Polly Winfrey Griffin
Polly Winfrey Griffin, registrar at Dartmouth College since 1999, has been named registrar at Princeton University, effective Aug. 1, 2006.
She will succeed Joseph Greenberg, a 1977 Princeton graduate alumnus
who died in November 2005 after 27 years of service in the registrar's
office at the University, the last six as its leader. Since Greenberg's
death, Vice Provost for Institutional Research Jed Marsh has been
overseeing the day-to-day operations of the office, working in close
collaboration with the senior management team assembled by Greenberg.
A 1973 cum laude graduate of Westhampton College at the University of
Richmond with honors in psychology, Griffin earned a master's degree in
counseling and rehabilitation from West Virginia University in 1975.
After a year as a staff psychologist at a mental health center in
Martinsville, Va., she began her career in university administration in
1976 at Wingate College in Wingate, N.C., serving first as assistant to
the president and subsequently as registrar and director of
international programs. In 1987 she moved to Davidson College in
Davidson, N.C., where she served for five years as assistant to the
vice president for academic affairs, followed by seven years as
registrar. She took up her current position at Dartmouth in October
1999.
Griffin's responsibilities at Dartmouth match closely the portfolio she
will hold at Princeton. As the academic officer responsible for
planning, organization and record-keeping of instructional activities,
she coordinates student records management, course and class
scheduling, grading, transfer credit approval, degree certification,
faculty elections, and academic calendar and catalog preparation. She
also manages the interface between the registrar's office and
information technology support; advises deans, department chairs and
faculty committees on academic policy issues; and interprets and
implements federal laws and guidelines with respect to student records
maintenance and release.
Griffin has participated in the development and implementation of
Web-based academic services for students and faculty, including course
selection, add/drop, check-in, enrollment planning, grade viewing,
graduation planning, advising, address maintenance and class rosters.
She initiated and directed a classroom planning project that reviewed
classroom utilization, specified technological and instructional
standards, and resulted in a master plan to guide continuing investment
in classroom facilities at Dartmouth.
Griffin has served on numerous faculty and administrative committees at
Dartmouth, including the Faculty Committee on Instruction, the
Committee of Chairs, the Project Management Committee for
administrative student systems, the Enrollment Management Committee and
the Steering Committee for NCAA Recertification.
A member of the American, New England and Southern Associations of
Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers (AACRAO, NEACRAO and
SACRAO, respectively), Griffin currently serves on the Public Policy
Task Force of AACRAO and the Records and Registration and the
Nominations and Elections committees of NEACRAO.
Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel, who led the national search for the
new registrar, said, "Polly Griffin brings to Princeton extraordinary
breadth and depth of experience as a collegiate registrar. She is fully
familiar with the challenges and opportunities facing our registrar's
office, and she is deeply versed in the best practices of the
profession. A proven leader with exceptional management skills, the
highest standards and an outstanding record of service to students and
faculty, she is just the right person to build on Joe Greenberg's
legacy and take the registrar's office to new levels of effectiveness
in the years ahead."
In her letter of application for the position, Griffin wrote, "Joe
Greenberg was my friend and steadfast colleague," and she noted that
her "respect for Joe and for the staff that he assembled and so
admired" made the prospect of leading the registrar's office at
Princeton "particularly special."
She said of her new appointment, "Princeton is focusing on issues
fundamental to higher education in this country and hence the world.
Doing my part to participate in and support these important
institutional conversations is professionally and personally
compelling, and I anticipate with pleasure taking up the exciting work
of the registrar at this time in the life of the University."