Being a one-stop shop requires a lot of work

“It’s the reason I drive 40 miles, one-way, to come to work,” said Academic Advisor Jackie Smith.

Smith and a team of three other Academic Advisors, Unique Hooks, Chris Singpiel and Terri Haynes, along with Becky McAllister in Scottsbluff and Bobi Johnson in North Platte, assist students daily with a variety of tasks and do their best to answer a bevy of questions.

According to Director of Market Development Danielle Lecher, who oversees the department, START is a one-stop shop that assists all new students and serves as their academic adviser leading up to their first semesters. START also serves as the primary financial aid contact for any student at the college. But the office also serves an important function as a resource for students.

“The things we do change with the time of year and needs of the students to visit, call, or email us,” Smith said. “[During the summer], the most common requests have to do with completing admission requirements to be eligible to enroll, financial aid, calculating balance due or refunds as students confirm their plan to pay, class schedule changes, change of major or minor, reviewing transfer credit, and plans of study for students who have their eye on graduation in the near future.”

Lecher and Smith agreed the one-stop shop setup for START is a major asset to students looking for assistance with enrollment and financial aid.

“If a student has questions, they can always begin at the START office. It’s efficient for the student and the college because enrollment and financial aid are so closely tied together. We may not be able to be the final person to help them, but we know who can help them,” Lecher said. “But more often than not, because we are cross trained in so many aspects related to Admissions, Enrollment, Registration, Financial Aid, Advising, we can help students.”

While there are complexities to navigating a student through financial aid and enrollment processes, not to mention determining who does what at Chadron State, Lecher said a typical START Office employee isn’t consider fully trained until after one year on the job.

“It’s a long process to be fully trained in the office,” Lecher said. “It’s really sink or swim training. A lot is just-in-time training that we provide during regular team meetings and one-on-one trainings. We have to know a lot, so there’s not a way we can have a comprehensive document or training. Things can change, and change quickly, so we have to be adaptable.”

Smith embraces the adaptability her job requires.

“I grew up as a 4-H’er and the slogan and motto from all those years ago is how I learn my job: ‘Learn by doing.’ There’s much research about experiential learning and I would certainly say it reflects how we take abstract concepts of financial aid or degree requirements and discover what is effective in communicating these to students so they too can learn what it means for their personal finances and academic aspirations,” Smith said. “Because our job is cyclical, we have the benefit of redesigning or trying out new approaches when that season of our jobs returns. Sometimes there are new regulations to learn; other times, all the components are the same, but we know from our experience that we want to change the timing or phrasing or how we do it from top to bottom to deliver the best services in the student centered learning community fostered here at CSC.”

Lecher, a Chadron native who started working at CSC in 2010, said the START Office, which was founded in 2011, strives to improve its services every year.

“From the feedback we’ve received from students, and students who have truly used us as a resource, we receive positive feedback. We’re constantly looking for ways to improve processes, communication and more to make the student experience better,” she said. “We’ve come a long way in START. We still have a ways to go, but at the end of the day any decision we make is centered on helping students succeed.”