International Programs' Staff Salute Jim Bohle for His Role in Implementing the UO's SEVIS Module

Bohle's expert programming assistance wins high praise

Joyce Winslow
jwins@uoregon.edu

When new federal regulations went into effect in early 2002, all those responsible for designing and implementing college student information systems had to scramble to meet a reporting deadline that was less than a year away.

Here at the UO, the new mandate had a big impact on the Office of International Programs. Ginny Stark, Director of International Student and Scholar Services, was suddenly confronted with the urgent reality of having to electronically record detailed, current information on more than1000 foreign students, visiting professors, and researchers in a new government database called SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System).

At a Banner Coordinating Group meeting in June, International Programs' staffers Ginny Stark and Peter Eberhardt surprised Administrative Services' project manager Jim Bohle with a plaque of appreciation.

Could SEVIS be made to work with the UO's existing computing systems? Would her department have to take the expensive step of scrapping its Macintosh machines in order to adapt? Did they have adequate staff to do the job? And finally, could they possibly do everything required of them by the looming deadline?

A self-described "technological novice," Stark speaks with obvious relief of finding help from Computing Center senior analyst and project manager Jim Bohle. Bohle and his team of technical support specialists immediately set to work reviewing SEVIS protocols. They determined that it was possible to modify the UO's Banner environment and other native systems to work with SEVIS, saving the university the many thousands of dollars it would have cost to purchase a new SEVIS-ready package.

As the work began, it became obvious that the Office of International Programs would need additional staff to coordinate the effort. An entire subcommittee had to be created to handle the recording of student addresses alone, and the need for in-house technical support for the ongoing modifications in SEVIS was also evident. A new position for SEVIS coordinator was created, and several months into the project, Peter Eberhardt was hired to fill that slot. He has worked closely with Bohle ever since.

Both Eberhardt and Stark are unanimous in their praise for Bohle's extraordinary perseverance through the early, difficult stages of working to integrate several disparate systems, computing environments, and technologies on a tight deadline.

They are especially grateful for his innovative approach to managing SEVIS' batch process procedure. Bohle's work not only greatly expedited the management of all the various pieces of student information, it ensured timely production of essential documents, without which students could not enter the country and register for classes.

"Jim is the critical support person for the batch process, and he is key to making sure the SEVIS module works locally with each new release of Banner and each new SEVIS modification," says Eberhardt. Stark is in complete agreement. "Without Jim Bohle, we wouldn't be nearly as confident of meeting all our responsibilities in regards to SEVIS," she says.

Bohle himself is modest about his role in the UO's successful implementation of SEVIS, but his work put the UO in the vanguard of universities striving to adapt their systems to interact seamlessly with the government database. Stark says this became apparent when she compared notes with other universities who called to find out how the UO had solved its SEVIS-related software problems.

There is no time to rest on his laurels, however, as Bohle would be the first to admit. As he puts it, "SEVIS is a moving target." Its constant updates keep Bohle, Eberhardt, and the other members of the SEVIS team on their toes, as does the predictable stream of new Banner software releases. The team's next challenge: getting SEVIS information to automatically update in Banner as students graduate, change addresses, or alter registration status.