Seniors graduating this coming spring or summer who still have not received their degree evaluations wonder if the evaluations will show up in their mailboxes at all.

The State Hornet talked to Edward Mills, associate vice president for Student Affairs, to find out what is going on behind the degree evaluation’s closed doors during March.

Mills confirmed Friday that the office still has 1,019 evaluations left to process by their projected target finish date of April 18. The office usually processes approximately 50 evaluations a day and usually more with the staff working overtime hours. Mills indicated he is working on a project to automate the graduation application process.

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Q: Are the reports true that the degree evaluations are not being completed on time?

A: We are a little more behind this year than usual. We have two of our degree evaluations team on maternity leave, reducing the number of staff from 10 to 8.

We made the decision earlier this year to eliminate our transfer credit evaluation backlog. The staff in the University Registrar’s Office, including the degree evaluation team, took on this tremendous project and have successfully been able to eliminate this backlog. But, it was a difficult decision as we also knew it would put us slightly behind in our degree evaluation process for this year.

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Q: Is there a natural slowdown during these months?

A: Yes, spring semester is always the peak time of year for degree evaluation processing. Many students might not realize this, but final degree evaluations are one of the most complex processes completed by the University faculty and staff.

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Q: Why did the degree evaluations office need to close during the month of March?

A: We closed the area for a few weeks to maximize our ability to complete all three concurrent processes during our peak month (March). This was a difficult decision to make, as our highest priority is always to serve students. But, it is with that priority in mind that we made the difficult decision to close for a few weeks.

As I’m sure you can understand, this work requires our most highly trained and experienced staff to be completely focused in order to insure that we complete each evaluation correctly. A typical degree evaluation takes about 90 minutes of uninterrupted work. More complex evaluations can take several hours. With almost 6,000 evaluations to be completed in spring and over 2,200 fall graduations to be posted, this team needs this time to work diligently until all evaluations are completed.

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Q: What can students do to make sure they are on top of their graduating requirements?

A: 1. Make sure you know what your graduation requirements are by reviewing the University catalogue and going over your unofficial transcript (available on MySacState) each semester with your academic adviser.

2. Make sure you know who your academic adviser is.

The largest number of problems with graduation are experienced by students who do not get regular advising from their official academic advisor. I said “official academic advisor” very deliberately. I’m not talking about your friends, roommate, older brother who graduated a few years ago or even your Mom or Dad. All these individuals will do their best to give you advice. However, since they are not usually highly trained academic advisors or degree evaluation staff, their well meaning intentions could end up helping you return for an extra semester at Sac State.

3. Look at the new Degree Progress feature in MySacState. Review your degree progress each semester.

Chloe Daley can be reached at [email protected].