I’m so pleased to announce that Jenny Tran-Johnson has accepted our offer to serve as interim registrar from July 15 through Sept. 15, 2018.

The vision for the new registrar position is to support students with consistent processes that foster student retention and success. The registrar will work closely with faculty, deans, and other academic and administrative leaders to review academic policies and programs and serve as the official custodian of students’ records, among other duties.

For the coming year, Jenny will focus her efforts on two main projects:

• Developing consistency and cohesiveness in campus-wide policies and processes for student records, with technology solutions as appropriate
• Support advising and retention efforts

Jenny is a Drake alumna, receiving her BA in biology, and she is currently working to complete her PhD in education. She has worked at Drake since 2008, when she began as director of student programs. In 2013, she became the assistant dean, student support, in the College of Arts and Sciences. As assistant dean, she served as an academic adviser, helped create academic plans to support students’ goals and on-time graduation, oversaw orientation and retention programs for the college, and worked closely with Student Records to provide graduation clearance and manage degree audits.

Jenny has also been an active member of the Drake community beyond her day-to-day responsibilities, including serving on a variety of campus-wide committees, as a CREW Scholars faculty mentor, and most recently as chair of All Staff Council. She has also instructed several courses in the LEAD program, for which she also served as the interim director this past spring.

Clearly, Jenny is the right person for this interim position, having earned the respect of colleagues across campus for her intelligent, thoughtful, and reasoned approach to improving processes. I look forward to working with her to establish this new position on campus.

In addition, Kevin Moenkhaus’ title will change to associate registrar, and he will continue to focus on internal operations, including the catalog, implementation of Drake Online, and Banner XE installation.

—Sue Mattison, Provost