With graduation less than a week away, Kathy Bennett has her hands full. Not with the ceremony or the many events related to this year’s graduating class, but with work behind the scenes that she has been preparing since September, making sure the almost 3,000 graduating LSA seniors have met all requirements and will receive their diplomas come summer.
Bennett is an LSA academic auditor who checks and rechecks transcripts to make sure students are on track to earn their degrees. Bennett has been busy for most of the academic year, processing applications and examining requirements for graduation Saturday.
“There’s no set cycle,” Bennett says. “Since all students have different needs, students can apply for graduation at any time. We don’t limit our students.”
Bennett is especially busy during the weeks leading up to Commencement. Recently, after sending out an e-mail timeline to all upcoming graduates—a first for the auditors—Bennett received numerous responses that ranged from students worried about paperwork to questions regarding the actual ceremony, something the auditors aren’t involved with directly.
“It’s quite common that, as we near the end of the term and approach graduation day, our student contact increases dramatically,” Bennett says. “We’re finding this year to be no different than previous years.”
So far this school year, academic auditors in LSA have received 2,725 applications for May graduation, a number Bennett says has risen every year in the eight she has worked in the Academic Auditors Office. More than two-thirds were received in the fall semester, another change that Bennett has observed, which indicates students are applying earlier for graduation.
“This year, more students have been applying earlier than previous years,” Bennett says. “Students help themselves by applying earlier.”
Bennett also has to deal with students who expect to graduate but haven’t met all the necessary requirements. Last May, 7 percent of students who applied for graduation did not receive their degrees for various reasons. The auditors continue to check with these students for an entire semester after they were supposed to graduate in order to help them obtain a degree.
“We feel it’s important to … be able to say that we’re still thinking about them,” Bennett says. “Students sometimes think they are just a number to us. Not true. Although this is a large institution, we care about our students and they are real people to us.”
Bennett hopes her work as an auditor gives students the information about requirements and graduation they need from the beginning in order to make their transition into the real world smooth and worry-free, at least as far as school is concerned.
“Students don’t even know we exist until graduation,” Bennett says. “We’re hoping that by giving information to students, it will urge students to think about these things earlier. We’re always trying to find new ways to open up communication so that students realize we’re working really hard to help them graduate.”
