| Department/Title | Primary Job Function |
| Admissions | To make applicants feel small, because they are small, and to make them sweat bullets for months at a time. All of this is done in a complete shroud of secrecy and myth. You have no accountability to anyone, so make it up as you go along. |
| Counseling/Central Advising | Provide students a misguided view of the universe, and tell them all of the things they want to hear. Tell them how simple something is, and make 120 hours seem like a walk in the park, but don’t forget to tell them about those 6 examinations they need to take any course in English, Math or Zoology. |
| Registrar | Tell students what courses they can’t take during registration for whatever reason, then when they want to graduate, tell them what they should have taken, but never divulge this information early. For all other requests, send students on a goose chase looking for the signatures of their advisor (who they have never met), their department chair (who they avoid), and their dean (who they fear). If all else fails, cover your trail with typos in the record. |
| Graduation Analyst | You know students only as numbers. You match the catalog information, with the record of the student. Perfect students get their degrees by having you find a perfect match for every course on their record, in order, for the catalog year they graduate with. When things don’t go well in your work, put on your black hooded robe and grab your scythe from the tool shed to delivery the bad news to the unlucky ex-potential-graduate. |
| Transcript Analyst | You receive all of those wonderfully sealed, fresh, virgin transcripts from other institutions of the transfer applicants, then you spin the wheel of doom, located beside your desk and assign with great ease, any course equivalency you like. |
| Primary Advisor of Record |
Correct everything that the student has ever been told by Counseling, or Admissions. Suggest “easy” solutions to all of the students problems, they are best if they are unobtainable. A waiver signed by their best buddy, the Dean, is always a nice choice. If there is a question you don’t have an answer two, duck it until after registration and ask the student to clarify what they mean, repeat up to 8 times if needed. |
| Provost/VC Academic Affairs | Shadowy figure in the corner. You are almost as much a mystery to students as admissions. Tell students what they will be learning in their programs, and then give them a boat load of courses that will get them somewhere close. |
| Instructor | Tell students what they will REALLY be learning in their program, and introduce yourself as God when they first meet you. YOU and only YOU control their fate. |
| Dean | Scare children and heard your faculty like cattle. |
| Dean of Students | Find the bad bad students and make them fear you. If you run out of bad students, scare the rest of them for good measure. |
| Chancellor | Such a pretty face. Stand around and look good, you are the face of the university. Shake some hands, drink some coffee and enjoy your soft, leather covered chair of power, Sir |
*intended as humor. I love (almost) all of the university employees I have ever had to interact with.