After serving for five years as the Assistant Director, Business Intelligence and Analytics, Gerry Donahue has been named the Interim Registrar, a position which he served on a permanent basis from 1991 to 2013.

The university has had three registrars since 2013, the most recent of whom, Scott Spencer, resigned on Dec. 22, 2017. Paul Aspan, Ph.D., associate provost for Academic and Faculty Support, said that turnover in such an important office is deleterious to any community for which it serves. But Aspan added that he has complete confidence in Donahue’s ability to lead the office in a positive direction.

“I have a great deal of respect for his knowledge, professionalism, and for his dedication to and love for Saint Joseph’s,” Aspan said. “When we heard Mr. Spencer was leaving, it occurred to me that as an interim solution that Mr. Donahue moving to that position presented us with an extraordinary opportunity to advance the work of the registrar’s office.”

Donahue is committed to both improving the services offered by the registrar’s office, while also seeing to the fact that the basics are consistent with the high standard he had in his previous term as registrar. These improvements include the introduction of an electronic transcript, as well as an update of the Banner software, which is the “backbone” software that the university uses.

Donahue doesn’t look at his new position as just another job. He has served the St. Joe’s community for nearly 30 years, and treats the position of registrar as far more than strictly clerical work.

“I’m proud to have my signature represent the completion of each student’s education on behalf of all my colleagues here at the institution, across all divisions and all levels of the university that have some level of contribution to the experience that that student has had here at Saint Joseph’s,” Donahue said.

One major improvement that needs to take place in the registrar’s office is the con- sistent and accurate delivery of the course catalog on a yearly basis. Peter Norberg, Ph.D., professor and chair of the English department, said that the course catalog has given his department trouble for a number of years.

“In previous years, the catalog has not been up to date and accurate, and there have even been years where there has been no catalogue,” Norberg said.

Aspan said that the course catalog is a priority for the registrar’s office, and is confident that Donahue will be able to make this priority into a tangible success in June of 2018, the goal date for the yearly release of the catalogue.

Aspan does not have a specific timeline established for finding a permanent registrar, but he is working closely with human resources and said they are moving forward in a fairly expeditious fashion.

“We will certainly be looking for someone who demonstrates a strong knowledge of best practices of a registrars office and who can also show us a track record of examples of how these individuals have functioned well in those settings,” Aspan said.