ack

Clearing seniors for graduation is like slogging through… I don’t know, quicksand?? I was thinking molasses, but you can fight your way out of molasses eventually. We’ve been doing this for – I think – three weeks now (I have lost track; it’s like being in some airless hopeless limbo-land) and it feels like it will never ever end. 

It gets worse every semester. I am pretty sure I’m not imagining that. And since every semester Mr. Organized and I wail that "This is the worst semester EVERRRRR!!!!!"  I don’t think I’m making it up. Okay, I just sorted my spreadsheet that I enter all this information on to generate the emails we send them. The "Hey, you’re actually graduating!! Provided you pass this semester!!" emails and the "Looooooser!" emails. So far I’ve entered 95 students into the database. Out of those, 48 have graduation deficiencies. (Honestly, I am shocked that it’s not more than that – while actually working on this it felt like maybe FOUR were getting "ok" letters.) Out of those 48, 12 are not meeting the minimum GPA requirement in their major or their minor or both. That is, to put it mildly, a LOT. We usually have a few, but I mean a FEW. Not a fourth of them.  (Wow, I actually just calculated that in my head. Go me!) This is really kind of weird, and once we have everyone on the database I’m going to get some actual hard real numbers and take them to our boss. This seems very odd. And 12 is just the number I have so far – I know there are more because we are only about halfway through the doublechecks and the ones I did initially have mostly not been checked. I had a bunch. 

Let me just explain – briefly, of course! Hahahahaha!!!- how this works. When the students apply to graduate at the beginning of the semester, the registrar’s office collects all the applications and then sends them on to whatever college the students’ major falls under so we can clear them. Naturally the registrar’s office is going through major staff shortages due to two people leaving and the only one with experience being drug away to work on the new program that’s being implemented. Mr. Organized has also been drug away WAY too much to work on this new program. He is our office’s "Power User", whatever the hell that means. Apparently it means he never gets to do his real job ever again. Nor does Graduation Woman, so there have been a gazillion problems for the past few semesters, like getting applications late – or not at all – and stuff not getting posted when it should, and oh, just a world of other things that nobody will know what I’m talking about should I list them, so just trust me, it’s been a tad….. chaotic, shall we say. 

We get all the applications (ie, they dribble in late, another big problem) and then we set to "clearing". Which involves taking each student’s file and going through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure they are not missing anything they have to have for graduation. Major stuff, minor stuff, minimum GPAs, core stuff, weird major specific stuff like passing senior presentations, minimum number of hours, both here and if they’ve transferred a lot of stuff in… it is a LOT of information and very detailed and even if we’ve already done an audit on them and just have to update that (they are supposed to come have an audit done when they’re a couple of semesters from graduating) it’s still very time-intensive. And very grueling. Oh, and after I just told my boss that nearly all of them come in for audits these days, naturally this semester a whole bunch did not, which makes it even more time-consuming. 

So basically there is a metric fuck-ton of stuff to check and it is REALLY easy to miss things, which is why every student gets checked twice – one of us does an initial check, another does a double-check. You can see why this takes forEVER. And we do the double-check just like it’s the initial check so it’s an added layer of security for us. 

I will mention here that the New Program which Mr. Organized and Graduation Woman have been sucked into is going to really really help with this, because most things will be flagged when a student has deficiencies. Which, YES, is how it should have been all ALONG, and bizarrely the old creaky DOS based system that we had pre-Banner DID flag a bunch of stuff. Not everything but it did a pretty good job. Banner does not flag a thing. The new one (which is in addition to Banner, it’s a specific Degree Audit System) will make this SO much easier and less ulcer-inducing. Also students will have access to it as well and will be able to see exactly what sorts of things they are lacking from day one. Which will hopefully put an end to the "But noooooobody toooooooold me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" wailing we hear non-stop. 

Anyhow, I can’t believe I’m going on and on about this. I’m just really tired, and sick of doing this, and also Miss Organized is scaring the bejesus out of me because she has made, oh, A MILLION ZILLION MISTAKES while working on hers. I’ve been double-checking her, and it has been, seriously, heart-attack inducing. She is having some serious personal issues and I know that’s what is causing it– she’s always scatterbrained but I’ve never seen her like this. I’ve not really said anything to her, beyond going back to let her re-check things. And it certainly is not like I don’t make mistakes — I make PLENTY, which is why we double-check each other. We all make mistakes. Even Mr. Organized makes mistakes. But she’s really screwing them up, and she’s make some really big ones — like marking a student as "ok" when he’d actually made a D- in his last minor class in the spring so dropped below a 2.0. She’s marked a BUNCH of people as ok who are not ok at all. Since we really really REALLY do not want to graduate someone who in reality has shortages, this is giving me an ulcer. Mr. Organized and I discussed it a little today – I don’t think he was as freaked out as I am about it; he seemed to think most of what she’d missed was not something that would be the end of the world if it slipped by us — but some of it IS. AAAGGHH!!!!

Boy I’ll be glad to see that new system get fired up. Of course it will be ages before we can use it for everyone – it’s only going to work for people who started since Fall of 2009 and are on the New Insane General Education that replaced the Core program. Which is stuff like math and PE and lit and is not major specific. And is a whole other reason to scream hysterically, but let’s not get into that now.  

Okay, time to get back to it. Oh, the thing that is really sending me over the brink?? Calculating GPAs!! We have to manually calculate major and minor GPAs. Take each class they need, add up their quality hours and quality points, see if they have a 2.0. And if not, we do this crazy calculation to see what they’ll need to have in their remaining classes to GET a 2.0. I’ve got an excel spreadsheet that helps a lot, but you still have to be sure and not miss any classes they are using, which is really hard for programs like Tech who have classes in a bunch of different areas- not just Tech, but Industrial Design and Product Development and Sustainable Development and Interior Design and you know what’s really easy to do??? Yeah, miss some of the damned things when manually calculating GPAs! And know what I really really hate, and am really really BAD at???? Yeah, math!!! Ohhhh, and guess what the ONE thing our new degree program will NOT be able to do???? Yeah, calculate major GPAs. Of all things. I think due to the many areas it would have to pull the numbers from. Or something stupid like that. ANYHOW I blame this little mid-day meltdown on the fact that I’ve had to calculate GPAs non-fucking-stop for three weeks and I HATE IT. Oh, I will be glad when this is over!!!