Feature: The woman behind the rules: Carol Crosley's 29 years at Wits

If you've ever wondered who keeps the university's complex daily rhythm flowing smoothly behind the scenes, meet Registrar Carol Crosley. If you stepped into her office, you would find small clay art pieces, bright green plants along the windowsill, and wooden shelves holding small sculptures and figures that add a subtle artistry to the space. Photographs of friends and colleagues lined the room, alongside quieter moments of pride: her two sons, Jayson and Ryan Crosley. Moments frozen in time but alive with the bonds that have shaped her. It's 08:30 am, on Monday, August 31, and Carol's day has already begun. She's finishing a meeting with the deputy registrar, with emails and more meetings still ahead. In many ways, it was a normal day – except that it wasn't. Some familiar touches are gone. The walls have been stripped naked of photographs, and the plants have disappeared. Instead, a September calendar sits unmarked on the desk. It is a quiet reminder of the month Crosley will no longer be coming to this office. This day, too, would be different. Letters introducing the university's incoming registrar needed to be drafted, and goodbyes needed to be said to colleagues. After almost three decades at Wits, Crosley was preparing to leave the university she had originally planned to spend only five years at. She had always believed in change. Before Wits, she moved between teaching and the corporate world, spending four years at Johnson & Johnson before returning to teaching. When she arrived at Wits, she was appointed head of functions and events in the Vice-Chancellor's office. Then came a venture she describes as her 'baby': the Student Enrollment Centre. At the time, the space was occupied by restaurants and ATMs. Crosley and her colleagues transformed it into a dedicated space where students could navigate enrollment, registration and the administrative business of becoming a Witsie. When Carol started, the work was very different from today's digital university. Applications were processed manually, with each offer typed, signed by hand and sent by post. Crosley stayed because there was always something else to build. Over time, she rose from assistant registrar to deputy registrar, eventually serving as registrar for 12 years. She describes her role as guiding a student's academic life-cycle: from application and registration to examinations and graduation – while quietly ensuring that the university's rules, records and governance remain in order. 'Students who break the rules know exactly what the registrar does. If you have never been to the registrar's office, then that is a good sign,' she says with a knowing smile. During registration, when queues of anxious students stretched across the venue, Crosley did not remain behind an office door. Sershin Naicker, the Student Recruitment Manager who worked closely under her, remembers seeing Carol 'walking the queues herself, speaking to students, answering questions and helping clear bottlenecks.' For all her reputation as a hard taskmaster, there was another side to her leadership. Ashleigh Davids, a Project Coordinator within the registrar's division, recalls seeing Crosley help students who needed meals or somewhere to stay while trying to resolve their registration problems. Fahmida Abrahams, the Finance Manager for the registrar's division, remembers bringing Crosley problems that seemed almost too strange to be true – like figuring out where a bank deposit of R23 million came from. Nishi Sooful, General Manager for Communication and Publication, remembers Crosley arriving at work on crutches rather than taking sick leave. Mashudu Mafhenya, Manager at the Central Records Office, recounts her coming into campus as early as January 2, sometimes waiting for security to open the lifts. Sam Rangata, Head of the Academic Information and Systems Unit, reflects on Carol's habit of visiting units after registration to personally thank staff. Perhaps that is why Crosley chooses 'perseverance' to describe her career. She calls herself disciplined, goal-oriented and serious about doing things properly. Her colleagues add their own words: integrity, courage, warmth, humility and care. As Wits evolved, so did Carol. 'When you're young, I think you're impatient, and you feel like you can change the world,' she says. She arrived with a clear sense of how things should be done, but learnt to loosen her grip on that certainty, understanding that different paths can lead to the same destination. Somewhere between the rules, meetings and responsibilities is a woman whose happiest place, she says, is not really a place at all, but time spent with her sons and three siblings. Soon, she'll relocate to the Western Cape to be closer to her sister and brother, trading the registrar's routine for more time and fewer responsibilities. On her final afternoon, the office no longer looked empty. Gift bags gathered with cake, cupcakes, and chocolates brought by colleagues across different departments. At 4:06 pm, Crosley was still on the phone with a colleague, laughing and promising to stay in touch. As she smiled, a tiny tear appeared at the corner of her eye. 'It's going to be hard to leave Wits,' she said, 'but it's also going to be very hard to leave my friends.' She once imagined changing the world. She learned instead that sometimes the meaningful work is smaller: listening to someone, meeting a student and offering advice or pointing them in the right direction. If she could write one sentence to the next Registrar, it would be: 'Trust your instincts.' On her final day, Crosley did what she had done for nearly 30 years: She showed up. When asked how she hopes people remember her, she doesn't mention the systems she changed or titles she held. https://youtu.be/D72QxIpkkbY FEATURED IMAGE: Carol Crosley RELATED ARTICLES: