There is an understandable and sound argument that can be made that any staff department on campus could be regarded as underrated, whether it is the Physical Plant, Food Services or Information Technology. But perhaps no other office at St. Edward’s University is quite as overlooked or misunderstood as that of the Business Office.

My appreciation comes from first-hand experience. For the last two summers I have worked in the business office with its leader, Paul Sintef, the university’s controller. Both summers not only proved to be instrumental in a new understanding of the school, but also were amongst the best I’ve ever had.

For clarification purposes, the Business Office is not Student Financial Services. It does not handle student tuition payments — that is a different department in a different building.

Instead, the Business Office oversees what is considered by most as somewhat mundane activities that effect students more indirectly than directly—purchases, annual audits, budget reviews and payroll are the raison d’être. In other words, the kind of stuff an accountant would love.

However, it is only through these mundane activities that the university could function.

Paul once told me that he considers the office to be the hypothalamus—a regulatory organ that ensures that the basic functions of the system are in operation. Without a hypothalamus, regulatory operations could not function. Without the proper regulatory system at St. Edward’s, higher intellectual thought would not be possible. This might sound like high praise, but consider the following.

People enjoy getting paid for the work they do, and people want to be paid fully and timely. Both of these are responsibilities of payroll. A payroll that is running well provides assurance both in timeliness and in amount, which allows the workers to better perform their duties as they no longer are concerned with the logistics of being paid, only that they are getting paid. This ensures that both faculty and staff can devote their time to what it is they do best.

Another consideration is that of accounts payable. Everything on campus has an element of cost. The computers and printers across campus, among other things, in the labs at one point had to have been bought. I could never imagine the campus without them, but had accounts payable not existed, that very well may have been the case.

But perhaps the best lesson I learned was a newfound sympathy for St. Edward’s. By observing such things as payroll and accounts payable, I saw the positive, mutual dependence that every department has on each other. The campus would not function without the business office, but the business office could not function without the other departments. At the end, I realized the following: Every staff member in every office makes an effort and a contribution, and we should thank each and every one of them for their day in, day out effort.