If stellar grades were not part of your collegiate experience, the following historical factoid might make you think you were born in the wrong century.

It seems that Carolina, which opened its doors in 1805, didn’t begin requiring written exams until 1852. And formal grades weren’t issued until 1883: you either passed or failed—no A’s, no gentlemen’s C’s, and no GPAs.

The business of creating grading scales and keeping transcripts of student records became more businesslike in the 1920s when Carolina appointed its first full-time registrar. These days, the registrar’s office maintains records of grades, graduations, and transcripts for everyone who has darkened the doors of the University in the past century.

“We’re the certification people,” said Barbara Blaney, Carolina’s registrar. “If it’s not in our records, it didn’t happen.”Accurate record keeping is, of course, a vital function, especially when scholarship eligibility hangs in the balance. But the University registrar’s office does far more than keep records.

Anyone who ever stood in really long lines at the Carolina Coliseum to register for class (just ask any student from the 1970s and ’80s) can appreciate how computer technology has completely changed the registration process. It was the registrar’s office that led the technology charge to modernize registration, putting Carolina among the forefront of universities at the time.

How successful was the fix? We take it for granted now that a Carolina student can relax on a couch with a laptop and register for classes. The byzantine process that once inconvenienced thousands of people for an entire day is now completed with a few keystrokes in a matter of minutes.

The registrar’s concern for student success has been the recent focus of the department’s efforts to integrate “student-centeredness” into its functions, including plans for further improving registration.

“Think about it this way: If I want to go to Hawaii, one of the sites like Travelocity or Hotwire can give me all of my itinerary options,” Blaney said. “We know where students are headed—toward graduation—so why can’t we provide them with an enhanced registration system that provides options and helps them plot their path toward graduation in a smarter way?”

Such a system might remind students which courses are needed—and not needed—for graduation and prompt them to consider courses they might never have known about that could open new opportunities. That new registration system isn’t built yet, but it’s on the horizon.

Blaney has also worked collaboratively with faculty to develop academic policies that are effective and student-centered. For instance, the registrar’s office was instrumental in ironing out kinks in a new grade forgiveness policy that allows students two “do overs” if they get a D or F in a course (taken fall 2007 or later) and can’t afford a ruined GPA. Don’t you wish that policy had been around way back when?

The registrar’s office also worked with faculty to develop a new academic suspension and probation policy.

“The old system was in place since 1981 and, frankly, was designed to allow students to stay in school for as long as possible,” Blaney said. “It was not designed to encourage graduation, but to suspend only when it was statistically impossible to graduate.”

Believing students could be held to a higher standard, Blaney’s team and her colleagues from the Office of Academic Support met with faculty to develop new regulations effective this fall that combined the new bar-raising policy with proactive academic intervention.

“If you get in academic trouble now—such as your GPA falling below 2.0—we require you to get assistance at the Student Success Center,” she said. “You’ll get a letter at the end of the semester telling you to sign up for an academic coaching session at the center or you can’t continue in the next semester. It’s a tough love approach.”

Imagine that—a registrar’s office that not only keeps track of your grades but is committed to helping you make good ones. Blaney calls it tough love, but it’s just another example of how Carolina wants its students to thrive.