So we're trying to get ahead of everything
and trying to figure out how to make the students succeed and and work
with the university.
Welcome to Focus! A podcast dedicated to the business of higher education
I'm your host Heather Richmond and we will be exploring the challenges
and opportunities facing today's higher learning institutions.
Join me as I talk with Valarie Van Vlack treasurer at Texas State University
about some positive outcomes she's seen since COVID-19.
including creating a virtual one-stop shop for students
as well as how data has helped her make decisions to serve both students
and the business thanks so much Valarie for taking time out of your busy
schedule right now to give us an update. No problem. Awesome, well I know besides
being very instrumental on our client advisory board
you are also part of the treasury institute can you tell us a little bit
about your role there? Sure, well I served on the program
committee for a couple of years and I've always gone to the conferences the past two years I've been the program
chair of the treasury institute for higher education for the treasury
symposium. Our mission, basically, is to enhance the
treasury operations and really to educate the professional
and career development you know it's mainly for the mid and
senior level treasury managers of colleges universities and they really
focus on leading treasury management issues as
well. So I'm instrumental along with
my program committee because without them I couldn't do anything.
And we put together the treasury and symposium which will
actually be virtual this year and it's the end of January.
Yeah, well I bet there's a lot to talk about come January, isn't there?
There is we're pivoting a lot on our and our ideas for the conference already.
Well I know that you were also very
instrumental in our panel discussion earlier this
year around business continuity during a pandemic,
which that actually feels like it was years ago versus months ago
now. So I thought you could maybe just give us an update on
what's different or what's changed at Texas State and you know what's maybe
some of the unexpected outcomes from this?
Sure, well first of all we
really thought that we were going to be face to face
on July 6 which for our summer two courses.
Unfortunately, the the pandemic has hit Texas pretty hard and
the decision was made close to the beginning
of the of the second semester of summer that we
were going to go to fully online. So we as student business services
needed to pivot quite quickly, and change. We have a different billing
structure if you're online versus on campus
and so we had to kind of change everything
to accommodate for that so that was kind of interesting.
But really what we've done a lot is kind of
we are becoming the source of data and we're basically monitoring
a ton of things more so than I think we ever had before.
You know, we're monitoring collections, enrollment,
um the number of students signing up classes,
moving online like I just mentioned. It's all like I said it's always things
that we monitored before but now they have a
very big impact and so we're trying to get ahead of everything and trying to
figure out how to uh make the students succeed and
and work with with the university. We've done a lot of things and we've
looked at a lot of our policies and procedures and changed
some updated some one thing that we did is we adjusted our collections
tolerances. So before if you owed less than $250
or more than $250 you couldn't register her classes.
We knew things were going to be tough for students so we said
if you owe less than $3,000, we'll work with you and we'll let you register
and then we worked with them all summer, we elongated
our due date still was the same but we didn't charge late charges for another
three months. So we we really understood the what the
students financial stress was going through and try to
work with them as well as support the university in the process.
Yeah, that's great we hear that a lot of
the different kind of billing cycles and late fees on there
so so that's good that you were able to jump on that and see it.
Right, and then you know another thing we did obviously
um during this whole COVID situation is we really thought we were
going to come back to campus coming on the second part of summer,
but the decision is still to not even bring employees
back unless they need to be on campus. Even now in August we basically
worked on a lot of provisioning for the staff
allowing them capabilities to work from home
and then also making sure that our students were serviced.
One thing that we had happen is we we created an A and B team because we
obviously have to be at the cashier's office to accept payments and
to we do all the departmental payments for
everybody on campus. So we had to physically be in the office. We tried to
limit the number of people in the office so we've created an A and B team. And so
the A and B team would only work on the opposite days so that they were
always working with the same people. However, we did have a scare
because the employee thought that she may have
contracted COVID and she had come in one day and with the A team and one day
with the B team due to scheduling changes.
And so our whole office was kind of quarantined for about 10 days while they
were waiting for their test results. Fortunately everybody seemed fine but it
was it was a scare and it really
drove home that we really need to be very specific
on our A and B teams.
Yeah I can see that and it makes sense to -
I like that concept of A and B teams so you kind of have enough
of diversity within that group that you can handle all the student
needs and questions and billing but then you also have the same group working
together each time.
In terms of the data that you
were collecting and kind of starting to look at more,
I know that data has always been important but certainly having that
visibility to help make those decisions again for your business, and also serving
your students, so as you're planning for people to come
back to campus are you tracking or using data differently to
determine the kind of movement in activity in general
across campus? So I know that we have
an entire group of people that are doing
contract tracing in case there is a situation
on campus and we're not really a part of that,
but we are working with kind of the other side of things.
Professors are submitting requests to move from in
person to online, and so for various
reasons - ADA or other reasons.
And then we also have some students that just didn't feel comfortable coming back
and so they are also looking for some
online classes as well. So we're really working with our institutional research
group and crunching the data in different ways
and and really monitoring how that shift is
happening. Because we need to make sure that there's enough
courses available to each group that wants to be back or
wants to do it online. And I think I said this before but if I didn't
we charge different for online versus in person
so we had to figure out
how we have to adjust the bills and what was
equitable to the majority of the students. We basically made a decision
just recently to say that if student has
at least one face-to-face course then they will not be charged the online fees.
Because a lot of students for shifting they had a little bit of both
so they were paying um additional fees. And we knew that that
wasn't a good practice and it wasn't
helpful for the majority of the the students. So, you know, again we've
tried to accommodate the students but if we
didn't watch the data that would not be able to be done.
Yeah, that's really interesting did you - just curious - did you happen to see a
shift of those that were in that hybrid model decide to go 100
online or was it still kind of a little bit of a mix?
I think it's, you know, for the health and safety reasons of our
students that's the most important thing that we
need to watch. And we wanted people that feel
comfortable coming back. So I think that's a mix. I mean, some
students are kind of, their course is
shifting without them asking for it and some students are
looking for courses that are only in that. So I think we have
a good mix of students and we're just
trying to nail that down for fall.
And, you know, hopefully we can provide the best
service and student experience that we could possibly do for fall.
And then, you know, some of the other things that we did with our data
is that over the summer, like I said, we shifted to
all online which, we had never done before.
And so, again, it's new territory for everybody.
One of my staff members noticed that we were still charging lab fees.
And the lab fees basically are charged, you know,
for basically for usage. And so we realized that was the case, we didn't
even have a student complaint, we were just
proactive in that measure, and we removed all the lab fees.
You know, granted it was between five dollars and twenty dollars, but again
it's using the data and understanding what
we should do and what's right for the student.
And then just being proactive before, instead of reactive on it.
Yeah, this is the time to really re-evaluate
everything right? And think about some of those fees that are
just kind of typical and standard and then think,
"Oh gosh,this doesn't apply anymore. This probably shouldn't be charged for online classes."
Right, right and then you know and then
the one other thing that I kind of want to stress, you know, for
for us and I'm sure with every university
in the country is that we need to stay
student-centric. You know, with all the pandemic and all the
hype around will classes be online? Will
campus classes be in-person? Will the schools be able to maintain and
be open? You know, I think that we have to
make sure that we're focusing on the student, but also
looking at the data to understand what it really means,
and not just looking at the data and crunching the numbers.
We need to listen to the students and and get ahead of their needs,
of their complaints if they had any.
Yeah, well it sounds like you've already
started, you know, some some processes to help and really
helping the student with that experience. And so,
speaking of students, and needing help, and then
obviously you having your A and B team so you have limited staff there
on campus. You know, what does the preparation plan look like for
back to campus and really being able to help the students?
Well, the the first thing is we have made the decision - and I know a lot of
universities have done this in the past - but we have made the decision to go
cashless, at least in our student business services office,
which is going to be a big change to the students. So we did a lot of
leg work to see, you know, where they could get a money order
if they needed to have one. And for our new student orientation
we did a video that showed the students all the ways to pay, so that they can
watch it, you know, when they're trying to go
pay as well. All of our new student orientation went
online, so it was a good way to
communicate with the students and really have their their focus on
that one module, which is the student business
services module, which is really the TouchNet product.
So basically we wanted to
focus first of all - and we've been asking this for a while - is
why are the students coming into the student business services office?
How can we help them without them needing to come in?
and this was pre-pandemic, pre-COVID.
And, you know, so we've always been kind of working on it.
So how can we service them? So, you know, we really have been
promoting already but really stepped up our game and started
talking about signing up for direct deposit of financial aid,
we will not have checks being handed out at the student in the services
office if they don't sign up for financial aid,
then it will be mailed to them. And just trying to stress to them that,
you know, don't worry about the delay of the mail
and make sure that, you know, we're mailing it to the
to the not the permanent address where you don't have access to it,
but really basically signing up for direct deposit.
And then again paying via TouchNet and I think the
web module that we have will really help them a lot.
You know, again, the tutorials we've always had them before so there's that
as well. And then we've we have a lock dropbox
which is outside of our office, and we're promoting a lot of people to
just drop what they need to do - whether it's paperwork or checks - into the
dropbox. And then if they really didn't need to
speak to somebody face-to-face, we're allowing them to schedule
a time where we can meet face-to-face. But we have provisions like, you know, we
could use "Teams", we can share screens when we're
using "Teams" so that should help the student a lot
too. And again if they really need to speak to
us, we can schedule appointment and get them in. One thing that,
you know, we really are focusing on also is how we interact with other
departments. Because financial aid office, our office,
and registrar's office consistently have students going between
them for various reasons. So we really
try to work with the other departments to make sure we're just not sending the
students down and waiting in another social distance
line. And really trying to help the
student a hundred percent. We were talking
about for the past year or so about a one-stop shop we had never put
one in, but we're looking at this as a virtual
one-stop shop, where one department can kind of help the
student navigate through all the different processes.
So the student, you know, exposure is not there and we can really help the
students, you know, through the whole process.
Yeah, I think that's really interesting because I know that the one-stop shop
concept was certainly something big on a lot of campuses, but
it was really about that physical location, and just like you said, instead
of going from line to line, or building to
building to be able to come to one central place,
however that place has really transitioned, so
I really like that concept of a virtual one-stop shop and it sounds like
that probably is more the future. And so, can you talk a little bit about
how you see that one-stop shop transitioning to being virtual? Yeah so
one of the barriers that we had while we were looking at this whole
one-stop shop is where we're going to put it.
There was no really good room on campus. In a lot of universities I know
built these wonderful one-stop shop buildings
that service to school students, but our administrative building is on
the exterior of campus and there's very limited parking. So in order for
a student to even interact with us it it's kind of,
they really have to, it's walkable - don't get me wrong - but
it's still not at the student center which is kind of
the center of our campus, which would ideally be the place to put
the one-stop shop. And so the other kind of hindrance was
the amount of money it would cost to build the building.
If room was available, we're kind of landlocked here.
So we were kind of working through that, and then, you know,
how to manage it if it's in another location in our
administrative offices. And so virtually we can - it doesn't matter where we are. I
could have students contacting people
and the people could be at home and they wouldn't know the difference.
So I think that, you know, I think it's opened our eyes to see what we
really can do to help service the students because we
really like the idea of the one-stop shop,
it was just all those other things - the other hurdles - we had to get over.
And I think that's the wave of the future right now because the students
still don't want to come in. They would like to do everything
electronically. Right, and again the point really is not
the physical location, but it's what does the student need and help with
that you can help service, right? Right, right I mean the ultimate goal is
how to get the student through the the process and um although
you know the beautiful buildings are very
welcoming, I think that we could do this with
minimal cost and really help the student experience.
And I think a lot of this really goes to what we're starting to see
and we've been talking about this "contactless campus." And so how do we
ensure that you don't have these lines of students anymore?
And, you know, maybe some of the virtual cueing and I know you've thought a
little bit about that. Can you talk a little bit about how you're thinking
about reducing the physical lines if they are there?
Yeah so we looked at some products. We hadn't really,
you know - earlier in the semester we started looking at some queuing products,
but we implemented a software system for our phone system.
And what we didn't have originally when we first went to work
from home is we didn't have a way for the cueing
of our phone system to reach the people that were working
from home. And so we worked with our IT department
who manages the telephone system, and
we were able to purchase a product that we
ended up purchasing. They're not exactly phone numbers just contact points, I
guess. So what happens is if a student calls
into the main line now, it just cues them to whomever is on
the software or the computer system. And so
it really helps kind of cue everybody up and have
them off campus. So, you know, but again we're trying to
manage so that people aren't calling us, and what other ways can we cue them up?
We looked at queueing software
for time slots for students, but we really hadn't pulled the trigger
because we we really don't know what file is going
to look like. Right and, you know, again a lot of
schools are going to have to figure all of this out - especially, you know, from
a staffing perspective, and working remotely, and especially
since this wasn't just a temporary remote work situation but it sounds like
it's going to be ongoing for some time. And things like phone systems, and where
do you call, and where do you, you know, how do you get back to somebody,
how does that all work? So past kind of that initial emergency
response, what else have you have you seen changing? Again, it's
evaluating all of our processes, especially anything that was done in a
paper environment. We had done a lot of preparation before
for, you know, for cash management such as like remote deposit capture
and and how to get people more online. So we were able to put a bunch of
those things in pretty quickly,
and change some forms that we used to be receiving in our office to electronic
forms. But one of the really things that
we changed a lot, again I said that we
were kind of focusing on data, is we really
started working - and this is more of the treasury function,
but my student business services staff was instrumental in this as well -
is we were starting to look at how is our cash flow and our
liquidity? How is this going to impact
that? So we worked heavily with the budget
office and monitored, you know, liquidity,
we assess, like I said, we assess late fees,
we changed some of the the payment plans,
going from three installments to four installments to help the students.
And just really overall listening to the student and seeing what other
universities are doing and how to get out of
the paper process. Yeah, it's amazing how many paper
processes still exist, isn't it? Yeah we're finding some that we didn't
even realize existed, but we're changing them as
we go.
Yeah it's interesting - that kind of reminds me, too, we were just
having a conversation internally and said, talking about
processes, and not just paper processes, but also how
many processes are via email? And anytime there's an email process
that's also an opportunity to think about how to use technology different, or
how to use the data that you collect a little bit
differently, too, right?
Right and I just think,
you know even having touched that
in there, therefore thinking, features that, you know, it's really helped us
grow and be able to handle this, you know, as pandemic as it is.
And hopefully we'll get through this and it'll be great for everybody
in a few short weeks.
That is great. Thank you so much for all your insights today
Valarie. Well thank you for having me.
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