UC Berkeley administrators approved a proposal to create a one-stop center for student transaction services Thursday as part of the campus’s cost-cutting Operational Excellence initiative and tabled a proposal to create a center for student organizations.
The transactions center would save the campus $208,000 annually, according to the proposal, and aims to reduce time students spend moving between various campus offices to ask questions about administrative transactions, such as enrolling in classes, determining registration status and paying bills.
The student services team within the initiative originally presented the proposal — which stated that creating the center would cost about $310,000 in its original budget — on Nov. 4 to the initiative’s coordinating committee. However, the revised budget submitted Thursday requests $1 million to hire part-time project managers to coordinate the creation of the center and cover other expenses, according to Bill Reichle, communications manager for the Operational Excellence program office.
The coordinating committee and the executive committee, which is composed of top campus administrators including Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, approved the proposal at Thursday’s meeting but did not grant final funding approval.
“The Executive Committee approved the concept of this proposal and has asked the Student Services team to validate the expense assumptions and submit a revised budget prior to proceeding,” Reichle said in an email. “The budget will be revised and submitted to the Executive Committee for final funding approval.”
The center will open as a pilot in January 2013 and will most likely be located in Sproul Hall, according to Reichle. By going directly to the one-stop center to ask transaction questions rather than traveling between the Office of the Registrar, Billing and Payment Services and the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office, students would save staff at least five to 10 hours in advising time per week, according to the team’s proposal.
The team also submitted a proposal Nov. 4 to create a one-stop center for the campus’s 1,100 student organizations that would cost the campus $589,000 to set up and would save $273,000 annually by “combining ASUC and (Dean of Students) operations” in advising student groups in a central location, according to the proposal’s budget.
However, the coordinating committee tabled that proposal in light of concerns over lack of student input and inefficiency that would have made its approval “premature,” according to campus Graduate Assembly President Bahar Navab.
“The proposal only tackles one very small piece of what (student groups) go through in planning events,” Navab said. “Couldn’t you just come up with an online system that allows you to fill out forms and get your arrangements done online instead of in person through multiple meetings?”
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande and Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard will work with the coordinating committee and student leaders to consider the option of an online system and the ways that the ASUC Auxiliary and student affairs office programs could be combined under the proposal, Navab said.
Alisha Azevedo is the assistant university news editor.
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The cost estimate balloons from $310,000 to $1 million in less than 30 days.
Oops, credibility defenestrated.
“students would save staff at least five to 10 hours in advising time per week”
A savings of only 12.5% to 25% of 1 FTE… sad.
The administration just dropped all pretense of competence.
Whose slush fund? Bob’s & Harry’s & Jonathan’s!