Melissa Aguilar |
From dorm rooms housing three students instead of two to more crowded classroom spaces, the record-breaking Class of 2018 is impacting campus life. To accommodate the large influx of students, the Spring 2015 registration process has changed to keep students on track for graduation.
In an email to students Oct. 22, Provost Thomas Greene said beginning Nov. 3, “Some students will be preregistered in lower-division sequential courses or other specific professional school requirements. This preregistration process will still take into account students with priority registration and class standing.”
Associate Provost Matthew Baasten said students who are taking a course that is followed in sequence by another course are guaranteed a spot in that consecutive class spring semester.
Class standings will still be taken into account, meaning seniors still register first. Students will also still register during a specific time slot according to the grouping of their last name.
As in the past, students’ advisors must sign registration forms and give students their alternate PIN, used for online registration.
“We want to make sure that it becomes easier for everybody to get their required courses,” Baasten said. “It isn’t like we’re trying to control everybody’s registration for every course.”
Freshman biology major Analese Gonzalez said she understands the administration’s decision to pre-register students.
“It’s just general biology and general chemistry right now, so it’s not as big of a deal as choosing upper level division classes,” Gonzalez said "Basically, everybody has to take it at some point so it’s not too big of a deal, I don’t think.”
This semester, 18 classes and six labs were added to accommodate the larger student body.
For spring semester, the University created 20 additional course sections, mostly lower-division science classes, and seven labs.
To make room for these new classes, the University is adding two new 42-seat classrooms in the basement of Buckley Center, BC 17 A and 17 B. These spaces were previously occupied by Information Services, which has moved to the ground floor of Tyson Hall.
“That greatly increased our capacity,” Baasten said. “It sounds like a lot, but you count all the time spots and you add two classes, it just gives us a bigger room so people don’t feel like sardines.”
This semester, BC 163, traditionally a faculty and staff meeting room, was used as a classroom space, and will likely be used as a classroom space again next semester.
Rather than hiring more professors, the University made some adjunct instructors lecturers, meaning they teach more classes but are not on a tenure-track.
Each department must project how many course sections are needed for the upcoming calendar year, which then determines how many teaching positions they need.
Preregistration will likely only occur for the spring of 2015 and won’t become a regular part of the registration process. “My hope is it’s kind of a one-time thing,” Baasten said. “This was a unique situation. A lot of it depends on how many freshmen come next year.”
Melissa Aguilar is a reporter for The Beacon. You can reach her at aguilarm16@up.edu.
