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In four years of managing the Northern Arizona University (NAU) Student Service Center-a one stop shop-from concept to fruition, my colleagues and I have collected some tips and tricks and a toolbox of key components for success. Here are some tales from our journey and a look at some of the tools that helped us build our holistic path to student success.
The NAU Service Center journey started in 2012, when university leadership came together for a twoyear concept review that included visiting other one stops, building stakeholder consensus, and securing funding to start a new campus department. When the proposal was accepted, the planning and design continued. The grand opening of the NAU Student Service Center was celebrated in 2016. Now in its fifth year of operation, the center is celebrating the first full undergraduate student lifecycle for the 2016-2017 cohort it has served from orientation through graduation.
One-Stop Model
The NAU Student Service Center provides service in four main functional areas-admissions, registrar, scholarships and financial aid, and student accounts- as well as in subsidiary areas such as advising, housing and residence life, meal plans, and student support services. Our statewide department, Enrollment and Student Services, comprises 20 community campus locations, NAU Online, and the Flagstaff Call and Walk-in Service Centers. Functional area teams work from separate locations on the Flagstaff campus. Thus, we have had to create a cohesive mindset utilizing systems for:
♦ case management and a tiered knowledge base in Salesforce CRM (see Table 1, on page 36);
♦ communication methods in Skype for Business and other applications such as Microsoft Teams; and
♦ training content accessibility in BbLearn LMS and One Note that honors all learning styles (see Table 2, on page 37).
Change Management
Given the challenges of shifting the paradigm on campus from siloed departments to a holistic one-stop customer service model, our departmental leadership team embraced the Prosci ADKAR Change Management method. By practicing components of ADKAR-maintaining Awareness of the challenges, building Desire to change, providing the Knowledge base, fostering Ability for day-to-day success, and maintaining active Reinforcement to internal and external stakeholders-we developed a focused skill set to advance through the toughest challenges: defining a common customer service mission, service-level agreements, targeted staffing, comprehensive cross-training for...