October is financial literacy month!
The cost of attending an institution of higher
learning
continues to climb, as does the cost of daily living. This requires
students
have the acumen to holistically manage their finances. In support of
this objective,
October will be financial literacy month. The Office of Student
Finance will
be including a significant amount of information on the myU Portal,
including
information on financial management strategies. For example, a
budgeting sheet
will be provided and students will be asked to use it for two weeks in
order to
monitor their spending. Freshman will receive information on working
with their
banking institution and building a healthy credit history. Students
will also
receive educational information on debt and debt management.
Students who participate in the activities presented
in the my U Portal will be eligible for prizes. Please help spread the
word to students and encourage them to participate in financial
literacy month.
New services in One Stop contributed to a successful start of the
semester
One Stop Student Services kicked off another school
year with significantly lower wait times in the Fraser Hall location.
Students walking in waited an average of 3 minutes; this wait time
decreased significantly from 10 minutes in 2006. According to Carrie
Zastrow, assistant to the director, the lower wait time is evidence
that One Stop's enhanced communication strategy is working well by
providing students with the information they need to avoid a walk-in
visit. This communication strategy included the Fraser Hall One Stop
being open and able to serve students and parents on residence hall
move-in day; a new One Stop Student Services booklet; and the new
Veterans Services office located in Fraser Hall.
For the first time this year, One Stop's Fraser Hall
office was open the Saturday of move-in weekend, allowing students and
parents to come in, ask questions, and complete any paperwork. One Stop
Student Services manager, Janet Crittenden, noted many families took
advantage of the opportunity to visit One Stop on a Saturday, which
made a positive difference once classes started.
"Having staff come in to the office on Saturday
helped with keeping the student traffic level down during the first
week of classes," Crittenden said.
A New One Stop Student Services orientation booklet
was handed out to approximately 9.000 first year, transfer, and
graduate students, and their parents at orientation over the summer.
The booklet includes a new student checklist and information regarding
registration, paying tuition, and how students can keep track of their
financial aid.
Also new this year is the Veterans Services office,
offered by One Stop Student Services. The office is located in the
Fraser Hall One Stop location; veterans can meet directly with staff
trained to handle their specific needs. According to Carin Anderson,
veterans services coordinator, during the first week of classes,
Veterans Services assisted 95 veterans in-person, in addition to
numerous students via e-mail and phone. Most student veterans used the
service to complete their Veterans Educational Benefits or the
Minnesota GI Bill paperwork; these benefits help student veterans cover
their educational and living expenses while in school, Anderson said.
As the semester carries on, One Stop Student
Services' three offices — Fraser
Hall, West Bank, and St. Paul — will continue to assist students with their needs as
efficiently as possible.
October RAC meeting canceled
Please note: the October Registrar's
Advisory Committee
(RAC) meeting has
been canceled. The November RAC meeting will be held Monday, November
5, 10:00 - 11:30 a.m. in a location to-be-determined. If you have
questions about
this
meeting or would like to be added to the listserv, please contact
Ingrid
Nuttall at ingridn@umn.edu.
Classroom Technical Services, staff in Academic Support Resources
150 Williamson Hall location
are moving
Classroom Technical Services (CTS),
currently housed in Norris Hall, and Academic Support Resources staff
located in 150 Williamson Hall are
moving, but not too far. In early to mid-October, these staff will be
moving to newly-renovated space across the hall from their current
locations.
All staff members¿ phone numbers will remain the
same;
however, the new mailing address will be as follows:
160 Williamson Hall
231 Pillsbury Drive Southeast
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Please, keep this mailing address on hand,
but do not begin to use it until you are directed to.
We will keep you updated on any future
details regarding this move as they become available.
Graduation Planner is up and running
Graduation
Planner is now live online. Students will use Graduation
Planner to explore majors and minors, make a four-year plan, and work
with their
adviser(s) to stay on track. To see a preview of how Graduation Planner
will
work for students, view the tutorial and quick start guides available
at
http://plan.umn.edu.
Please
help us to continue to spread the word about Graduation Planner
to your students. Communications tools are available at the
Graduation Planner Communications tool kit.
To
request posters and bookmarks for your offices contact Kasi
Williamson at will2026@umn.edu.
Update: course guide upgrade
Academic Support Resources is
currently working to upgrade
the online Course Guide that students use to make informed registration
choices.
The new system will be available October 5 for entry of spring 2008
course
information by faculty members and authorized department staff.
Upgrades to the Course Guide will
allow students to access
even more information about courses. The new system will allow
instructors to
add a video clip to their course descriptions to demonstrate their
teaching
style to potential students. Instructors can also include their photo,
a
biography, and the syllabus for their class.
A new self-service Web
application, available on the One
Stop Faculty page, will allow instructors to enter information about
their
courses through a straightforward, online entry system; information
that instructors
enter will also carry forward from term to term. In
addition, new PeopleSoft pages for departmental
scheduling coordinators will allow them to access the Course Guide
information
for all of their department¿s courses, and they will be able to group
several sections
from the same course under one course description. Supporting reports
from Information Management Systems (IMS) will be forthcoming.
This new Course Guide system is a
flexible, easy-to-use way
for instructors and departments to promote their courses to students,
and for
students to find the information they need to choose the courses that
best meet
their learning styles, goals, and interests.
Departmental scheduling
coordinators have been invited to
training demonstrations for the new system; instructors and
departmental
scheduling coordinators will receive an e-mail announcement when the
new system
is available for entering spring 2008 course information.
Drop/Add dates and refund deadline reminders
Don¿t forget to check the refund and
drop/add deadlines online at http://onestop.umn.edu/onestop/Calendars/Fall2007.html
for the fall 2007 semester before you encourage a student to change his
or her enrollment. Before a student drops a
course in which he or she
is
already enrolled, the student should consider how this may
affect
plans for graduating and the financial consequences of when they drop
the
course, including financial aid eligibility.
Register online for the 2007 UMACRAO annual conference
The 2007 UMACRAO annual conference will be
held November 7-9 in Okoboji, Iowa at the Arrowwood Resort and
Conference Center. You can register now for the conference online by
logging on to http://csp.edu/form/umacrao/.
The theme of this year's
conference is Class of 2007: Accelerate Your Learning.
Highlights of the conference will include a "freshman mixer," along
with 25 different learning sessions about higher education across the
Midwest.
MAFAA conference dates
The Minnesota Association of Financial Aid Administrators
(MAFAA) will hold their fall 2007 conference from November 14-16 in
Minneapolis. More information will be forthcoming on MAFAA's Web site.
This month in the year...
2002: In September 200 Mid-Term Grade
Alerts were first
e-mailed out to students in 1xxx courses who were in danger of
receiving a D, F,
or N.
One Stop | Contact Us | Ferpa
Tutorial | ©2006 University of Minnesota
The Record is published monthly for colleges
and departments at the
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, by the Office of the Senior Vice
President for Academic Affairs and Provost. Back issues are on the Web
in PDF format at
href="http://onestop.umn.edu/onestop/Services/News_Events_and_Activities/Record.html">http://onestop"
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Please direct address changes to Ingrid
Nuttall, 612-626-0075 or
ingridn@umn.edu.
Ingrid Nuttall, editor Academic Support
Resources 150 Williamson
Hall 231 Pillsbury Drive S.E. Minneapolis, MN 55455
The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and
employer. This publication is available in alternative formats upon
request.
