REGISTRY THE HUB OF UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT

REGISTRY: THE HUB OF UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT PAPER PRESENTED BY AYORINDE O. OGUNRUKU REGISTRAR, OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY, ILE-IFE, 2007 -2013 AT THE ANUPA NATIONAL WORKSHOP FOR ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS AND ASSISTANT REGISTRARS IN NIGERIAN UNIVERITIES HELD AT THE ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF COLLEGE OF NIGERIA (ASCON), TOPO, BADAGRY ON TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 2019

APPRECIATING ANUPA • National Exco led by the National President – Barr. Titus Igwe • Kudos to the giants who left foot prints for followership Ø Mr. A. W. O. Attoye Ø Mr. John Udo Ø Mrs Mosun Oyeyinka Ø Toyin Oshun – 1 st ANUPA Training Officer • Immediate Past and Present Training Officers

PERSONAL TESTIMONY • The beginning in 1982 • Learning university administration from two perspectives – the academia & professional administrators • University as a complex organization managed & directed by the line staff – the academia • If university administration and management requires the service of professional administrators even at its infancy, it also implies that those at the core of facilitating the processes must appreciate their significant roles and be determined to play it as expected.

Peter Drucker: • “We live in a period of very rapid change. That also means that the opportunities for improving, for getting results, are changing very fast. Things that were not possible or were not needed yesterday suddenly become possible and things that made a great deal of sense yesterday do not make sense anymore. ”

INTRODUCTION • Universities as knowledge institutions have been impacted by issues of globalization and its implication on the socio-political and economic environment. • A major impact of globalization is competitiveness which universities, like other institutions in our clime are conversant with. • Globalization has completely thinned out every shade of partition in the world through ICT. • It is essential that Universities, as change drivers, should be positioned to be at the cutting edge of the wherewithal that should make them globally competitive and relevant. • The Registry as the epicentre of university administration need to readapt to provide the solid base for managerial capacity that ensures institutional relevance and competitiveness.

Sir David King “Universities that will be relevant in the years ahead cannot resolve problems using the same kind of thinking that created the existing problems” (2013 Centenary celebration of the Association of Commonwealth Universities in London).

DEFINING THE KEY CONCEPTS 5 major concepts as follows: • Registry • Hub • University • Administration, & • Management.

THE REGISTRY • A records office where registers and other records are kept (Microsoft® Encarta® 2006. © 1993 -2005 Dictionary). • The Dictionary. com defines Registry as the “place where a register is kept or an office of registration. ” • It presupposes an office in a bureaucracy which keeps and presents the records of an organization’s engagements on regular basis. • In the University system, it is the arm that services the various organs and keeps the record of the institution. • Headed by a Registrar - Chief Administrative Officer of the University, responsible to the Vice-Chancellor for the day to day administration of the university and Secretary to Council, Senate, Congregation and Convocation “The engine room of university governance and management” (Faborode, 2016)

HUB The central part of a circular object or a centre of activity or a focal point. (Marriam Webster Dictionary)

UNIVERSITIES • Universal communities established for the propagation, dissemination and application of knowledge. • University (latin: “universitas), - a number of persons associated into one body, is an institution of higher education and research which grants degrees in a variety of subjects and provides both undergraduate and postgraduate education. • It is derived from a latin word “universitas magistrorum et scholarium” which roughly means community of teachers and scholars (Wikipedia).

John Henry Newman - A 19 th Century Evangelical Oxford University Academic, “The Idea of A University "a place of concourse, whither students come from every quarter for every kind of knowledge. … you must go to some great city or emporium for it … the choicest productions of nature and art all together, which you find each in its own separate place elsewhere. All the riches of the land, and of the earth, are carried up thither; there are the best markets, and there the best workmen. It is the centre of trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire of rival talents, and the standard of things rare and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries of first—rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful voices and performers of transcendent skill. It is the place for great preachers, great orators, great nobles, great statesmen. In the nature of things, greatness and unity go together; excellence implies a centre. ” the place to which a thousand schools make contributions; in which the intellect may safely range and speculate, sure to find its equal in some antagonist activity, and its judge in the tribunal of truth. It is a place where inquiry is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and perfected, and rashness rendered innocuous, and error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind, and knowledge with knowledge. It is the place where the professor becomes eloquent, and is a missionary and a preacher, displaying his science in its most complete and most winning form, … the place where the catechist makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the truth day by day into the ready memory, and wedging and tightening it into the expanding reason … a place which wins the admiration of the young by its celebrity, kindles the affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets the fidelity of the old by its associations … a seat of wisdom, a light of the world. ”

ADMINISTRATION • management of the affairs of an organization and the judicious utilization of its resources, man, money and materials, for the attainment of stipulated objectives. • a set of processes given an acronym PODSCORB – Planning, Organizing, Directing, Staffing, Coordinating, Reporting and Budgetting (Gulick and Urwick(1937))

MANAGEMENT • “The organization and coordination of the business and operations of an institution for the achievement of defined objectives”. Business Dictionary • the basis task of management is innovation and marketing. Peter Drucker • “It consists of the interlocking functions of creating corporate policy and organizing, planning, controlling and directing an organization’s resources for the achievement of the objectives of the articulated policy. ” • All those saddled with responsibility of organizing, planning, coordination and directing the affairs of an organization are also referred to as the Management. (www. businessdictionary. com/definition/manageement. ht ml). • The administration of an organization or government body and its functions include the activities of setting the strategy of the organization and the organization of the employees for the accomplishment of the organization’s objectives. Wikipedia

MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION COMPARED • Administration deals with the issues of processes of utilization of resources for the achievement of corporate objectives. It facilitates the actualization of corporate objectives through its involvement in planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting, • Management deals with policy making, controlling and strategic planning of the organization for the accomplishment of the stated objectives. • Those at the helms of affairs of the organization are also referred to as the management.

UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION & MANAGEMENT • Management of the affairs of a university, a seat of higher learning, including administrative and living quarters as well as facilities for research and teaching, a body of faculty and students and the judicious utilization of its resources, man, money and materials, for the attainment of stipulated objectives of knowledge generation through research, knowledge dissemination through teaching and knowledge utilization through community service

UNIVERSITY REGISTRY IN PERSPECTIVE • A university registry is unlike any of its kind in any other organization because of its operation within an environment that is uniquely devoted to academics and scholasticism. • The records being kept and the activities of the registry in a university are to facilitate the generation, impartation and application of knowledge by ensuring that all those who are at the core of the functions of the university, that is the academia, are assisted to be able to give the best to their endeavours. • The academia and the scholars the record keepers deal with are peculiar, impatient with drabs and drudgery, and have great expectations. • The public they attend to, see the institution where they operate as places that are unique in terms of ambience and discipline, being an ivory tower. Hence, the expectation is always very high.

UNIVERSITY REGISTRY IN PERSPECTIVE Historical foundation of need for assistance in the form of • registration of students, • records of students’ performances, • management of the well-being and welfare of the academics and other members of the university community, • management of municipal facilities, and • facilitation of the planning strategies of the institutions Precursor facilitators of academic functions

UNIVERSITY REGISTRY • Like the Statutes of most universities in Nigeria, Part III Section 13 & Section 14 (1) of OAU Laws enabled Council “to authorize the establishments for the administrative staff and other Staff in the university and to suspend or abolish any such posts other than posts created by this law or the Statutes. ”

STRUCTURE OF THE REGISTRY • Management of students academic records • Management of students welfare • Management of staff matters • Administration of Council matters • Issues of corporate services • Academic planning matters

STRUCTURE OF THE REGISTRY The Cookey Commission Report of 1981 recommended 3 major Directorates for the registry as follows: • Directorate of Council Affairs and General Administration – DA & Sec. Council • Directorate of Academic Affairs – Acad. Reg. /Sec. to Senate • Directorate of Student Affairs - DSA

IMPLICATION OF THE COOKEY COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION

The four major Divisions is structured into units and sub-units as follows: Academic Affairs Division • Senate and Committee of Deans Unit • Admissions • Students Records Council and General Administration Division • Council and F&GPC Matters • Tenders Board/Procurement Service Unit • General Administration/Postal services Personnel Affairs/Human Resources Department • • • Academic Staff Matters Administrative and Technical Staff Matters Junior Staff Matters Staff Training and Development Unit Staff Pensions Matters Corporate Services • • Legal Matter Public Relations Immigration and Passages Protocol and Hospitality Matters

The four major Divisions are structured into units and sub-units as follows: Students Affairs (under a Dean but with a Students Affairs Officer responsible to the Dean of Students for the day-to-day administration of the Department) comprises • Students Welfare Services • Students Halls of Residence • Guidance and Counselling Services • Student Union Matters Administrative Support to Faculties/Schools/Colleges where administrative officers are posted to provide administrative support services to the particular sections of the university

FUNCTIONS OF THE REGISTRY Derived from the function of the Registrar as CAO responsible to the VC for • the day-to-day administration of the University • Secretaryship to Committees • advice to Council, VC & Senate as Custodian of rules • symbol of Authority - of the Vice Chancellor • facilitator • discipline enforcer • Emceeship at University Ceremonies • Crisis Management

FUNCTIONS OF THE REGISTRY • Keeper of Records – MOU, Agreements, Title deeds, Certificates, Reports, robes, scrolls • Signatory to University legal documents except financial instrument e. g. cheque • Represents University – in Court when there is litigation or some National bodies. The Registrar stands in the dock THE REGISTRAR ACCOMPLISHES THE JOB THROUGH OFFICERS AND STAFF & STRUCTURE

THE NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM AND ITS STRUCTURE • The university system - a generic description of the peculiarities of a university or a set of universities in a particular clime or nation under a unified board that supervises their structure, culture and mode of operations. • So, the NUS operates under the supervision of the National Universities Commission (NUC). • The 169 universities in Nigeria is a system being coordinated by the NUC and each of them is also a system as they each have their substructures for the effectuation of their objectives. • They exhibit similar features in their laws as well as the pattern of administration which allowed for a Governing Council and a Senate. • In the private universities, however, the role of the Visitor is being played by the Proprietor and Board of Trustees.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF A FEDERAL UNIVERSITY IN NIGERIA. Governing Council Senate Vice Chancellor DVC ACAD Bursar Internal Audit Registrar Operations & System Adm. Personnel Affairs Budget & Finance Council Affairs Librarian Deans Directorate of Works Research Matters PPDU Academic Cmtees Investment & Supplies DVC ADM Health Centre Academic Affairs Other academic centres Corporate Services Other Non Academic Centre. S

ORGANS OF A UNIVERSITY VC SENATE/ VICE-CHANCELLOR GOVERNING COUNCIL/ PRO-CHANCELLOR CONVOCATION COLLEGE ASSEMBLY/PROVOS T REGISTRY CONGREGATION FACULTY BOARD/ DEAN

THE COUNCIL Exercises its functions through committees such as the • Finance and General Purposes Committee • Tenders Board and its subcommittees such as the Tenders Sub Committee and the Petty Contracts Committee • Building, Works and Estate Committee and its sub-committees such as the Projects Advisory Sub. Committee, Projects Implementation Sub-Committee, and Projects Siting Sub-Committee • Administrative Staff Committee • Honorary Degrees Committee • Legal Review Committee • Board of Advancement • Copyright and Patents Committee • Advisory Committee on Students’ Affairs • Governing Board of the University Staff School

THE SENATE Exercises its functions through committees such as the • Development Committee with the following sub-committees Ø Ø Ø Academic Planning Sub-Committee Finance Sub-Committee on Maintenance of Buildings/Equipment • Committee of Deans with the following sub-committees Ø Ø Ø Academic Matters Sub-Committee Financial Support Sub-Committee Disciplinary Board for Examinations and Academic matters Student Disciplinary Board Sub-Committee of Hall Masters, Mistresses, Fellows and Wardens. • Business Committee of Senate • Various Faculty Boards and their Constituents • University Research Committee • Board of Postgraduate Studies • Library Committee

Joint Council and Senate Committees are statutorily instituted to facilitate transparent governance where stakeholders are provided opportunities for decision making. Such areas of common interest include • the Appointments and Promotions Committee of Academic staff and • the appointment of Principal Officers of the University. The final authority in all these cases rests with the Council

CONGREGATION • Expresses its opinion on any matter affecting the University, Convocation is to confer degrees and academic distinctions on qualified individuals.

CONVOCATION • Meets normally once in a year to confer degrees and other academic distinctions of the university

MANAGEMENT MATTERS There also Management and Advisory Committees which enhance the participation of the broad spectrum of the community in decision making. Such committees include: • Principal Officers Committee • Management Advisory Committee • Junior Staff Committee • Housing Allocation Committee • Vehicle Loans Committee • Space Allocation • Security Committee • Editorial Committee • Committee on Relationship with other Institutions • Press Council • Advisory Committees or Governing Boards of various Centres/Institutes/Centres/Comp anies in the University

RELEVANCE OF THE UNIVERSITY REGISTRY AS THE HUB OF THE 21 ST CENTURY UNIVERSITY • University Registry “is the pulse point of administration of the university. . . regarded as the strong room where all records of staff and students are kept. It is the repository of information, the statutes, ordinance and Act of the university, interpretation and enforcement of these are effected in the Registry’’. Ette • It is the “fibre optics” for university operations. Faborode

RELEVANCE OF THE UNIVERSITY REGISTRY AS THE HUB OF THE 21 ST CENTURY UNIVERSITY • Need for appropriateness of Administrative Officers in terms of entry qualification for improved competency • Ossification of many facilitators & need for adaptiveness – learning from other climes • Challenge of competition rather that complementarity among the constituents • The university as a complex organization – need for some bureaucracy to oil the system – Registry is key (NO LICENCE FOR RED TAPISM? )

RELEVANCE OF THE UNIVERSITY REGISTRY AS THE HUB OF THE 21 ST CENTURY UNIVERSITY • Given the antecedents that gave rise to the need for the bureaucratic construct in the system, which in the words of Lord Robbins (1963), “is to teach skills, to produce cultivated men and women, to maintain research in balance with teaching, and to promote common standard of citizenship”, the need for the category of workers who serve as facilitators of the university core objectives attenuated above remains unassailable.

? ? ? How well prepared are we as registrarial staff of universities in Nigeria?

RELEVANCE OF THE UNIVERSITY REGISTRY AS THE HUB OF THE 21 ST CENTURY UNIVERSITY • Reality of the unwholesome attitude of some academia to the perceived irrelevance of the registrarial staff to the University objective does not detract from the centrality of the functions of the Registry as the hub of a university. • Reality of many of the facilitators in the system who are out of tune with the mission and objective of the university justifies the negative attitude of the academia to their ‘irrelevance’.

MAKING THE REGISTRY EFFECTIVE AS THE HUB OF UNIVERSITY OPERATIONS • Need for the practitioners to readapt to change and demonstrate greater understanding of the realities of its imperatives particularly bearing in mind the emerging scenarios of change of structure, professionalization of functions, tools of engagement and the realities of technological advancement in a competitive global milieu.

MAKING THE REGISTRY EFFECTIVE AS THE HUB OF UNIVERSITY OPERATIONS • Recruitment into the elite corps of professional administrators need be the same as those for the academia they service. • Replacement of ossification with dynamism & learning of new methods of dealing with contemporary situations – a sure way for relevance (www to the rescue)

MAKING THE REGISTRY EFFECTIVE AS THE HUB OF UNIVERSITY OPERATIONS • CPD – way out of erosion of registry core mandate & palliating the academia impatience (KUDOS TO ANUPA) • Need to avoid distraction caused by inordinate ambition for self actualization at the early state of career • Need for ALL to be conscious of the university as a bird with two wings

MAKING THE REGISTRY EFFECTIVE AS THE HUB OF UNIVERSITY OPERATIONS • Need for mutual recognition of unique roles as university personnel – Universities no longer a place for only the magistrorum and pupilari • Giving zero tolerance to corruption TI’s Report – “the very structure and culture of colleges and universities, as well as the current constraints under which many…. . operate can create conditions that facilitate fraud”

CORE VALUES FOR EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS • Universities as complex organizations require efficiency and effectiveness for the actualization of their objectives • Registry operators as the hub requires professionalization that emphasizes core values of Ø confidentiality Ø anonymity Ø neutrality Ø loyalty Ø integrity

CONCLUSION “People who come to into your office invariably have monkeys on their shoulders, and their aim is to leave the monkeys with you when they go out again. Some monkeys should be accepted with open arms and nurtured by you, since they were always your responsibility and will be in safe hands. Others should be left in charge of their carriers, who need to take them away for grooming and sustenance. Do not under any circumstances let your office be full of monkeys, since these are invisible to the next person who comes in with a monkey on his shoulder and who thinks you have nothing to look after or do. ” AUA Good Practices Series no 31

ANUPA-Nigeria CODE OF CONDUCT AS WAY OUT • That I, as a professional University Administrator, will put service above self and will ever seek to device and employ more efficient ways of getting things done. • That I, as a Professional University Administrator, accept the most transparent honest and ethical process of thought for all decisions in my daily work and be myself free from any fraudulent and /or corrupt practices within my scope of authority, treat all persons as being equal and refuse to give special favours or privileges to anyone

The story about the tiny frogs….

There once was a bunch of tiny frogs, . . . … who arranged a running competition.

The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower.

A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants. . .

The race began. . .

Honestl y No one in crowd really believed that, the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. . .

You heard statements such as: "Oh, WAY too difficult!! They will NEVER make it to the top. " or "Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!"

The tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one. . .

. . . Except for those who in a fresh tempo were climbing higher and higher. . .

The crowd continued to yell "It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!"

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up. . . But ONE continued higher and higher. . .

At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who after a big effort was the only one who reached the top!

THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it?

A contestant asked the tiny frog how the one who succeeded had found the strength to reach the goal?

It turned out. . . That the winner was

DEAF!!!!

The wisdom of this story is:

Never listen to other people’s tendencies to be negative or pessimistic. . . …cause, they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes away from you. The ones you have in your heart!

Always think of the power which words have. Because everything you hear and read will affect your actions!

Therefore. . .

ALWAYS be… POSITIVE!

And above all:

Be DEAF when people tell YOU that YOU can not fulfil YOUR dreams!

Always think: I can do this!

REMEMBER YOUR ATTITUDE WILL DETERMINE YOUR ALTITUDE

It is important in life, in building a career, develop your character

THANK YOU! NA GODE!! DA LU!!! E SE PUPO!!!!