Student services workstream
The student services workstream is working to define the people, processes, and technologies required to implement the new operating model for student services across the university. The new model will provide a student-centred, consistent, professional, and continuously improving student services ecosystem. This involves engaging the right experts—centrally through the Student Service Centre or at the college/faculty/department level—to support students and ensure they have easy access to student-centric services.
Latest updates
Accomplishments
Since opening its doors in August, the Student Service Centre has been managing a consistent queue of student inquiries, receiving nearly 10,000 phone inquiries, 18,000 emails, 1,100 live chats, 1,200 completed forms, and more than 41,000 unique chatbot conversations between August and December.
Students can now go to one place for both Dean of Students and Registrar's Office requests, making the Student Service Centre a one-stop-shop, improving the student experience.
Together, staff in the Student Service Centre bring a diverse set of experiences from almost every corner of the university, enhancing the student service expertise offered to our students.
Three of five members on the Student Service Centre leadership team joined from faculties and units outside of student services, bringing a diverse experience to the centre.
Service catalogue
Developed in collaboration and consultation with subject matter experts and leaders from across the university, the service catalogue is a high-level, living document that will evolve as the vision and future of student services at the university becomes more established and concrete. For more information on the development of the service catalogues, please review this article.
This document shows where services and processes have been allocated to service delivery areas within the model and is a starting point for how groups across the institution will collaborate; areas of change will be mapped out in greater detail soon. Please note that not every service or activity has been captured (e.g., specifics on the academic programs are not listed in thorough detail because there is no intent to change these activities under the new vision).
We encourage you to review the service catalogue, share it within your team(s) and if you have any questions, concerns, or notice significant gaps, please share your feedback through the Services Feedback Form.
Read the catalogue »Student services stream approach
The student services stream consists of three main projects in order to successfully transition into the new administrative operating model:
- Vision for future state & model: The underlying project is to develop a model that clearly defines student services and identifies what work will be done, where and how, cohesively, to reflect the overall objectives of SET. This will enable multiple student services to be delivered seamlessly by the right people, at the right time, and at multiple points throughout their academic journey. Read more »
- Student Service Centre: For more information on the Student Service Centre, please visit the Student Service Centre.
- Initial performance improvement initiatives: We have found several immediate performance improvement opportunities, including creating the Enrolment Management Centre of Expertise and service partners, creating the Undergraduate Student Recruitment Centre of Expertise, centralizing undergraduate transfer applicant admissions, and implementing the centralization of the administration and selection of undergraduate prizes, medals, awards and scholarships. Not only do we expect these initiatives to bring immediate performance improvements, but we expect them to inform the stream's approach to additional transformations.
- )Visioning B) Student Service Centre C) Initial Improvements
- Information Gathering (until March 2021): Information Gathering. Understand student services delivery across the institution.
- A) Discover Phase until May
- Unified vision until May
- Discovery workbook mid-March to mid-May
- Redesign and plan until July
- B) and C) Discover Phase (until April 2021)
- A) Discover Phase until May
- Analysis and Validation (March to July 2021):
- A) Prioritize processes to support the new organizational structure.
- B) Develop Student Service Centre structure.
- C) Prioritize services for improvement.
- Transition (July 2021 onwards):
- A) Transition people and processes into the new organizational structure.
- B) Soft-launch the Student Service Centre and initiate continuous improvement.
- C) Launch and implement the three proposals.
Career opportunities
To view upcoming position opportunities in student services, please check the SET Position Opportunities Page (otherwise known as "POP") regularly. Once a position has been finalized and the competition launched, you can apply to it on the U of A Careers page.
Membership
The student services stream consists of the following project team members:
- Melissa Padfield — Vice Provost & University Registrar, Executive Sponsor, Initiative Lead
- Barbara Billingsley — Dean of Law, Executive Sponsor
- Andre Costopoulos — Dean of Students, Initiative Lead
- Tess Lawley — Project Manager
- Dean Bevitt — Business Analyst
- Michael Tremblay — Business Analyst
- Sara Horseman — Financial Analyst
- Brendan Woychuk — Organizational Design
Consultation and engagement events
- February 7, 2022: Ask SET Anything - Student Services Edition
- February 2, 2022: Student Service Centre survey for graduate student support results shared with Graduate Program Administrators and FGSR staff
- October 6, 2021: Student Service Centre survey for graduate student support distributed to Graduate Program Administrators and FGSR staff
- September 17, 2021: Ask SET Anything - Student Services Edition
- August 19, 2021: Engagement with Indigenous Graduate Student Association
- July 21, 2021: Student Services Visioning Workshop 3
- July 7, 2021: Student Services Visioning Workshop 2
- June 21, 2021: GSA Council Meeting (presentation of the Student Service Centre)
- June 8, 2021: Student Services Visioning Workshop 1
- May 19, 2021: Engagement with Graduate Students Association
- May 17, 2021: Engagement with International Students Association
- May 3, 5, 7, 2021: Student focus groups
- April 23 - May 12, 2021: One-on-one engagement sessions with key faculty stakeholders
- March 31, 2021: Dean of Students Advisory Committee (presentation of the Student Service Centre)
- March 23, 2021: Students’ Council (presentation of the Student Service Centre)
- March 18, 2021: COSA (presentation of the Student Service Centre)
- February 17, 2021: Deans’ Council (feedback on Enrolment Management Proposals)
- February 11, 2021: Service Excellence Steering Committee (feedback on Enrolment Management Proposals)
- January 22, 2021: Advisory Committee on Enrolment Management (feedback on Enrolment Management Proposals)
- January 12, 2021: Registrar's Office Student Advisory Committee (presentation of the Student Service Centre)
- December 14, 2020 - Feb 5, 2021: Enrolment Management Proposal working group sessions (Undergraduate Recruitment, Undergraduate Transfer Admissions & Enrolment Management Job Development)
- November 27, 2020: Advisory Committee on Enrolment Management (service catalogue discussion)
- November 20, 2020: Staff Advisory sub-committee (student services stream discussion)
- November 13, 2020 - Ongoing: Weekly Student Service Centre Development discussions
- October 26, 2020: Student Services Stream consultation workshop
- October 23, 2020: Advisory Committee on Enrolment Management (preliminary presentation of the Student Service Centre model)
Frequently asked questions
New vision for student services
The restructuring of Academic Leadership across the university was explored by the Academic Leaders Task Group and is not part of the SET program. Observations from the ALTG work are that how we deploy Associate Chairs and other academic leaders is highly variable in role, responsibility, workload and structure. By taking a more consistent approach, we streamline processes, improve role clarity, make services more uniform and still reduce the number of academic leaders required. An objective of this restructuring is to ensure faculty are focused on academic-related strategy, standards and policy decisions while enabling our highly skilled staff to take on more responsibility for administrative functions. Faculties are currently examining the impacts of the reduction of academic leadership and how to adjust in ways that support students as well as undergraduate and graduate program delivery. The student services workstream is aware of the project and is working with the central units to take this into consideration in the development of service designs. If faculties see a gap emerge that the central units can address, please submit your feedback to the form.
[Updated March 9, 2022]
One of the Dean of Students' top priorities is to increase frontline service capacity for student services. The exact FTE and role types that will change will be determined through the detailed design process.
[Updated March 9, 2022]
The Student Service Centre and Dean of Students have always served the CSJ community and collaborated with CSJ service providers. Ongoing efforts to build capacity in frontline student services will continue to provide CSJ students with access to services available to all students across the U of A campuses, while also ensuring appropriate local supports continue to be available to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of CSJ.
[Updated March 9, 2022]
Generally, if you do not see a particular unit/team or service represented in the service catalogue, there is no change. We know that there are many services that go beyond what we've fully identified in the current service catalogue. What we've tried to do is create a picture that encompasses the majority of services that are offered, recognizing that it's not fully comprehensive in places. Where there is an omission, that omission indicates that it is preserved as-is. For example, if there is a service that exists in the faculty that is not identified in the catalogue, it will be remaining in the faculty. The service catalogue is a starting point for conversation on the changes that we need to make and the processes that we want to continue to explore.
[Updated February 24, 2022]
[Updated March 9, 2022]
Within the university's academic structure, stand-alone faculties remain outside of the colleges in order to work with and serve their respective, unique communities. That means they are not directly supported by the shared college services, but would certainly be involved in collaborative research and programming where it made sense to do so. In terms of the future of student services specifically, this means those services will continue to be offered by the faculty unless they have been incorporated into central units such as the Student Services Centre which provide supports to all students regardless of faculty or college.
[Updated March 9, 2022]
At this time we do not have any specifics on the movement of positions from the faculties to the centre. However, we are working to determine the breadth and depth of the Student Service Centre which will provide opportunities for new positions to be created.
[Updated March 1, 2021]
The key objectives of our stream are to build an ecosystem that enables quality student services provided from many different locations, including the Student Service Centre, and to build a shared knowledge base that will help advisors placed anywhere in the ecosystem to advise and help navigate their students to specific services. We will work to ensure a closer connection between colleges, faculties, program-level services, and the university-wide services that we provide, while improving the holistic student experience. This approach does not necessarily mean that the service will be generic for all students; rather, we expect the Student Service Centre will support different pathways — for example, undergraduate, graduate, and international students. We also know that some student services, such as academic program advising, will best be delivered at the faculty level. Advisors will exist all over the university and although executing different purposes, they will all have a common mission to provide high level personal support to students whether in a faculty or central unit.
[Updated February 11, 2021]
A key element of improved student experience is ensuring the expertise that students need for complex inquiries is not only available at the university but easy to access. As such, the integrated model will not limit or decrease the hiring of specialists and, in fact, seeks to make it easier for students to access specialist staff and their expertise.
[Updated October 7, 2021]
There is restructuring happening outside of central services which may impact student services, but are not necessarily due to the work of SET. It's also important to note that finding the right balance between what is offered in central versus the faculties is a major task of the student services workstream, however the restructuring faculties is not within our scope.
At the college level: Academic reorganization is happening right now in the Colleges - i.e. the establishment of an Office of Education and Graduate Office in each College. SET is not working in this space or directing the decisions being made, instead, SET is responding to that work to create as seamless a student experience as possible.
At the faculty level: Some faculties are in discussion about what student services the SSC and other central student services units can realistically take to ease pressure on their staff. SET is not working in this space or directing the decisions being made, but rather, is responding to that work to create a seamless experience for students. It is agreed that the central units will provide support to under-resourced faculties whenever possible.
[Updated October 7, 2021]
Consultation and engagement
The student services vision has been released and we expect the vision to be implemented by the end of the 2022-23 academic year by the central student service units with support from the UIO. Following implementation, the central units delivering the services will collect student engagement and satisfaction feedback. This will be coordinated through the Student Service Centre (SSC) and UIO.
[Last updated April 14, 2022]
Consultation was conducted with staff within the Dean of Students and visioning work including workshops involving the Vice-Provost and Dean of Students (DoS) in fall 2021. DoS leadership will be completing detailed planning for change during winter 2022 and as this work commences, more team members will be consulted and asked to participate.
For any major changes that are proposed, DoS' leadership will work with team members at all levels of the unit to make sure changes benefit the student and staff experiences, and that any disruption to service is minimized.
[Updated March 9, 2022]
Student services leadership and the SET student services workstream have been talking to many staff across the entire spectrum of student services and greatly value their input. In a complete redesign such as this, we want to ensure that we're connecting with everyone right from our end clients and users, or students in this case, right through to the folks in the frontline delivery, all the way up to those who have the accountability and responsibility for delivering on this. We have multiple mechanisms to ensure that these interactions do occur and that the input is gathered as we move forward.
[Updated February 24, 2022]
When we conducted our initial consultations with the student associations, we primarily focused on the Students' Union and the Graduate Students' Association. From there, we expanded our consultations to the Aboriginal Students' Society and other student groups. We have been in discussion with Augustana Campus throughout the process of strategic transformation and have consulted with the Augustana student services team specifically to ensure the needs of Augustana students are maintained and that services are managed appropriately by the Student Service Centre.
[Updated February 24, 2022]
The POP references Student Services and the Student Service Centre. Are they referencing the same area or are these two separate entities?
These positions are separated into two different categories on the POP as they will function in different areas of the new model, but all with the same goal of supporting students. Positions listed as Student Services will support the overall ecosystem and can work centrally, in a faculty, or within a Centre of Expertise. These include Service Partner positions or recruiters at the college level. Positions listed under Student Service Centre are those that will work directly in the Centre.
[Updated June 24, 2021]
Graduate and professional programs
Service design/budgeting work is currently underway for graduate program administration. At this point in time we do not have concrete details to share. We are expecting to have the design and budgeting validated before the end of March 2022. Academic administrative tasks that are common to all students, regardless of degree type or discipline, will be moved to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research. Discipline specific advising will not be moving to FGSR; rather, these tasks will remain at the unit level.
[Updated March 9, 2022]
We recognize how important it is to maintain discipline specific knowledge and support for graduate students and programs at the program-level. Graduate advising and administration that is program-specific or requires disciplinary expertise will remain as close to the unit as possible. The graduate academic and administrative work that requires pan-institutional expertise will be consolidated with FGSR to increase efficiencies and consistency, where appropriate. The clear distinction of these tasks will create specialist roles that have additional capacity to support graduate students and programs.
[Updated March 9, 2022]
The Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research and Office of the Registrar are undertaking a joint discovery project to examine the systems that support graduate admissions processes across the university. One aspect of this work will be to consider moving graduate admissions from Graduate Studies Management Solution to Slate; Slate is currently the platform used for undergraduate admissions. Such systems harmonization would be geared towards building capacity in graduate admissions processing and file preparation.
An important first step in the discovery process will be to meet with graduate programs to map out their admissions processes and consult on their respective needs.
[Updated March 9, 2022]
A rebalancing of graduate administrative tasks across the campus to FGSR will increase responsibilities for central program advisors, admissions, and awards teams, respectively. To ensure these teams are equipped to assume these increased roles, additional resourcing is required. Planning to determine the required FTE is underway.
- As work is rebalanced across our academic units, staffing resources with FGSR will be evaluated; this process is ongoing
- FGSR has not seen growth in its staffing complement for more than a decade (i.e. since 2008)
- Its FTE has remained the same since 2008 despite a 26% increase in graduate students across the university
[Updated March 9, 2022]
We understand and appreciate that there is a great deal of variability across course-based master's programs at the University of Alberta. We want to ensure that we're not disrupting the patterns of recruitment that support these kinds of programs, so we have identified certain course-based masters that would benefit from a more generalized recruitment approach that could be more efficient through aggregated recruitment. The RO will continue to work with the programs where these are housed, or the departments where more generalized, non-thesis or non-research course-based masters exist. We want to maintain the kind of recruitment where professors are able to work through their networks to identify and support students that might be interested in these types of programs. We are not looking to take that over into the central function. We want to focus more on taught masters that aren't designed to necessarily streamline into PhD programs. We also recognize the interplay between the admissions practices and recruitment that needs to be preserved.
Ultimately, we're looking to take on some work that's "net new" for the university in many ways, which are those taught programs at the master's level where we can look to recruit overseas as well as within Canada in a more aggregated manner, but that will still include conversation in consultation with the programs.
[Updated February 24, 2022]
FGSR and the RO are working closely together to identify which services should be delivered where. We recognize that there is a suite of services within FGSR that are very particular to graduate students and will always remain within FGSR to ensure graduate students' needs are met appropriately. Through working together, we're looking to identify what makes sense to transition so that students can access services in one space through the Student Service Centre, and which work will be better served by remaining within FGSR. Ultimately, our goal is to streamline the student experience so that there are the appropriate services in the RO and the appropriate services being delivered from FGSR.
[Updated February 24, 2022]
Both units are currently engaged in a discovery project which involves process mapping and a service inventory to identify opportunities for efficiencies and building capacity. Through this project, we are reviewing many different areas from both a student and staff perspective to ensure services will be as effective as possible.
It is important to make the distinction that services provided by the RO and FGSR are serving two different student constituencies. A process like "admissions" may sound the same on the surface, but is in fact very different because of the distinct nature of the programs and the students who are applying to them. Through the discovery process we are currently engaged in, we are ensuring that we have clarity to deliver parallel services in support of different kinds of programs and different students across the university. In the end we will look to ensure that there is an appropriate division of labor between the two units and this will include adjustments where needed to where services are delivered.
[Updated February 24, 2022]
A series of functional reviews and consultations with subject matter experts in faculties and departments would need to occur before decisions are made regarding the movement of graduate student services. It is anticipated that the requirements of faculties and departments will be identified through these consultations.
[Updated March 1, 2021]
Student Service Centre
First and foremost, no student that comes to the Student Service Centre will be treated like a number; the advisors that work within the Student Service Centre truly value the opportunity to engage with students. They also recognize the difference in the work that they do versus the work that their colleagues do at the program level, and both are equally important to preserve.
This centralization is not about homogenization. It is about a student experience that is underpinned by a better and more comprehensive ecosystem: one that helps a student have an easier time finding their way at the U of A and also helps them feel supported from that first connection point through to graduation; even more than they do now. We've had such amazing pockets of individual interactions between students and fantastic service providers, and that will continue to be enhanced. What we're going to do now is link up those interactions just a little bit better so that the path for students through the university is much more seamless. It's not about trying to take away those great interactions that happen at the department and faculty level; that's going to still happen around program advising. It's a matter of continuing to have good interactions in central services that are better connected to the work that's happening across the university, so that students can always start at the same front door, which is that Student Service Centre.
[Updated February 24, 2022]
For generalized or transaction-based inquiries, the Student Service Centre will support students with different pathways, such as undergraduate, graduate, transfer, professional program students, as well as international students. We recognize, however, that certain activities such as academic advising or clinical placements is best done at the faculty or program level because the advisors have specialized knowledge; it wouldn't be in the student's best interest to centralize these services. Faculties will coordinate their individualized student supports with the Student Service Centre in ways that provide a more seamless experience for students. From a student perspective, there should be no change in specialized service from their home faculty.
[Updated February 11, 2021]
The Student Service Centre will provide personalized service as students will still be able to interact with staff members. We will build on the service commitment to students that is already well-established within the Office of the Registrar and Dean of Students with a goal to enhance this already high level of service.
The intention is that students can easily find services, receive the advice they need when they need it, from one location, and with clear navigation paths for where they should be able to find support in different cases. The Student Service Centre will coordinate with the faculties and units on campus to ensure that knowledge based articles are kept up-to-date so that comprehensive and consistent information is provided to students.
In order to provide high quality service, we need more scalable services that allow for appropriate self-serve options and workflow automations where possible, so that the people available can focus on customer service and manage the workload more effectively.
As with any change, we know that there may be a period of disruption as we adjust to the new system, but data from other institutions who have experienced similar transition, shows that this period is temporary. As we navigate through the transition, we will deploy a student engagement plan, which will involve monitoring student satisfaction with service delivery, identifying gaps and issues, and ensuring continuous improvement.
The management of the academic program, including academic advising, is a core academic responsibility and will remain a service offered by faculties/departments.
Establishing strong communication lines between the Student Service Centre and our other campuses is a top priority which we are currently working on. We have established a new chat line between our advising team and the team in Camrose, that did not exist before. Establishing these connection points between our staff so that we can have robust feedback is important. In addition, a specialist has been assigned to serve as a connection point between the Student Service Centre and the Augustana student service team. Our specialists can update our knowledge base articles so that everyone on the team has the correct information to provide our students, knowing that different campuses have different schedules, add-drop deadlines, etc.
[Updated September 23, 2021]As transitions are already unfolding and the U of A is still preparing for a return to campus, it's likely that aspects of the Student Service Centre will initially be delivered online. The Student Service Centre will have a physical location on North Campus and will initially be housed in the Administration Building until it takes up final residence in the new Dentistry/Pharmacy centre once refurbishment is complete.
[Updated June 24, 2021]
The renovation of the Dentistry/Pharmacy Centre is scheduled for completion in 2023-2024. For more information on this project, including a prospective timeline, visit the Infrastructure Projects (Dentistry/Pharmacy Centre) page
[Updated March 1, 2021]
As is the case in other areas of Student Service Centre operations, our goal is to connect students with the appropriate university stakeholder as quickly as possible. For FNMI prospective students, this means effective referrals to the Manager of Indigenous Recruiting within the Registrar's Office, whereas for continuing students, it means maintaining robust lines of communication with First Peoples' House in the Dean of Students. At the present time, we do not have an Indigenous advisor in the Student Service Centre.
[Updated October 7, 2021]
Since the launch on August 16, the Student Service Centre has handled inquiries about all student services for all types of students. At this time, the centre's focus is answering student inquiries, delivering services offered by the Registrar's Office (i.e. information on transcripts, course registration, or financial support) and providing referrals to services offered by the Dean of Students and University of Alberta International. As a result, the Student Service Centre is the universal front door through which students can navigate to all student services at the U of A—with the exception of some services in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research.
We are working to make these referrals as smooth as possible to ensure the student experience is as seamless as possible.
[Updated October 7, 2021]
Neither the Student Service Centre nor visioning work components of the student services stream have discussed the specifics of the Centre assuming responsibility for class scheduling. As such, we don’t have information for this specific question at this time.
[Updated October 7, 2021]
A robust training framework will be essential for the development and growth of the Student Service Centre. As we move beyond the initial onboarding of the Centre's staff, we will continue to work with university stakeholders to ensure our knowledge base articles are up to date. Ongoing consultation is taking place with units across campus.
[Updated October 7, 2021]
The aim of the SET Student Services Stream is to improve the student experience and prepare the U of A for growth and proposed change is guided by these objectives.
The Student Service Centre is already working to deliver improved student experience as part of an ecosystem that enables quality student services provided from many different locations, including the Student Service Centre, and to build a shared knowledge base that will help advisors placed anywhere in the ecosystem to advise and help navigate their students to specific services. We will work to ensure a closer connection between colleges, faculties, program-level services, and the university-wide services that we provide, while improving the holistic student experience. This approach does not necessarily mean that the service will be generic for all students; rather, we expect the Student Service Centre will support different pathways — for example, undergraduate, graduate, and international students. We also know that some student services, such as academic program advising, will best be delivered at the faculty level. Advisors will exist all over the university and although executing different purposes, they will all have a common mission to provide high level personal support to students whether in a faculty or central unit.
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