Princeton Weekly Bulletin November 23, 1998

ID office: a one-woman show

	Kathleen Bozowski in the ID office (Denise Applewhite)

By Caroline Moseley

Faculty, staff or student--if you came to the University any time since 1985, chances are you were photographed by Kathleen Bozowski.

Identification card administrator for CIT's Administrative Services, Bozowski staffs the ID office located in Room 12, Dillon Gym. There, she operates the camera and issues the plastic photo ID cards that enable members of the University community to use the library, buy a gym pass, eat at a campus dining facility and--if you're a student--get into your dorm. When not saying "Smile!" Bozowski is busy maintaining and updating the ID database.

The ID office, she says, "is always busy. People are in and out all the time, and you have to be able to do multiple tasks and not mind inter-ruptions. Fortunately, the only thing I can't take is boredom, and I certainly never get the chance to be bored."

Mondays tend to be busiest, she says, "because that's when new hires come around." As to times of year, August and September are heaviest "because of early arriving graduate students, faculty renewing early and students. We have a special Saturday registration for freshmen early in September."

In addition, "Now that we use a digital camera and imaging system instead of the old Polaroid, freshmen can send in a photo ahead of time, and we preprocess it during the summer. Then they can just pick up their IDs at registration. But I'm there on registration day for anyone who didn't send in a photo or registered late."

The ID office is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and is pretty much a one-woman operation. Diane Griffiths, who works in the CIT copier center, provides backup behind the camera if Bozowski is sick or on vacation.

University ID cards are issued to all Princeton faculty and staff who work 50 percent time or more; visiting fellows; undergraduate and graduate students; and spouses, domestic partners and children under 25 years of all the above, Bozowski says. Retirees with 10 or more years of service and their spouses or domestic partners also get ID cards, as do continuing education students and a number of University-affiliated personnel, such as employees of Princeton University Press, the U-Store and McCarter Theatre.

More than 13,000 cards

Bozowski estimates that in a year she processes over 1,000 faculty IDs, about 300 for visiting fellows, over 1,000 for professional staff and 1,500 for biweekly staff, about 950 for affiliates, and about 4,700 for under-graduates and 1,800 for graduate students. There are about 1,700 for spouses or domestic partners of employees and about 240 for spouses or domestic partners of students.

Not all cards are new each year, of course, but all existing cards must be updated at the beginning of each academic year. The majority of existing card holders receive update stickers in the mail and are reminded to bring in cards for spouses, domestic partners and dependents to be updated in the office. Bozowski says she frequently hears people joke about "being expired" or being "an expired spouse."

That's a lot of plastic--even not counting the ID cards that meet a mysterious end and must be replaced ("for a small fee"). Temporarily cardless Princetonians have told her "everything from 'the dog ate it' to 'it's on the bottom of Carnegie Lake," she says. "The lake story was probably true, because that was from a member of one of our crew teams."

Most would-be ID card holders are courteous, says Bozowski, "but occasionally they're cranky. One man insisted he should have a card because he lived in Princeton. He had no University affiliation whatever, but he wouldn't give up. I just kept on saying, 'I'm sorry, sir...' and eventually I guess I just wore him out."

Even when dealing with the occasional grouch, Bozowski is as cheerful a presence as you are likely to encounter on any campus. In addition, her office is notable for its uniquely colorful decor--particularly necessary, she says, "in a room that has no windows." Walls and ceiling are bedecked with paintings and various arts and crafts fashioned by her son, Brandon Watson--now a 13-year old, but a kindergartner when his mother started displaying his works. "His class made an 'alphabet train,'" she recalls. "The kids each made a decoration to go with every letter--like a big apple for A." Her favorite is a perky Mickey Mouse, which represented M in the alphabet train. "Everybody who comes in comments on how cheerful the office is," she says.

Bozowski began work at the University 20 years ago as a senior at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School. "I worked for what would now be CIT. Back then it was Administrative Systems and Data Processing--ASDP--and was in New South." After a brief stint as account clerk in Building Services and a maternity leave, in 1985 she took on administration of the ID office, then located in Stanhope Hall. In 1990 the office moved to Dillon Gym.

The best part of being ID administrator, says Bozowski, is "meeting so many different people." She is especially interested "in the many people who come here from all over the world. They're often nervous about being in a new country, and I try to put them at their ease."