By: Jami Frantz
1/26/2006


The paper trail that leads to graduation can be a nightmare. It’s a problem that Heidi Ross, the new associate vice president of registrar and enrollment services, hopes to resolve.

"I am committed to making the student experience as good as possible," Ross said. "I would love to hear from people about how we can make that happen."

 She has a desire to talk with students and plans to start an advisory council partially made up of Friends students. She wants to hear them voice their concerns, even if that means saying, "It sucks that I have to go to three different offices for one thing," she said.

Ross realizes that the various things students do academically is not always a smooth process. The goal of her newly created position is to make the whole process from the time students apply to the time they graduate become easier and easier.

She will also oversee the processes students go through to make sure their transcript is right, help them pay bills, register or perform other tasks.

This goal will incorporate technology called an enterprise management system (EMP), which allows various aspects of a student’s academic life to be in the same system, including student records, admissions, student accounts and financial aid. This should help eliminate the process of students going to different places to register, check their financial aid and then pay their bill.
The information software package would also facilitate online registration for classes, online advising, and make other things that students do, such as checking grades, available more often. This process could eventually eliminate the mass mailing of grade letters, which would save paper and postage costs.

Ross said she wants to be directly connected to students in some way. She has taught various classes in the past and hopes to return to that sometime. She taught a critical thinking and problem solving class at DeVry University in Oklahoma City, a career and life planning class at Honolulu Community College, and a freshman year experience class at Chaminade University in Honolulu. She lived in Hawaii for 10 years.

Ross has been at the University since Dec. 5. The reason her position was created was to look more directly at the student experience from the time students apply to the time they graduate and all the things they do academically.

Her duties and responsibilities will include supervising both the registrar and enrollment services departments, watching the University appeals process, running committees to make decisions regarding probation and dismissal, and overseeing the registration process. It is her hope that this system will make things more seamless and that it “will cut down on campus run-around” she said.

Ross decided to come to Friends to be closer to her family in Oklahoma City and Dallas.

"I looked for a mission statement I could personally and professionally get behind and support," she said.

Ross said she felt Friends was a good place to be because she liked the people and the place, and the fact that she was challenged by her job but also had something positive to contribute.

Before Ross came to Friends she was the vice president of administration at Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago. Her position there was similar to the one she has at Friends except she also was involved in alumni development and community relations.

Ross grew up in Minneapolis, Minn., but her family moved to Denver for her middle school and high school days. She received her undergraduate degree from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., where she majored in economics and English. Ross received her graduate degree from Central Connecticut State University in higher education administration.

Ross lives with her spoiled cat and enjoys reading, fishing, going to movies, hanging out with friends and collecting antiques.

Ross is also an avid traveler, enjoying the sights both in the States and overseas. She has traveled to London, Scotland, Australia, Fiji, Mexico and Canada. She is planning her next international trip to China in 2008. When she heard the Olympics were going to take place there, she talked herself into it because she had always wanted to visit China and she had always wanted to go to the Olympics.


For now she has found a place in the Friends community and hopes to make a difference.