Thanks to Nancy Speck, UR students can always expect to be kept up-to-date about university happenings or official news. Her e-mails are timely, informative and a delight to receive.

Four and a half years ago, Speck burst onto the UR scene as the University Registrar and Assistant Dean for Institutional Research. Most students associate the registrar with online course registration and painfully long waits to receive grades, but according to their Web site, the Office of the Registrar is committed to “striving to provide the highest level of service to the UR Community in an efficient and timely manner through the continued use of innovative and evolving technology.”

Speck was approached by Dean of the College William S. Green to chair a Communications Committee for The College. An important issue upon which the committee focused was communication between university officials and the student body. Thus, the Nancy Speck e-mails were born.

Created approximately a year and a half ago, these e-mails are intended to communicate news or information that is considered by UR officials to be of interest to students.

The occasional student feedback survey is also thrown into the mix. The mass e-mails are part of an official policy that is posted on the Office of the Registrar’s Web site at http://www.rochester.edu/registrar.

“The variety of communications has increased, certainly,” Speck said. As many upperclassmen might recall, the e-mails used to bear Speck’s name. Now, they come from an official address.

When asked if she enjoys being the mysterious woman behind the alias of “Official,” Speck claims she isn’t so sure just how mysterious she is. “If I weren’t real, I surely would have picked a different name!” Speck said. Nonetheless, Speck enjoys this part of her work. “You’d be amazed at some of the responses I get.”



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