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When they go, does anyone know?

Apparently not. Not Human Resources for a forwarding address to send benefits and tax information to the departed employee. Not CCIT to restrict the employee's access to sensitive information systems. And not Parking Management to give the now empty space to the next name on the list.

To solve this missing person's problem, a Notification of Employee Departure team, one of Finance and Administration's first two Continuous Quality Improvement process teams, tackled it. They combined the expertise of representatives from every university department that cares.

The other team, called the Student Loan Exit Interview Committee team, formed to ensure that students exiting the university are interviewed as required by federal and state law. Skip this one and the university loses lots of money.

The Continuous Quality Improvement process teams met weekly for about 15 weeks to chart what happens in each case. They examined each process to find the glitches and devised fixes to make them more efficient and more effective. And they followed that with plans for improvement.

“Now we're becoming more aware of how changes will affect another person's area,” said team steering committee co-chair Susan Haskill. She recounted numerous smaller issues that were resolved while understanding the roles people in other departments play in the process.

“At first they were polarized, but they started to become a team as they worked through issues,” she said.

The Student Loan Exit Interview Committee team probed the process to find why students miss their exit interviews. As a result, the Office of Enrollment Services and Student Accounting is drafting policies to ensure compliance. Also, the Financial Aid Office has added a statement to its entrance interview form notifying students that they must attend an exit interview when they graduate. When they sign it, they acknowledge their responsibility.

A student accounting web page <http://www.musc.edu/studentaccounting/indexa.html> now provides information and answers to student questions, and a schedule for student exit interviews has been posted on the page for Spring 1999. Once the May graduation has passed, the team will evaluate the results and initiate any changes needed for improvement.

Student Loan Exit Interview Committee members

Robyn Frampton (team leader), Fiscal Affairs; Jerry Blackwell, College of Health Professions; Carol Boyer, Enrollment Services; Carl Brown, Business Services; JoAnn Bolchoz, Harper Student Center; Jean Leuner, College of Nursing; Kirk Kilgore, Student Accounting; Denise Pickford, Finance; Emily Ropp, College of Health Professions student; Thomas Simms, College of Medicine student; Sandra Sane, College of Pharmacy; Dave Hallet, CCIT; Julia Garrison, Graduate Studies, and Jim Cook, (facilitator) Charleston Memorial Hospital.

Notification of Employee Departure team members

Gloria Reeves (chair), Lee Sherrill, Janette McKendree, and Carrie Clarke, Payroll; Melinda Anderson (CQI coordinator) and Cindy Garmon, Parking Management; Debbie Wagenbrenner and Charlotte Wilson, Public Safety; Jacquie Jones (sponsor), and Yohna Chambers, University Human Resources; Christine Williamson, CCIT; Frances Glanville, Department of Medicine; Sandra Murrow, Graduate Medical Education; Margaret Goss, Risk Management; Audrey Gunter, University Transportation; Samuel DeVeaux, Planning; and Janet Browning and Erich Frisch, Medical Center Human Resources. Lauren Jones from Health Administration and Policy served as the team’s facilitator through the initial planning stage that ended in December. Christine Williamson is now facilitating the pilot project.