New Registrar Juggles Behind the Scenes

Each year, more than 6,000 undergraduates entrust their academic records to the office of one man, but most have no idea who he is.

And that’s exactly the way it should be, says Barry S. Kane, the new registrar of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

“Our job is to fit into the background,” he says. “Students shouldn’t have to think about the registrar too much. After all, how many students can remember the name of their registrar after they graduate? But I bet they can remember the names of the professors who most influenced their lives.”

But Kane’s unassuming office serves as an indispensable gear in Harvard’s undergraduate machine, managing course enrollment, grades, academic archives, course catalogs, handbooks and billing. So when the machinery breaks down, students take notice.

Kane learned this lesson at Yale, where he recently completed six years as registrar. During that time, he oversaw Yale’s rocky transition to a new database for student records. Kane took the brunt of the criticism fired at his office for glitches in the system that led to such debacles as lost transcripts and “disappearing” students.

Kane says those experiences taught him much about the difficulties of updating the information systems of a major college and that he looks forward to applying this knowledge to his new job at Harvard, where he will complete the College’s conversion to a new student records database. The new system will enable the registrar’s office to develop software to streamline exam scheduling, classroom assignments and grade and transcript processing.

Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71, who had the final say in Kane’s appointment, has said that he wants the Harvard Educational Resource System (HERS2) in place by the end of the year. He requested that Kane and his colleagues draw up a plan for the implementation of the custom-made database.

“There were a few denials of service when Barry was at Yale, implementing the Banner system,” Gross says. “We discussed this with him, and felt that he had learned a great deal from that experience.”

Kane says he expects things to run more smoothly at Harvard, where the registrar’s office boasts a considerably larger staff and its own technical support personnel.

The promise of these resources was the prime reason for his eventual decision to come to Cambridge, according to Kane, who says that leaving Yale was one of the most difficult choices of his life.

Moreover, Kane says he expects an easier time at Harvard because he will report directly to Gross, the official responsible for oversight of the students he represents—a much simpler line of authority than he encountered at Yale.

Against this auspicious backdrop, Kane says he and his new staff are excited to have the database in place so they can work on simplifying the bureaucratic necessities of student life.

‘Kafka-esque nightmare’

Kane was plucked from Yale’s registrar office this summer following a nationwide search to replace Harvard’s outgoing Registrar Arlene F. Becella. He has also been registrar at Drew University and Colgate College.

Under Kane’s leadership, Yale’s registrar office underwent many technological upgrades.

The school implemented an online course registration program in January 2002, a change welcomed by most undergraduates. Another program allowed students to see what time their courses met—students could literally add courses to an online “shopping cart,” then print them out at the end of shopping period to be signed by their advisors.

But not all transitions were so fluid.

When the registrar’s office began to rely on online versions of course supplements and exam schedules, students bemoaned the loss of the printed copies they could tote about campus as they shopped for classes.

The Yale Daily News deemed the registrar’s office, in one of many articles highlighting its bureaucratic and technological difficulties, a “Kafka-esque nightmare.”

As the registrar tinkered with the database’s programs to find new ways to improve their services, there were countless reports of lost transcripts, delayed grade reports, overbooked classrooms and even the “disappearance” of several students who returned from a semester in London to find that they were no longer enrolled in the College.

Kane says he expected to be held personally accountable for the problems that sprung from his office.

“The registrar becomes a lightning rod when major system changes are being introduced,” he says. “You can’t hide the things that go wrong because they affect students’ everyday lives. A registrar’s office intersects with faculty and student lives in ways that most people don’t think about too much. When these intersections are disrupted, for whatever reason, they tend to draw a lot of attention.”

But Kane maintains that the transcript errors, due to a combination of personnel problems and kinks in the office’s computer programs, were sour notes in what was otherwise a productive tenure.

According to Kane, the end result, a functional database with programs in place for a variety of online student services, was well worth the wait—and the bad press.

“If I had ever felt that what we were doing wasn’t meaningful, I never would have stayed,” he says. “There were times when it would have been easy to just throw up my hands and walk out. But in the end, you really see all these things come together, and it is immensely gratifying.”

According to his successor, Kane left behind a well oiled machine.

“The office he left behind is in wonderful condition,” says Yale’s acting registrar, Jill Carlton.

A Rosy Future on Garden Street

Harvard’s administrators and students are hoping to avoid the kinds of disruptions in service that plagued Yale’s technological transformation.

Rather than rush through the implementation of generic software, under Becella’s stewardship, Harvard’s registrar office updated their computers at a cautious pace, making sure that students don’t experience the same problems that jarred Yale undergraduates.

Despite the precautions, however, Gross and Kane both acknowledges that there will likely be setbacks.

“Online systems have some problems, usually in the early stages of their implementation. But I think everyone agrees that is the way to go,” Gross says.

“Every implementation is problematic, it’s never easy,” says Kane. “You know that under the best of circumstances, things will go wrong and the road will get a little bumpy. A registrar’s office always takes heat for these kinds of service disruptions. That’s to be expected. The important thing is not to get discouraged by them, to keep your eyes on the horizon, the broader picture, and the ultimate goals.”

With future adjustments, the new system could make way for online registration and course enrollment online, expediting the processes that Harvard students currently complete on paper and carbon copy forms.

But students will not likely notice any change within the next year, while the registrar’s office finalizes the new system, Kane says.

Exciting new features will have to wait until after the database is securely in place, he says.

Even then, Kane says, the impetus for change will have to come from University Hall, or the students.

“The registrar’s office doesn’t set the agenda,” he says. “I think online course enrollment is exciting and could work at Harvard, but if what we have now is simple and easy, maybe it’s not worth the effort.”

Undergraduate Council President Rohit Chopra ’04 can think of a few things that need some work.

“The new Registrar will need to lead FAS in addressing a number of pressing concerns: better scheduling of classrooms and exams, faster processing of grades and transcripts and more innovative ways to connect academic advisors to students during course selection leading the list,” Chopra says.

“Kane should also seriously consider investigating an overhaul of the academic calendar,” he adds.

In the meantime, though, Kane is shuttling between New Haven and Cambridge, helping to finish a project at Yale and moving into his new office at Harvard.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. O’Brien can be reached at robrien@fas.harvard.edu.