By Isaiah Rosario, Staff Writer
After the opening of Jasper Central in the spring, the office finally concluded their search for a new executive director after finding Michael Mulrooney.
Mulrooney’s past involves working in enrollment management, financial aid operations and education. He most recently served as the director of enrollment management analytics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.
Central is Michael Mulrooney.
MANHATTAN.EDU / COURTESY
At Embry-Riddle Aeronautical, Mulrooney played a vital role in creating ‘One Stop’, a concept similar to Jasper Central. When he saw that MU was going in the direction of combining multiple sectors of services, he thought it was a no-brainer to apply for the open position. The reputation of Manhattan University and the fact that he grew up in New Jersey also played a monumental role in the decision to join the Jasper community.
Despite Mulrooney only being on campus a few months, he is already looking ahead to the future of Jasper Central. He hopes to create a great student experience for those who stop in.
“I think the goal is to be a central location for student services,” Mulrooney said. “We want to be able to provide a better student experience, not having them move across campus to help in as many ways as possible. When a student has an issue, and if we don’t know the answer, within Jasper Central, we’re able to find the answer and help the student along their journey, so they can focus on being a student.”
While being with the university for only a short period, Mulrooney has already impacted faculty and staff. Senior Assistant Director of Financial Aid Operations Werner Habermann spoke positively of Mulrooney and his work.
“It’s been going pretty well,” Habermann said. “He started a couple of months ago… he’s in charge of merging all those departments, so that’s the registrar, bursars and financial aid. He’s been helping us with making that seamless process.”
The positivity of Mulrooney and his work can be attributed back to all the people that he works with daily. Mulrooney reiterated that the culture and the people he works with at the university have been tremendous, and it is a pleasure working with them to continue making Jasper Central more successful.
The creation of Jasper Central started with the Cabinet of the university as they decided to combine the three service offices. The registrar’s office was located in Memorial Hall, the bursar’s office was located in Miguel Hall and financial aid was located in Thomas Hall.
Senior Associate Director at Student Accounts and Bursar Services Christina Cardinale stated that when she first started in 2001, there were combined student financial services offices, which she found very helpful. Since then, with the offices separated, she found it difficult for students as they would need to hop around to different offices in order to get questions answered and problems fixed.
“If a student needed to complete a task that required all three departments, the student would have to ping pong back and forth between the three offices,” Cardinale said. “It’s more of a service issue to try to please our students so that they’re not walking around back and forth and feeling like they’re being passed from department to department. The idea of Jasper Central is a one-stop shop where you’re going to come in and you’re going to be able to get the different levels of service that you need from the different divisions. Now we all are cross-trained to do some of the same work.”