Anita Cotter remembers a time when the buildings at UCLA had no
air conditioning, when the school ran on a semester system, and
when legendary basketball coach John Wooden led the school to 10
NCAA titles in 12 seasons. After all, the school registrar has been
here 41 years.
She’s been at UCLA for key events in United States
history, including the Watts Riots in 1965, the anti-Vietnam
demonstrations on campus during the 1970s, the Olympics in 1984 and
the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
In November of 1963, when Cotter was a student living in Dykstra
Hall, she was using the women’s restroom in Haines Hall when
an announcement rang over the loudspeaker. President John F.
Kennedy had been assassinated.
A native of Illinois, Cotter transferred to UCLA in 1963 from
Western Illinois University. She said she thought it was a great
place to visit, and she had relatives living in the area.
“I guess the ocean was a draw,” she said. “I
live in a beach city now and have for many years.”
Cotter said the Olympics proved to be a great experience for
her, as well as for many Los Angeles residents.
“The traffic was wonderful because everyone had been told
how bad it would be,” so almost no one ventured onto Los
Angeles’ streets, she said with a smile on her face.
Olympic athletes were housed at UCLA and USC, and some stayed at
the UCLA dorms. Westwood Village was called “Athletes’
Village.”
Cotter said her main focus over the years has been improving the
daily lives of students at UCLA. As school registrar, Cotter is in
control of student records, course information and grades.
According to Cotter, actions such as registration or paying fees
were not as easy as logging on to URSA and taking care of all
registration issues, the way it is now.
She said there used to be lines around the block, crammed with
students waiting to pay fines.
One of her main focuses has been “trying to keep current
with technology to make sure services are available to
students,” she said.
Cathy Lindstrom-Jacobson, associate registrar, has been at UCLA
for almost 30 years and said she has worked with Cotter during that
time.
She said Cotter’s co-workers were sometimes less than
thrilled to embark on one of her ambitious plans for the school to
make resources easier for students.
“She used to drive us crazy because she had so many great
ideas,” Lindstrom-Jacobson said, laughing. “She’s
been instrumental in terms of bringing student services (to the
student body).”
Cotter herself branded the name of the Web site UCLA students
visit on a daily basis.
“I came up with name “˜URSA,'” she said.
The name stands for University Records System Access. It also means
“bear” in Latin, a nice fit for the Bruins.
Cotter said one of her proudest moments so far at UCLA has been
“being involved in implementing telephone
enrollment.”
Since 1970, UCLA had an online campus mainframe. There were 25
to 30 computer terminals set up in the Grand Ballroom, and students
had appointment times when they would go and use a terminal to
register for classes.
She said sometimes the computers would go down, and there was
nothing to do but wait.
After years of waiting for funding, proposals and tests to go
through and make sure it was a good tool for students to utilize,
telephone enrollment was implemented at UCLA to all undergraduates
in November 1988.
Telephone registration was a tremendous help to the entire
campus community, as all students had to do was call during their
appointment time. Cotter herself was the recorded voice on the
telephone enrollment system, and until 2002 was unofficially known
as the “URSA lady.” It took several hours to record
everything for the system, and Cotter had to make new updates every
quarter for things such as new departments.
Susan Bukowski, registrar’s assistant since 1986, has
worked alongside Cotter during her time at UCLA.
“I’ve worked with Anita on many projects,” she
said.
Bukowski said the most exciting things to witness have been the
innovations in making services available to students.
Cotter has made changes that affect other areas of student life,
and has been a UCLA Vanpool driver for 15 years.
“Actually it’s fun. You can talk to people,”
she said. Students, coworkers and residents of Westwood are among
those who ride in the Vanpool.
Like many at the school, Cotter also appreciates the
opportunities the UCLA campus has, given its prime location and
association with Hollywood.
“Seeing (motion) pictures that you definitely recognize if
you know our architecture or even our sidewalks” is among the
perks of going to an urban school, Cotter said.
She’s been here for quite some time ““ since June 14,
1965, to be exact. She said she has no plans to leave the school at
any time, and never really has.
“When you’re at UCLA, you don’t pay attention
to much else,” Cotter said. “Why would you want to go
anyplace else?”