Failure to Communicate

My initial contact with Western Governors’ University was not especially positive. As I was searching the website for information about its Instructional Design program, I was annoyed by a pop-up enrollment counselor who wanted to chat. I ignored her.

I had a few questions that were outside the usual how to enroll genre, and I found a list of academic leaders, but it contained no contact information. Back to the pop-up counselor, I asked how to contact the person whom I thought could help me. Unfortunately, she had never heard of him and had no information about him. Her explanation was that he was “too high up” for me (or presumably, anybody) to talk to. Fine. I called the general information number, entered voice mail hell and discovered that, unless I had the person’s extension number, I couldn’t reach anybody but enrollment counselors.

Finally I googled the person I wanted, found an article he had written which included an email address and wrote him. He answered my question within a few hours, but I had to work MUCH too hard to contact him.

I don’t really understand the philosophy behind making it so difficult. If anybody has an insight into this, I’d love to hear it. Still, I’m very interested in learning more about WGU. Stay tuned.