I work at the University of Texas at Austin’s Registrar’s Office. As part of an effort to improve its image (or enhance performance, or Buzzwordy McBuzzwordson), someone sent an email this morning asking all of us to take an online survey of the “Registrar’s Office Values.” (As with most UT surveys, they hired SurveyMonkey. Why, you may ask, would a world-class university with a top-notch information systems team numbering in the hundreds pay SurveyMonkey when they could write a better survey script for free? That’s a rhetorical question. Ponder it whilst you watch your tax and tuition dollars flit away.)
The survey consists of just one question: What five values do you feel are important for a Registrar’s office to have? After seriously considering submitting five synonyms for “credibility” (and realizing that I’d probably be sent a very stern email about not being a “team player”), I opted for the half-serious, half-comedy option:
- customer service
- credibility
- legitimacy
- an unstoppable robot army sent from the future to approve grade changes
- a sense of humor
Hopefully #5 will be implemented before #4.
