"Sometimes people assume that because we’re money collectors we’re hard-hearted." Anne Woodard ’81, Ithaca College’s bursar, tends to speak collectively about herself and the full-time staff of nine she oversees. "Yes, we do have to collect the money, but most important to us, we want to help the kids who really want to be at Ithaca College to stay here."
Located behind the cashier’s window in Job Hall, the Office of the Bursar fulfills such essential tasks as establishing and maintaining student accounts and ID Express accounts, billing and collecting payments, receiving and disbursing student loans, and processing miscellaneous fees, such as traffic bureau or library fines and health center charges. Beyond these functions, Woodard and staff answer questions, solve problems, give presentations, certify students for scholarships, and individually counsel parents on how to pay College expenses.
As manager of the office, Woodard makes sure that jobs are done well, deadlines are met, and the computer system is performing. "I’m the person who plans, sets up, organizes," she says, but she also relishes the "detective-type work" of unraveling a complicated account. Her staff is a very close team, and all participate in projects such as the ongoing transformation of the office into a more convenient "one-stop shopping" enrollment services department. "We not only work well together, we laugh well together, and that’s very important." Her managerial style, she says, "is pretty much to let people do what they do best. And I’m never disappointed—their natural talents just shine."
Born in South Bend, Indiana, Woodard graduated from the State University College at Cortland with a degree in art. "Originally," she says, "I was going to teach English, then I was going to teach art." So how did she end up a bursar? She couldn’t find a teaching job, so she began working at the Ithaca College bursar’s office as a cashier in 1973. She was attracted to the position because it gave her the opportunity to work with the public, but within six months she had been promoted to bursar and relocated to the back office. At first "they needed a crowbar to get me away from the window," she says, but she has continued to find ways to stay in frequent contact with students and parents.
Her artistic interests haven’t been forgotten. Since earning an IC degree in photography in 1981, Woodard is rarely without a camera when she’s not at work. "For the sheer enjoyment of it" she takes pictures that run the gamut from candid portraits to landscapes. She volunteers as advisor, editor, and photographer for the yearbook for Immaculate Conception School, where her daughter, Allison, is a sixth grader. Family members are "all on the same wavelength," she says, in their involvement in the arts. Her husband, guitarist Chris Woodard (whom she married at the Ithaca College chapel), and her brother, Brian Hyland, perform music that’s "Irish with a jazz/gospel twist." They’ve sold 10,000 copies of their recent CD, Celtimorphosis.
Woodard’s father died when she was a sophomore in college, and now, at Ithaca, advising families in similar difficult situations is for Woodard one of the most rewarding aspects of the bursar’s position. Although her career took a very different path from what she had planned, after 23 years in the same job, she says, "I really love what I do."
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