to student records, streamlining Registrar’s office operations, and tackling questions about staff resources and the need for system-wide updates.

Megan Hicks, Registrar at Cornell College, and Rhonda Kitch, University Registrar at Cornell shared their valuable insights during a webinar with AACRAO. Here are the 4 key topics they covered:

1. Leverage degree audit data in dialogue with academic departments and the Provost’s office to support enrollment efforts and allocate resources efficiently
2. Quantify the impact of creating a consistent, modern student/staff experience to reduce manual effort and deepen the impact of academic advising
3. Implement changes to curriculum and requirements with the least amount of effort possible, allowing Registrar teams to re-direct efforts into other strategic projects
4. Understand and communicate why degree audit should be the next strategic project on campus instead of other university-wide systems
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How a Modern Degree Audit Informs Progress Towards University Leadership Objectives

It goes without saying that different-sized universities have different needs. Although both institutions share the name “Cornell”, they each face unique challenges. Megan and Rhonda shared these differences with us.

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Cornell College is a small liberal arts college with a block plan curriculum, and has historically conducted degree audits manually using PDF checklists. When a new curriculum was introduced, Megan advocated for a degree audit system to eliminate errors and provide students and advisors with user-friendly and real-time access to degree progress. It’s helped them achieve a number of strategic objectives:

• The Provost seeks data to make informed strategic decisions: The Provost at Cornell College is aiming to be more strategic in canceling under-enrolled courses and making efficient use of resources. With Stellic, Megan and her team can quickly assess the impact of canceling a course, like whether it would prevent students from graduating on time. They can also explore alternative registration options for affected students.
• The Registrar's office needs extreme efficiency: The Registrar’s office has significantly reduced the time spent auditing seniors' graduation requirements. Over the past two years, the process has been completed six weeks faster than before, allowing the team to focus on other important projects, such as academic policy updates and transfer initiatives. Megan also noted that new staff have been able to learn how to build and modify audits in just one week, which means they can jump in quickly.

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Cornell University, with 18 schools and colleges spread across 3 campuses, faced different challenges. Policies and practices vary across colleges due to its decentralized nature, leading to inconsistencies in degree audit systems and processes. The pandemic exposed gaps in their ability to evaluate degree progress data, which underscored the need for a degree audit system to address several priorities: reduce administrative burden, minimize compliance risks, and enhance the overall experience for faculty, advisors, and students.

Now working toward launch in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, stakeholders across Cornell University are eager about the strategic values of the new degree audit:

• Student experience and meaningful advising: Rhonda highlighted the importance of robust infrastructure to support students in planning and tracking their degree progress, and shifting the focus of advising conversations from the logistics of course registration to more meaningful topics such as internships, scholarships, and career planning.  Rhonda underscored their fundamental goal to increase the overall satisfaction of students, faculty, and advisors with a clear and consistent tool to manage progress.
• Agile curriculum development: Being able to quickly and easily build degree audits will support more agile curricular innovation across Cornell. This is crucial as various colleges have struggled to update their curriculum within the limitations of their previous systems and decentralized processes.

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Degree Audit as the Next Strategic Project on Campus

Both Registrars emphasized that prioritizing a clear and consistent experience is key to retention and student/advisor satisfaction.  Institutions can more quickly achieve this by focusing on the degree audit as the next strategic project, compared to larger and more complex systems that require longer implementation. The degree audit helps institutions maximize the value of existing systems, and mitigate the risk that comes with implementing a complex solution.

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Audience Q&A Topics Discussed Live

• Undergraduate vs. graduate degree audits
• Degree clearance and certification
• Transfer credits in the degree audit
• Earning campus buy-in for new solutions

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Related content

Modern Degree Audit: What It Is and How to Successfully Implement One on Your Campus

Bridging the Common Gaps Between Degree Audit and Planning