Innovation in the Office of the Registrar: Insights from Bradon Owens
Every team is better off when they have someone who is able to recognize opportunities for growth, someone who can craft a strategic plan, and someone who can lead the execution of said plan. It is incredibly valuable–yet incredibly rare–to find someone who excels at all of these, but once you have them on your team, everyone’s capacity for excellence expands. Bradon Owens, Director of Operations at Pharos Resources, is one of those people.
Bradon’s career in higher education began as a 17-year-old, first-generation undergrad. Serving as a student worker in the financial aid office, she quickly learned an important lesson for anyone who is attending or working at a higher ed institution–"Knowledge is power." For struggling students, this means their key to success lies within knowing about the various kinds of support and resources at their disposal. However, it is the responsibility of the leaders at an institution to equip those students with the knowledge of where and how to find those resources as well as eliminate unnecessary barriers to getting students the help they need. Unfortunately, many institutions operate in a system of departmental silos, and this means that their students are often tasked with running across campus to multiple buildings just to handle a single issue. If we want to build programs that improve the student experience and academic outcomes, we must consider how we deliver cohesive and student-centric support.
After graduation, Bradon worked as an employment recruiter, helping to connect employers with talent based on skills and culture fit. She used this experience during her transition back into higher education as she stepped into a new role with an institution’s office of Career and Academic Development. The office's mission was to prepare students for future jobs through academic support, career counseling, professional development, etc. Bradon helped to build a program that also understood the importance of employee and workplace compatibility. She recognized that job searching never has a ‘one size fits all’ solution–accounting majors don’t all fit in the same firm, design majors don’t all fit at the same agency, theology majors don’t all fit in the same ministry, and so on. Within her first year at the institution–before the days of Handshake, she was able to take the number of employer contacts from under 300 to about 3,000–a tenfold expansion.
Following several years of serving in career development, Bradon’s colleagues started to recommend that she look into a position with the university’s office of the registrar. Initially, she took it as an insult. “I was mad every single time, because what do we think of–traditionally–in regards to the Registrar’s Office? No innovation, lots of red tape, always looking for a reason to say no to every question. I was offended. That’s not me. You don’t know me because that is not me.” In fact, Bradon’s critically thinking, problem-solving pursuit of excellence was exactly what the office needed.
After her eventual decision to join, she began making an impact as a point of connection at the cross-section of administration, student affairs, technology, and many other corners of the campus. Going forward, Bradon’s expertise continued to aid in the development of programs that eliminated departmental silos and improved the student experience. We may think of the registrar’s office as a rigid space of bureaucracy and paperwork; the truth is that it can be the place where you’ll find the highest concentration of institutional knowledge and catalysts for positive change, and it would be wise to solicit their perspective when making decisions for your campus.
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Learn more about Bradon’s journey and lessons from her career in higher education on episode 42 of the Cap & Gown podcast, now streaming on YouTube and all of your favorite listening platforms.