Associate University Registrar for Catalog, Curriculum, and Degree Audit

University Overview

The University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. This historic, Ivy League school consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Penn has 12 highly-regarded schools that provide opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, all influenced by Penn’s distinctive interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and learning. As an employer Penn has been ranked nationally on many occasions with the most recent award from Forbes who named Penn one of America’s Best Large Employers in 2023.

Penn offers a unique working environment within the city of Philadelphia. The University is situated on a beautiful urban campus, with easy access to a range of educational, cultural, and recreational activities. With its historical significance and landmarks, lively cultural offerings, and wide variety of atmospheres, Philadelphia is the perfect place to call home for work and play.

The University offers a competitive benefits package that includes excellent healthcare and tuition benefits for employees and their families, generous retirement benefits, a wide variety of professional development opportunities, supportive work and family benefits, a wealth of health and wellness programs and resources, and much more.

Posted Job Title

Associate University Registrar for Catalog, Curriculum, and Degree Audit

Job Profile Title

Information Technology Director

Job Description Summary

The Office of the University Registrar (OUR) implements and monitors many academic and administrative policies in coordination with campus stakeholders to facilitate faculty teaching and student learning. The OUR champions the constant renewal of student information systems, adapts operations to changing academic needs, federal, state, and institution policies, and evaluates administrative processes for service improvements. The OUR acts as the steward of academic and student information and plays an important role in the governance of these systems and information.
The Catalog, Curriculum, and Degree Audit team is integral to the Office of the University Registrar (OUR). The team provides support, data analysis, and reporting for OUR, offices across campus, and external organizations. Led by the Associate University Registrar for Catalog, Curriculum, and Degree Audit, the team provides problem and issue resolution for a Courseleaf CAT, CIM and PATH, and Ellucian Degree Works. They also participate in system and technology projects by providing business-specific knowledge and requirements, investigating and testing technology solutions, and leading and participating in implementations. The team frequently collaborates with staff in school registrar offices, compliance offices, Bursar, Financial Aid, Admissions, Pennant Operations team, and Information Systems and Computing.
The Associate University Registrar for Catalog, Curriculum, and Degree Audit must have extensive experience with the Banner Student application and how it supports academic records and the mission of the university. The Associate University Registrar must understand the dependencies and ensure integration between Banner, Courseleaf, and Degree Works. An understanding of the relationship between Banner and other systems within OUR and those used across campus is critical. The Associate University Registrar reports to the University Registrar.
The role includes supervision and development of staff within the team and strong collaboration with other teams across campus. This person will provide leadership and direction in the alignment, integration, and development of software and process specific improvements related to curriculum and degree audit.
This individual will participate in the development, recommendation, and implementation of policies and procedures that affect the administration of student and academic data and will advise the University Registrar regarding such policies.
The position oversees the administration of access and training for CourseLeaf and Degree Audit systems, and participates in campus data governance work, establishing and maintaining standards for curriculum processes and best practices and oversees the development, documentation, and communication of timelines for catalog, curriculum and degree audit processes.
In the Division of Finance, we recognize diversity and inclusion is paramount to a positive and thriving work environment; it is a business imperative. We are committed to actively fostering diversity, inclusion and cultural competency throughout our operational efforts in the Division of Finance. This role will be critical in supporting those efforts and demonstrating behaviors and competencies that reflect Penn's values.
We take pride in the myriad ways that diversity enriches our curriculum, and the cultural and social life of our campus. Penn's commitment to achieving eminence through diversity is ultimately a commitment to creating a more vibrant university so that our graduates will be both stimulated and empowered to shape a better world.

Job Description

The Associate University Registrar is expected to uphold industry standards and best practices across all functions related to the role and demonstrate high levels of proficiency managing in a very complex systems environment. Significant ongoing project work requires the Associate University Registrar to possess previous experience in project management, change management, strong registrar related functional expertise with demonstrated leadership experience, and time management skills. This position is expected to function with a high degree of professionalism, discretion, and autonomy.

• Serve as the cross-functional, business, and technical leader for Courseleaf and Degree Works as well as other university systems supported by the Office of the University Registrar

• Provide leadership in the support of existing processes that support undergraduate, graduate, and professional school academic programs.

• Support the day-to-day catalog, curriculum, and degree audit operations of the Registrar’s office by managing timelines, workflows, and error reporting, oversee access approval to Courseleaf and Degree Works, and guiding staff in development of new solutions.

• Champion the use of university-wide policies and procedures for common functions to improve data quality, eliminate shadow systems, and reduce maintenance efforts and/or costs.

• Solve problems and enable opportunities for the introduction of appropriate policies and procedures.

• Lead and conduct in-depth analysis on how best to improve business processes. Define how to use Banner and other systems to fulfill those requirements.

• Lead and participate in implementations of new systems, and planning and support testing for patches, enhancements, and upgrades of existing systems.

• Supervise and oversee the work of the Catalog, Curriculum, and Degree Audit team.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams on issue resolution, system configuration, and the implementation of new technology solutions.

• Develop a culture of superior customer service when dealing with customer tickets, phone calls, and email communications.

The Individual must:

• Support the vision to improve system technologies used by the Registrar's Office and all schools/colleges, academic departments, and administrative units.

• In coordination with the OUR team and other teams across campus, the Associate University Registrar will track, schedule, and plan for system upgrades, testing for new technologies and upgrades of existing tools already used by the Office of the University Registrar.

• Assist with planning and coordination of projects, training, and documentation for end-users within the schools/colleges and other offices.

• Advises on functional support, technical support, and quality control to the Registrar’s Offices; escalate issues as necessary.

• Acts as a steward for academic information and manages data for accuracy.  Interprets data for optimal process and system use.  Works with other groups as needed to define data feeds and analyze data. 

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams on the technology map and implementation of new technology solutions.

This position is eligible to work fully remote with limited travel to campus.

Provide leadership in support of Ellucian’s Banner Catalog and Curriculum modules, Ellucian’s Degree Works, and Courseleaf’s Catalog and Curriculum Management software.

• Identify opportunities for introduction of technology to improve service and productivity and increase efficiency and accuracy.

• Lead business process evaluation, enhancement, and redesign efforts.  Define business requirements.  Identify and propose potential business process and system enhancements.

• Lead and participate in the investigation and implementation of software enhancements.

• Identify problems and issues related to CAT, CIM, and Banner Catalog.  Lead effort to analyze, test, and implement fixes and enhancements.

• Ensure current and accurate updates to academic programs.

• Manage CAT/CIM roles and oversight of permissions for administrative users of Courseleaf.

Collaborate with Student and Academic Services, Academic Records, and Compliance and Reporting groups.

• Support efforts related to the analysis and management of data from the various Courseleaf CAT, CM, PATH, and Degree Works and Data Warehouse.

• Analyze problems related to catalog and curriculum. Resolve complex data and data-related issues and provide guidance to a variety of users, internal and external to the University.

• Lead process re-engineering and redesign efforts to implement and integrate new technology to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve services.  Implement improvements in procedures and workflow pertaining to curriculum and degree audit.  Focus on eliminating manual and paper-based processes and adoption of automation wherever possible.

• Lead software maintenance and development activities for the Catalog, Curriculum, and Degree Audit team such as testing, upgrades, and system enhancements, etc.

• Contribute to the management of the operations production calendar.

• Participate in compliance projects. Assist with submission, requirements gathering, testing and signoff of technology compliance projects.

Provide support in analysis and preparation of reports and data from a variety of sources such as Banner, CIM, and the Data Warehouse.

• Working with others across Penn collaborate on the collection and analysis of student data requirements from users across campus.  Collaborate with others in the OUR and Pennant Operations to create and catalogue various curriculum and degree audit related reports.

• Thoroughly understand data structures dealing with curriculum hierarchy and lifecycle and complexities across multiple systems and the student data warehouse.

• Ensure student data warehouse and Banner users understand and interpret data correctly.

• Participate in the development of student data warehouse reports and dashboards.

• Troubleshoot existing queries and reports.

• Responsible for leadership and oversight of data management and reporting.

• Plan and oversee data clean-up or data import projects. Set goals and objectives for team.

• Oversee team and direct day-to-day operations.

• Oversee reporting function, including interacting with end-users and working with department leadership to ensure reporting needs are being met. Deliver specifications and direction to reporting team that includes an assessment of tools and recommendations for use.

• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and 3-5 years; 7-10 years in a student services office with an in-depth understanding of student records administration preferred, or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Experience in gathering, analyzing, documenting, and modifying business requirements in academic student service areas.

• Experience in the use and configuration of Ellucian’s Banner system, National Student Clearinghouse reporting, and National Student Loan Data System record maintenance and reporting.

• Experience in reporting, data analysis, and reporting tools such as SAP’s Business Objects, Toad Data Point, knowledge of SQL.

• Advanced user skills with Excel and other Microsoft programs and computer systems.

• Excellent interpersonal, communication and presentation skills. Demonstrated ability to be detail-oriented and accurate.

• Able to handle multiple tasks simultaneously. Demonstrated organizational and prioritization skills, along with the ability to work within tight and often conflicting deadlines.

• Must be flexible, show effective judgement, discretion and have the ability to handle confidential financial matters.

• Work effectively in a highly matrixed and decentralized environment with the ability to navigate through ambiguity and demonstrate appreciation and support for diversity, inclusion and belonging in a constantly evolving academic/higher education environment.

Preferred:

• Experience leading a team to facilitate implementations and/or procedural change.

• Knowledge of SQL.

• Proficiency in Ellucian Banner Communications Management and Self-Service Banner.

• Proven record of exemplary customer service.

• Experience leading and participating in technology implementation projects.

• Knowledge of all areas providing student and academic support services: Bursar, Financial Aid, and schools across a decentralized campus.

• Ability to communicate business-specific requirements, problems, issues, and solutions to technical and non-technical users.

• Experience with standard office software packages.

• Experience working in a large, decentralized, and complex higher education environment.

Job Location - City, State

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Department / School

Division of Finance

Pay Range

$74,476.00 - $130,000.00 Annual Rate

Salary offers are made based on the candidate’s qualifications, experience, skills, and education as they directly relate to the requirements of the position, as well as internal and market factors and grade profile. 

Affirmative Action Statement 
Penn adheres to a policy that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected class.

Special Requirements 
Background check required after a conditional job offer is made. Consideration of the background check will be tailored to the requirements of the job.

University Benefits

• Health, Life, and Flexible Spending Accounts: Penn offers comprehensive medical, prescription, behavioral health, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits to protect you and your family’s health and welfare. You can also use flexible spending accounts to pay for eligible health care and dependent care expenses with pre-tax dollars.

• Tuition: Take advantage of Penn's exceptional tuition benefits. You, your spouse, and your dependent children can get tuition assistance here at Penn. Your dependent children are also eligible for tuition assistance at other institutions.

• Retirement: Penn offers generous retirement plans to help you save for your future. Penn’s Basic, Matching, and Supplemental retirement plans allow you to save for retirement on a pre-tax or Roth basis. Choose from a wide variety of investment options through TIAA and Vanguard.

• Time Away from Work: Penn provides you with a substantial amount of time away from work during the course of the year. This allows you to relax, take vacations, attend to personal affairs, recover from illness or injury, spend time with family—whatever your personal needs may be.

• Long-Term Care Insurance: In partnership with Genworth Financial, Penn offers faculty and staff (and your eligible family members) long-term care insurance to help you cover some of the costs of long-term care services received at home, in the community or in a nursing facility. If you apply when you’re newly hired, you won’t have to provide proof of good health or be subject to underwriting requirements. Eligible family members must always provide proof of good health and are subject to underwriting.

• Wellness and Work-life Resources: Penn is committed to supporting our faculty and staff as they balance the competing demands of work and personal life. That’s why we offer a wide variety of programs and resources to help you care for your health, your family, and your work-life balance.

• Professional and Personal Development: Penn provides an array of resources to help you advance yourself personally and professionally.

• University Resources: As a member of the Penn community, you have access to a wide range of University resources as well as cultural and recreational activities. Take advantage of the University’s libraries and athletic facilities, or visit our arboretum and art galleries. There’s always something going on at Penn, whether it’s a new exhibit at the Penn Museum, the latest music or theater presentation at the Annenberg Center, or the Penn Relays at Franklin Field to name just a few examples. As a member of the Penn community, you’re right in the middle of the excitement—and you and your family can enjoy many of these activities for free.

• Discounts and Special Services: From arts and entertainment to transportation and mortgages, you'll find great deals for University faculty and staff. Not only do Penn arts and cultural centers and museums offer free and discounted admission and memberships to faculty and staff. You can also enjoy substantial savings on other goods and services such as new cars from Ford and General Motors, cellular phone service plans, movie tickets, and admission to theme parks.

• Flexible Work Hours: Flexible work options offer creative approaches for completing work while promoting balance between work and personal commitments. These approaches involve use of non-traditional work hours, locations, and/or job structures.

• Penn Home Ownership Services: Penn offers a forgivable loan for eligible employees interested in buying a home or currently residing in West Philadelphia, which can be used for closing costs or home improvements.

• Adoption Assistance: Penn will reimburse eligible employees on qualified expenses in connection with the legal adoption of an eligible child, such as travel or court fees, for up to two adoptions in your household.

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To learn more, please visit: https://www.hr.upenn.edu/PennHR/benefits-pay