The university hired a consultant to analyze problems with bureaucracy in the Financial Aid, Registrar and Student Accounts offices and to create a plan to help them better serve students, according to Student Government Comptroller Amanda Hesse.
"It's to try and create a more user-friendly bureaucratic system for the students," Hesse said.
At the end of last semester, former SG Comptroller David Teslicko asked the student body to submit stories of problems it had encountered dealing with AU offices, according to an SG e-mail newsletter.
Approximately 10 of the more than 25 students who submitted complaints discussed their concerns directly with the consultant at two meetings held before winter break, Teslicko said in an e-mail.
"Some complaints dealt with lack of consideration on the part of a few staff members or a lack of a complete understanding of the administrative processes that office staff were supposed to be following," Teslicko said in the e-mail.
SG President Joe Vidulich appointed Hesse to take over the comptroller position when Teslicko decided to go abroad this semester, The Eagle previously reported.
Nancy Sinsabaugh, president of Transforming Higher Education, will formulate a plan to help improve office functioning, according to Hesse.
Transforming Higher Education aims to help its clients improve services to students by helping offices to integrate technology services into business processes and improve employee morale, according to the company's Web site.
Sinsabaugh declined to comment for this article, citing a standard consultant policy against discussing client issues.
"Most complaints had to do with either a confusion over which office handles what types of affairs or miscommunication between offices," Teslicko said by e-mail. "For example, being sent to three different places before getting a simple answer to a question."
Kate Wilcox, a senior in the School of Public Affairs, submitted a story about an issue she had in dealing with the Office of Financial Aid.
Wilcox receives a National Merit Scholarship, which she said usually shows up in her account within the first few days of each semester. However, last semester the scholarship was not in her account when it should have been, she said.
After calling the Financial Aid office, Wilcox said she was transferred twice before she was told to call the National Merit Scholarship office because her name was not on AU's National Merit list.
However, the National Merit Scholarship office told Wilcox that AU had not submitted some necessary paperwork, she said. Wilcox called Financial Aid again and was transferred to Student Accounts, but over the following week, no one could help her figure out what had gone wrong with her scholarship, she said.
"About five days later, my money had magically appeared in my account," Wilcox said.
Many of the complaints students submitted dealt with the Office of Financial Aid, Hesse said.
Some students mentioned in their stories that a few staff members had tried to help out as much as possible, Teslicko said.
"The last woman I talked to at Student Accounts was actually very helpful in trying to figure out what was wrong with [the scholarship]," Wilcox said.
Teslicko said he became involved in the project because President Neil Kerwin appointed him the student representative on the Customer Experience Initiative Team working group.
The CEIT works to improve structure and bureaucracy and compiles information about departments and identifies weaknesses and things that need to be improved, Hesse said.
"I also had a personal issue with one office when I began working on this project, which convinced me that it is a major burden for students to deal with," Teslicko said in the e-mail.
