In the past few weeks, Fairfield has been struggling with the timeless burden of all college students – registration. From technical difficulties to courses being closed, students are stressd out.
“I had a 3 p.m. registration time,” said Jennifer DeNapoli ’06. “I couldn’t get onto StagWeb until 3:30 and didn’t get any of the classes I wanted. Everything I needed was closed. The whole registration process this semester was more frustrating than any other year. The system the university uses is terrible.”
However, University Registrar Robert Russo said that “everything has been running smoothly.” He said there was a misconception that Ignatian Residential College students received the same pin numbers as last year.
“The IRC students received a pin to register early for their IRC courses only and then continued to use that pin for core and electives.”
“It had nothing to do with pins from last year,” he said.
IRC student Katie Bakarich woke up 7 a.m. for preferential registration to log onto StagWeb, but her pin number did not work on her or her roommate’s computer, she said.
“I could hear people in the halls complaining and asking each other if they could log in,” said Bakarich. “We heard someone say that you had to go to the Registrar to register but I was too tired and cold… so I went back to bed for three hours.”
Communication majors underwent a confusing change this semester.
“The communications majors come to get permission for classes at our pre-registration advising sessions, as they always have,” said Professor and Chair of Communication Robbin Crabtree.
New as of this year, communications majors then took their forms to the registrar’s office, where their names were checked against the permission lists. The students were then registered for classes they had approval for.
“It was a very cumbersome data entry issue to have the registrar’s office enter all the names without students going there,” said Crabtree. “So we have stopped doing that.”
Although registering separately for major and minor classes is “a lot of extra work,” said Russo, “it ensures that students get the courses that they need” since core and elective classes can be chosen from a wider range of courses.
But some seniors cannot fulfill their core. Laura Raymond ’06 came back from babysitting to register for her non-major classes and said that “every science core is full.”
“I have to scramble and E-mail random teachers to sign me into their class,” she said.
What about students who work, play sports, have class or just cannot register in their allotted time period? To add additional strain, professors are told not to let students out of class to register, despite the fact that the University itself creates these time slots.
“It’s a major double standard,” said Erik Gronbeck ’06. “Fairfield encourages students to take all necessary means to properly register in their given time slots, but then ignores the teachers’ complaints. It’s so dumb,” he said.
Stephen King ’06 said he has not been having much difficulty registering but “it’s just stressful trying to get all the classes I need to graduate.”
“Stagweb was down all day today [Tuesday],” said Meg O’Brien ’07. “I went to the BCC, the foreign language labs, the English labs and the library and none of the computers worked.”
“I understand computer problems happen, but the network and registrar seems to fail whenever everyone needs it,” Kathleen Bakarich ’08 said.
Russo said Fairfield University is equipped with “the latest web system with the interactive CAPP degree audit that students can run,” said Russo. “We are way ahead of most schools in that area.”
“Despite the change, all registrations are going as planned, with students getting advised, approved for courses, and then registered for those courses,” Crabtree said.
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