Paul Turenne, formerly known for his position in the Registrar’s Office, moved to the ITS department to work as a Systems Analyst.

The news was announced by University Registrar Anna van der Burg in a campus-wide email on March 27.

“In [Turenne’s] new role he will continue to work with many of you as he provides support for new ITS initiatives including enhancements to WesPortal,” van der Burg wrote. “Officially, Paul’s transition to ITS occurred on March 22, but he will remain in the Registrar’s Office until the end of the spring semester, after which he will move to the science tower.”

After asking Turenne more about the specifics of his new and old position, he divulged exactly what his new role as Systems Analyst with ITS will look like.

“In this role, I work with faculty, staff and students in collaborating on creative solutions that (will often) minimize the allocation of programming resources and assist in our efforts to educate our students, support the faculty, and run the university,” Turenne wrote in an email to The Argus. “Generally, I will assist with system implementations, enhancements, and testing by providing operational support and serving as a liaison between ITS and the community. Ultimately, our collective efforts will result in Wes utilizing systems to their full capabilities.”

As the campus-wide email mentioned, Turenne’s new role will not keep him from continuing to work with students. Currently, he is working with Chair of the WSA’s Community Committee, Emma Austin ’19, in an effort to create WesPortal alerts for the upcoming elections. The two are hoping this will help increase voter turnout.

Along with this action, Turenne will be working on other WesPortal enhancements as well as providing support for new ITS initiatives.

“My immediate projects include working with the teams: creating longitudinal reporting in our new teaching evaluation system, enhancing the Center for Global Studies’ study abroad application, retiring the remaining portfolio infrastructure, working on institutional data report modeling and launching NameCoach campus wide,” Turenne wrote.

Turenne just launched NameCoach in another campus-wide email, making a tool that had previously only been utilized by graduating students to record their name for commencement, available for all. The project itself has been around for a while, and Turenne only recently became involved with it.

“We have now made it available to the entire community, so that our online directory and many WesPortal applications can facilitate introductions and the development of connections,” Turenne wrote. “For instance, it will be meaningful for a faculty advisor to know how to pronounce an advisee’s name before meeting at New Student Orientation. Also, this would be beneficial for students when meeting with instructors during Drop/Add in the hopes of receiving enrollment request approval.”

Turenne has worked in the Registrar’s Office for ten-and-a-half years. He credits this as well as the completion of his graduate work in 2014 and his daughter’s preschool enrollment for his need for a new challenge.

“Over time, I increased my efforts on interdepartmental and technical functions while simultaneously finding the non-registrarial work as more rewarding,” Turenne wrote. “I had reached out a point where I realized that I prefer to manage projects, rather than people and this transition facilitates that progress.”

His departure has led to some shifting within the remaining staff of the Registrar’s Office. According to the campus-wide email van der Burg sent, Susan Krajewski will be handling major, minor, and certificate declaration; Karri Van Blarcom will be managing all aspects of course registration; Amanda Daddona will deal with all aspects of the curriculum; Tracey Stanley will take care of transcript production and provide replacement diplomas; Gladys Rodriguez will coordinate diploma production and distribution.

As for van der Burg herself, she will continue to take care of the office’s operations and budget, while providing institutional reporting.

“In addition, I coordinate the enrollment process and report student enrollments to the National Student Clearing House,” van der Burg’s campus-wide email read. “I oversee adherence to the academic regulations and compliance with FERPA guidelines, and provide graduation statistics, manages the academic calendar, and production of the University Catalog. I also serve as DSO for international students and as a member of the enrollment management team.”

Van der Burg has been Turenne’s mentor since his arrival at the University.

“I am very proud of all he has learned and accomplished,” she wrote in an email to The Argus. “I am pleased that I will continue to work with him going forward in his new role in ITS. Once he leaves the registrar’s office at the end of the semester I will miss our morning conversations about family, items in the news and sports teams.”

Turenne joked students should not fret because that he suspects he will continue to be a presence in everyone’s inbox.

“But no worries, you will all be very impressed by Karri Van Blarcom as she takes over course registration,” he wrote. “In fact, these systems will improve due to her differing expertise and new perspectives.”

Though Turenne enjoyed working in the Registrar’s Office he is looking forward to his new position as Systems Analyst.

“The best parts of working in the Registrar’s Office were being part of a great team of colleagues and being in an office/building that serves as a hub of constant activity,” Turenne wrote. “But ultimately, I look forward to being able to fully complete and maintain momentum on projects, since I will no longer need to pause a project to manage the day to day functions of pre-reg, drop/add, etc.”

 

Camille De Beus can be reached at cdebeus@wesleyan.edu and on Twitter @cdebeus.