Remodeling registration

In a move to facilitate the registration process, the Fairfield Registration Committee has decided that students will now register for all courses at the same time online, starting with the registration period at the end of April for the fall 2009 semester.

A memo to faculty and students from Mary Frances Malone, associate vice president of academics and chair of the committee, cites that the new process will shorten the time it takes to register, assign privilege to students based on class rather than major or minor and will ‘enhance [the students’] educational experience.’

Before, students had advising for one week, then major and minor registration, and then core and elective registration. Time slots were assigned by random lottery numbers. Now, the grouping is done alphabetically within each class.

‘Everything is the same as you did it before,’ said Robert Russo, the University registrar. ‘We just do away with you coming to our office for registering for majors and minors.”

The advising period still remains the week before registration. Scholars and varsity athletes will still precede the alphabetical groupings. Now students, though, must independently register for everything through StagWeb at their assigned time.

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Normally, the rising sophomores would register in the library with help from the Dean of Freshmen, Debnam Chappell. Now they will join the rest of the student body in the online process. If they require additional guidance, however, Chappell and her staff will still be in the library to assist them.’

The committee finalized the change with student input. Student representatives Elizabeth Ingham ’12 and Kelly Young ’10 both serve on the committee board.

‘There were too many dates before; it was a lot to remember all at once, and it was too confusing,’ said Ingham.

She said that this was a concern voiced by a majority of the FUSA Senate.

Malone stressed in a meeting with The Mirror’s editorial board that students still must receive their PIN from their advisors. The committee added a day to the advising period, giving students an extra 24 hours to retrieve their PIN.’

‘That doesn’t mean that you can’t go see your advisor before advising period though, so you don’t get caught in the crush,’ said Malone.

The class of 2010 will begin registration this year on April 14. Students can log in at their assigned time slot and can continue to do so until 8 a.m. the next day. After 8 a.m., students who still did not register can visit the Registrar and register there. This day serves as a window of time between one class registering and the next so that, for example, seniors unable to register online can do so before the junior class.

Malone explained that there are a few courses designated for certain majors that will have ‘caps.’ For seniors, the cap for a major course may be 10 people. Then, it will adjust to 15 for the junior class, and so on.

‘My goal is that students get the courses they need to meet graduation requirements,’ said Glenn Sauer, chair of the biology department and committee member. ‘In some cases, you may not get the courses you want, but by the time you are a senior you will be able to get the courses you do want.’

Though the lottery is gone, the electronic wait list still remains. It will not be activated, though, until the week after registration. This gives student a chance to get into a course that was previously full.’

‘Last semester there were 5,000 wait list requests,’ said Russo. ‘And we were able to honor 2,000 of them.’

There is an ongoing debate within the committee about how the waitlist functions, as some students put themselves on two or three lists. This blurs the line between students who need certain classes, and those who just want them.

The response to the new process amongst the student body has been varied.

‘It’s a good idea in that you register for all classes at once, but you may miss out on needed major classes,’ said Chuck Walters ’10. ‘Which would be a problem, especially for business students who needed to take specific classes at specific times, which may be closed out by non-business majors taking the classes.’

Malone said that if certain underclassmen are looking to take major courses, they ‘might not get the particular course’ they request, but the major courses will be protected.

‘This way, you can take said course at some point before you graduate,’ she said.

Other students seem content with these registration changes.

‘I’ve been registering online since freshman year, and this past semester was the first time I had to run over to the Kelley Center to do the same things I was able to do online,’ said Brad Gorson. ‘It just seems more logical to do it that way.’

Other changes include moving the hard copy orange course booklet to an almost exclusively online edition in the next year or so. The committee says that this way, it will always be up to date.’

‘It’s also part of green campus [movement] not to have 3,000 40-page booklets,’ said Russo.

The memo, received by the University community earlier this week, outlines the specifics of the new process in full detail. Each student will be able to access this document via Stagweb and Eidos. All resident assistants will also receive copies to post in the dorms.’

‘I’m sure that everyone on the registration committee would be happy to disband at the end of the semester,’ said Malone. ‘The shelf life of this committee may only be for one more semester, and then I hope [the registration process is] all fixed.’

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For FUSA President Jeff Seizer’s comments on registration during his mid-semester speech, click here.