Interview with Laura Perna

Beals: Tell us a little about who you are and how you got here.

Perna: I’m a professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. I’m also serving as vice provost for faculty at Penn. I started my faculty career at the University of Maryland, College Park. As a scholar, I’m deeply committed to understanding the policies and practices that enable all people to have the opportunity for high-quality higher education.

Beals: Wonderful. I think that speaks to everyone in our association. Let’s start with a question about institutional change. Based on your Faculty Senate leadership, what change management strategies do you recommend for major system reforms in the world of the registrar’s office?

Perna: I would extend this. It’s broader than the Faculty Senate; change management has also been part of the leadership roles I’ve held at Penn GSE and other programs, and now as vice provost for faculty. Creating change—and this is, of course, a critique of higher education—takes time. But part of the reason it takes time is the need for collaboration and consultation. Figuring out how to better serve and support students is certainly at the core. It’s often quite complicated, and things we might want to change often touch a lot of different people and parts of our organization.

What I’ve learned in my work is the value of talking to a variety of people to learn more about the perceived issue, how it’s playing out from different perspectives, and to think through potential approaches. I often come up with an idea of what I think needs to happen, but as I talk more about it with others who are engaged, I might refine it or even shift it. That process also helps build buy-in. I think that engagement from the very beginning of the idea, through implementation, is important.

Beals: What do you think is the biggest key? I 100 percent believe in collaboration and talking things through to give yourself time to find all the hidden things that might not surface until you really talk them through. What I feel like we get pushed up against is the time we have to implement. It’s January 2026, and we’re already working on Fall 2027. We need to be able to articulate the rationale for moving swiftly versus moving with intention and design. Also, we know that not long ago, we all pivoted very quickly during COVID. So, there’s still some recollection of, “I know y’all can move fast, but why not all the time?” We recognize the need for change and review, but we also feel very strongly about doing so with the intention of not undercutting our credibility.

Perna: I think that’s really important. I think the work of the registrar might be a mystery to a lot of people. I think building in time for these conversations, for people to understand what it is that you do, is important. I think through those conversations, you can help people see its intricacies and complexities. There are many facets of the university connected through the registrar, with implications for students and faculty. And so, I wonder how you might make that visible and consider areas of potential intersection where you could build shared interest around particular goals.

You’re right, change comes from all kinds of places. There are external events, such as COVID, which might require fast change. There are regulatory changes that may require adjustments. There may be some other strategic institutional priorities that may require changes. There may be important changes to make based on how you assess your current practice.

As I think about the work I try to do to level the playing field for higher education opportunity, I believe it’s important for us to at least periodically review our longstanding practices and consider how they play out, especially from the perspectives of people from traditionally underserved groups. Really interrogate: Do we really need five steps or ten steps for people to get from here to where they want to go? And are there things we could do so that, from the student’s perspective, things work more seamlessly?

Or maybe it’s the perspective of faculty. It’s certainly challenging to change longstanding processes, especially when we’re trying to better serve people in our community. I think it’s important to engage in this type of critical self-reflection at least periodically.

Beals: I find it a good exercise to do what we’re doing here by sharing information. Not long ago, I was listening to a podcast about not using letter grades for assessment. Throw out grades, and students perform better when they’re working toward mastery. As a registrar, how then do you then track, credential, and certify a student? I very much appreciate the opportunity to step back and question a long-standing practice/belief. I like what you said about building in time to revisit the things that have just always been.

For example, I know we expect faculty to review their courses or articulations every three to five years to ensure that the incoming transfer course hasn’t changed so much that the learning outcomes no longer align with the original articulation. We also need to hold ourselves to the same level of accountability for all our business practices. I think we often get complacent and rely on staff turnover so that new faces can ask the questions and make us stop and ponder. That’s not a solid business process to rely on.

Perna: That is an important thing to consider. Right now, we’re all thinking about AI. That’s an external force that gives us an opportunity to look at what we’re doing in our space and improve.

Beals: I think the best analogy I heard about AI related to instruction was the fear that allowing calculators in class was going to make students not know how to do the mathematical calculations, and that was proven unfounded. So, there’s hope that AI can further enhance a student’s learning rather than be viewed as a kind of crib sheet.

Perna: I think that’s right. And that’s a key part of how I’m trying to think about things.

What is the underlying principle? So, AI is a tool, right? And so, how do we use that tool to achieve certain learning outcomes?

Beals: Let’s shift to financial sustainability and the promise programs. In your memo on the programs, you advocate for institutional partnership. How do these promise programs affect enrollment systems and registrar workflows, in your opinion?

Perna: I’m not sure, actually, how these are playing out from the perspective of these particular systems. I do think college promise programs offer opportunities to think about how different sources of financial aid come together to help people pay for college. We have college promise programs offered by state governments and by colleges and universities. Sometimes there’s a local program. When I think about partnerships, it’s really about how we put the pieces together, again from the perspective of a student, in a way that helps them understand that paying for college is possible and that there are mechanisms available to help them cover the cost.

Beals: Somewhat counter to that assertion, where do you weigh in on the people who say that when students don’t have “any skin in the game,” it impacts their time to completion? We see it with non-credit, MOOCs, and the like. They have a high rate of students who dip their toe in and never complete because there’s no risk or harm. What’s your response to people who would say that if you give something away for free, it’s lost its value to the recipient? I know there will be some who are so appreciative because they would never have achieved it otherwise. What has your research shown in that respect?

Perna: I certainly have heard this. I think part of the response is that it depends on what we’re talking about. I did a study on MOOCs, and you’re completely right. At least that was the first generation of MOOCs. They were offered; a lot of people signed up, and maybe they didn’t do any. That’s one type of model.

I’ve really been focused on free tuition programs. Even if tuition is covered, students incur other costs. There’s the time of going to class, and there’s the cost of books and other supplies.

They’re not earning a full-time income. So they do have an investment in it. There are also psychological costs, and saying, okay, I want to do this, and then hopefully succeed.

Beals: How can registrars help move the needle on that? I don’t know that we play a role in that per se, but do you see the registrars playing any role in recruitment and retention beyond helping the next student navigate the system from our perspective? Are there other intersections for the registrar’s office in that respect?

Perna: Well, I think that is important. You should make institutional processes as easy as possible for students. But figuring out how to fund these programs is a common question. Tuition’s just not free; someone’s paying. And if you promise it’s going to be available, then you have to deliver on the promise, or else you’ve lost trust, and we’ll take ten steps backward. And so, as we’ve looked at the design of programs, the concern about delivering on the promise has been paramount for program designers.

So that concern about delivering on the promise — and the actual constraints on the amount of money available — has implications for program design. To ensure there are sufficient funds to deliver on the promise, program designers may make different choices to limit eligibility. We may require that people enroll full-time, have a certain grade point average, and take certain courses either before college or in college. But all these different requirements can be a burden for students. Then, for the program, there’s an administrative responsibility. If we say you have to be enrolled full-time, we have to check that.

The other type of trade-off with programs, regarding funding, concerns which costs are covered. Many of these programs are “last dollar.” This means they cover the difference between tuition and whatever federal or state grants are received. So, the financial outlay for many of these programs, especially if there’s an income cap, is often not very much.

Related to cost, it is really important to have a good handle on what the costs of going to college are. And this is where I wonder about potential implications for registrars. The cost of attendance is set centrally, but some courses may have different associated costs. So how do we navigate that from an institutional perspective? And how do we minimize the negative implications for historically underrepresented students?

Beals: In the college promise programs that you have looked at, where you say there are expectations for full-time enrollment, time to degree, and checking in with an advisor, are you seeing that there are limited programs they’re letting the students select (for example, maybe only healthcare or education)? In other words, are they driving students toward a credential that will land them a job and help them be financially secure as well?

Perna: I think you’re hitting on something that we all should be paying attention to, especially for those of us in higher education. I don’t know if you saw the report that I did for the Midwestern Higher Education Compact, which was released in June 2025. I looked at the college promise programs that are offered in the twelve Midwestern states. Indiana is very interesting with the 21st Century Scholars Program. In that report, we looked at and differentiated the programs that are limited to people in specific curricular areas. There are not a lot of programs out there that are being targeted specifically for what folks are calling high demand. There is also a category of programs offered by community colleges or technical colleges that are more limited. I do wonder about the short- and long-term implications of narrowly targeting by curricular program.

Beals: Many students will start with history, political science, or women’s studies. That may develop the love for learning that will translate into graduate studies as well. So, it’s kind of a double-edged sword, right? Do you get someone who can get a nursing degree and go straight into the workforce, only for their education to be tapped out for a while? Or do you get someone with a longer launch pad?

Perna: I think it’s a question we need to continue to consider. Again, even in this age of AI, what do we want people to be learning? I really believe in the liberal arts, too. The value of critical thinking, problem solving, curiosity, respect for differences, and being able to engage in discourse with people who have different opinions. Those are important skills that have value for work and for life. I think we all have a shared responsibility to be clear on how higher education matters.

Beals: Let’s look at education, equity, and democracy. How do you propose bridging democracy in higher education? How can we build democratic engagement and civic learning into institutional reports or our processes?

Perna: It’s a really good question. Do you have ideas on this?

Beals: I don’t know that it applies to the day-to-day work versus the organization that we belong to. AACRAO organizes a Hill Day, in which volunteers go to Capitol Hill to represent their work as practitioners. Many state organizations do the same thing. I think it’s not necessarily our work in the institution, but our profession’s work. Do you agree with that?

Perna: I think that’s right. It seems to me, especially in this current time, that not enough folks understand what it is we do in higher education, why it matters, and the whole range of benefits—not just the earnings for people who go into particular fields. People who enter and complete a degree contribute to society in lots of different ways.

Also, regarding Penn AHEAD, my research center, as I think about higher education and democracy, it’s really about creating opportunities for people to participate. Many indicators show that we have growing inequality in higher education outcomes. We have more work to do there.

Beals: I personally struggle in my position when I interact with students who are clearly struggling, either academically or socially. From my perspective, we might not be the right fit, or maybe they selected the wrong discipline (because often it’s a parent selecting the discipline).

What’s your perspective on how we can best serve that population, both the student and the families, to help them come to a shared understanding or realization, without us getting to the point where the student is no longer academically eligible to remain at the school? In other words, how can we help them see the writing on the wall before they’ve dug themselves a big hole?

Perna: I think this is part of our challenge as we think about the cost of higher education. To provide that individualized advising, right now it takes people. We’ll see how much chatbots and AI might be able to help. But I still think we’re going to continue to need human touch on those things. I think you’re pointing to an area that we just have to do better at.

There are so many big costs to individual people and their families, and our society more broadly, when people start and don’t finish. I think it’s important for all of us to look in our own context to think about the ways in which we can help ensure that more people who start are able to finish.

I think you’re also getting at the fact that the goals aren’t aligned. We have room to improve regarding transfer and creating pathways for people to move from our institution to perhaps one that is a better fit. So that certainly is important. How we recognize individual differences is also important, and the issue of loans complicates this, too. If someone is enrolled and they’re really struggling and this turns out not to be the right thing for them, then perhaps leaving sooner rather than later is probably better. But I think there’s just a lot to take into account, recognizing the perspectives, experiences, and interests of individual students.

It’s also important for us in higher education to consider whether all students have the supports and resources that can enable them to succeed. When we admit a student, it should be with the commitment to doing what we can, from an institutional perspective, to help them to persist and complete.

Beals: What are the registration advising policies that you see are most effective in supporting students?

Perna: You know, I haven’t looked at the research on this particular type of issue except with regard to the work that I’ve done on working college students. One important practice is to make both the services themselves and the ways to get support within those services available to students when they are able to use them.

Maybe this is an area where technology actually helps and improves 24–7 access. I think it’s really important to take a look at the characteristics of the students enrolling at the institution, their information needs to navigate systems, and other accessibility issues.

Beals: To that point, you are very much doing a lot of your work backed by research. How, in your opinion, can we partner with institutional reporting to help identify data elements that would be helpful, not just for us, but for campus partners and campus leadership, to help identify trends and areas for growth and improvement?

Perna: You know, as higher education institutions, we should be data-driven organizations.

It can be very valuable to partner with institutional reporting to ensure we have the data we need to evaluate what is and is not working for which students, which practices should we keep, and which practices should we change. I also think it’s important to consider both quantitative indicators and qualitative data, and to really understand students’ experiences.

Beals: Is there anything that you feel that we didn’t touch on that you think would be of interest to registrars, anything that you personally or professionally think that we really need to pay attention to in the world today?

Perna: The weight of the day-to-day is pretty heavy. We have a lot on our calendar for today or this week, but trying to look ahead and really understand what’s happening and where we need to be going is super important.

Beals: I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much. It was lovely to meet you.