Colonial Central Now Open to Enhance the GW Student Experience

New Integrated Center Consolidates Several Student Services and Extends Hours of Operations

WASHINGTON - The George Washington University has opened the first phase of a new student services center in the Marvin Center, "Colonial Central."  Colonial Central initially will house staff from Student Accounts, the Cashier's Office, and the Office of Student Financial Assistance as well as self-service aspects of the GWorld card program.  Plans call for the addition of select services from the Office of the Registrar as well as a full-service GWorld card presence during the current academic year.  The center is the newest focus in creating "services clusters" of top-performing business and service operations to support academic excellence.

Robert Chernak, senior vice president for Student and Academic Support Services (SASS) said, "The opening of Colonial Central is a win-win for students. Its central location and inter-departmental layout will enable students to have immediate access to a variety of services in the hub of student life on campus."

"Colonial Central has created extended business hours, including evenings, to serve the needs of graduate, commuter, and working students," said Executive Vice President and Treasurer Louis Katz. "The long-term goal of this project is to couple the services center with expanded online services through the Colonial Central Web site so that students can conduct University business in an efficient manner and have a world-class customer experience at any time."

Using the skills of a dedicated and experienced service team, Colonial Central will enable students to complete business and financial transactions in a centralized and cohesive setting which will eliminate the need to visit multiple offices on campus.  Over time, Colonial Central will grow to serve a variety of emerging service needs across GW's campuses.

Taina Christner will run and manage the center as its director.  Ed Schonfeld, associate vice president for Finance--Schools and Divisions, has principal oversight of Colonial Central.  Christner, a long-serving GW employee who has managed several other successful customer service organizations at GW, including the ISS Help Desk and the Financial Emergency/ Emergent Issues Team, will direct the day-to-day operations of Colonial Central.

Initially created as a cross-functional organization by the Business and Services Steering Committee of the University and co-directed by Chernak and Katz, the implementation of Colonial Central has been co-managed since November 2006 by Peter Konwerski, assistant vice president for SASS, and Mary Wallace, managing director of planning and assessment in EVP&T.