Posted on May 20: New registrar revved up to recruit the best
[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Lou_Ariano_opt.jpg” caption=”Lou Ariano”]It's 5:30 a.m. and Lou Ariano leaves his Bloor Street home in downtown Toronto. At about 6:15 a.m. he arrives on McMaster's campus and heads for the Pulse, where he works out for an hour before getting changed into his “registrar's” suit. By 8 a.m. he's ready to help recruit the best and brightest students to McMaster.
It's a routine he's grown accustomed to since starting his job as university registrar Feb. 1. He came to McMaster from York University where he worked as registrar for the past three years.
Promoting McMaster is an easy job for him. It helps that he's so impressed by the University. “McMaster has always had a very high profile and a great reputation in Ontario and among Canadian universities. I've been involved with universities in Canada since 1981 and I've always known about McMaster,” he says.
In fact, it was McMaster's reputation that drew him here.
More specifically, he was attracted to student recruitment and liaison, admissions, registration and records and Convocation. “In the two months that I've been here it has been quite exciting to deal with recruitment and recruitment strategies and enrolment management strategies,” he says. “It's been very exciting talking about convocation again, valedictorians and honorary doctorates.”
Arriving on the heels of the double cohort year has provided Ariano with a fresh look at how McMaster manages its enrolment. The university's new online registration system was a good indicator on how McMaster fared, he said. “As far as the double cohort year, the thing that impressed me when I arrived here is I knew that Mac did not have a Web-based registration system and they had just initiated SOLAR (McMaster's self-registration system). I think the success of the SOLAR implementation is a good indication of how well Mac has adapted to the double cohort.”
But he feels there's a lot to do to get students out of line and online. That's one of his first goals. “That is one of the major focuses in my first year,” he says. “Since our Web site is one of our principle tools for the service of students, it seems to me that ours should be the most informative.”
This message was brought home when at 4:50 p.m. one day he met a student in the hallway, looking for a form from the registrar's office. “I was able to get him the form, but if the form is not available online and his schedule does not allow him to be here before 4 p.m. when the registrar's office closes, we need to adapt to that and the different styles of students.”
As beneficial as the online world can be, it presents new challenges for registrar's offices, he admits. This month he gave a talk at Keele University in England on fake degrees, phony transcripts and verification services, a growing industry that is challenging the integrity of a university degree. He'll give the same talk at the Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada in June.
Ariano was able to purchase a fake degree online using cooldegree.com. For $129, he now has bachelor of arts honours degree in English from York University. Aside from a few errors, including the misspelling of the registrar's title and an erroneous grade point average, the degree could easily pass as authentic, he says.
“My whole conclusion on my paper is we need to talk to each other about this and Canadian universities are not doing that. We need to establish, at least for Ontario universities, a database in one spot, such as at the Ontario University Application Centre. We need to protect the integrity of the degree.”
It makes sense that the “phony degree industry” is a favorite pastime of his. It's because he's passionate about what he does. That's why he is working so hard at making next year the echo of the double cohort year as smooth as possible.
“I don't think it will ever go back to normal. I will be interested to see what happens. The days of 22,000 applications a year are probably over. It's probably going to be around 28-30,000 applications a year coming into McMaster. I think all of the universities are going to realize that. I don't think anybody is going to go back to the 2002/03 levels.”
Ariano, who grew up in Winnipeg, has more than 20 years of experience and expertise working within university structures and governance. For the last three years, he has been university registrar at York University in Toronto. Prior to that he was assistant dean, student services at Osgoode Hall Law School and registrar at Brock University and the first registrar at the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College at the University of Regina. Ariano has a bachelor of arts degree from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. and a master of arts degree from the University of Regina.
Photo caption: Lou Ariano in his office in Gilmour Hall. Photo credit: Chantall Van Raay
