Information Desk in Whitehall

Information Desk Sends Students in Right Direction

By: Ami Olson

Posted: 2/1/07

Through the conjoined efforts of several offices, Utica College has introduced an information desk to help guide students and visitors and also increase the overall efficiency of several college offices.

Throughout the first week of classes the information desk, located in the newly renovated lobby of White Hall, served to direct students to the correct offices, retrieve students' billing and financial aid information, and answer any general questions students may have.

The information desk is the result of a collaboration between the offices of financial aid, business affairs, admissions and the registrar. Ed Lewandrowski Jr., the director of bursar operations, said the desk was created mostly in response to concerns expressed by students. Particularly at the beginning and end of each semester, lines often form at these offices as students scramble to register for classes, finalize schedules or secure financial aid packages.

The information desk is meant to decrease students' confusion and increase efficiency by reducing lines and misdirected students.

"There is nothing more frustrating than having to wait in line, only to find out that you are, in fact, in the wrong line," said Lewandrowski.

For the first week of the semester, full-time employees from the admissions office were placed behind the desk.

Scott Woodcock, assistant director of admissions, was one of these staff members. According to Woodcock, many students who visited the desk were new to the college, in need of a printed schedule or directions to a classroom.

Prior to the desk's installation, students with important but easily answered questions may have stood in line at an office inappropriate to their question.

Vice President of Enrollment Management Patrick Quinn said that although nobody is currently working at the information desk, the college hopes to reintroduce the services of the desk in the next few weeks.

Staffing for the desk will be drawn from student employees in work-study positions, but may become a full-time position in the future.

Quinn said that the desk is part of a larger initiative to accommodate students through various processes like billing and registration, by explaining the details of the processes and helping to make more sense of these processes to students.

According to Quinn, the college is in the process of creating a new model upon which to base a physical and human resource transformation, which will hopefully be in full working order by the fall of 2007. He hopes that in the future, the desk can provide students with the answers and information that they have had to seek out by visiting several different offices to receive.