FULL YEAR REGISTRATION
AD HOC COMMITTEE MINUTES
3/19/02
PRESENT: Rob Smith, Business &
Technology; Ken Myers, Health & Human Services; Cleon Melsa, Learning
Foundations; Kami Trowbridge, First Year Experience; Val Uttermark, Registrar;
Doug Knowlton, Academic Affairs; Bob Nelson, Student Affairs
The concept of full year scheduling of critical courses for
new students came out of The Report of
the Graduation and Retention Subcommittee of the Council of Undergraduate Deans. Full year scheduling of critical courses
is seen to offer significant benefits to students in terms of getting off to
the right start at the University of Minnesota. Allowing new students to
register in the summer for certain critical courses offered in the spring is a
visible commitment to our freshmen students’ education, reduces student and
parent anxiety, may simplify scheduling for students, and encourages students
to focus first on their academic commitments.
1. Who should qualify for full year registration? New students who attend spring-summer early registration will be able to take advantage of full year scheduling. Should this be limited to new freshmen only or also include transfer students?
Full year registration will be limited during this trial period to new students (freshmen and transfers) who participate in the regularly scheduled on-campus early registration sessions April-August 2002. All other students will register for Spring 2003 during their regularly scheduled queued registration beginning November 2002.
2. Do we need to restrict the number of seats in some specific spring courses to prevent too many seats being taken by new students? Do we need to “close” some spring classes entirely to new student registration?
It is assumed that there will
be minimal overlap in course demand for Spring 2003 between new students and
returning students. Most new students will be registering for 1xxx level
courses. Few new students will be eligible to register for upper division
courses. We will monitor course registrations during the trial period and, if
problems become evident, will either limit the number of available seats or
close the class entirely.
3. How much extra time do we anticipate will be needed for spring registration during early registration?
We estimate that an additional
30 minutes should be allowed for individual advising and an additional 15
minutes for web registration. We will need to make additional computers
available for web registration to avoid waiting lines due to the additional
time required to input spring course registrations.
4.
Do we want the
spring appointments to expire after the new student registration period (they
could still drop, but not add until their normal Spring queue time in
November-December 2002)? Should the spring class schedule be available on the
web during the entire fall term and students be allowed to drop/add during that
entire time?
During this initial trial period students will only be allowed to
cancel spring semester classes after their initial registration. Students will
need to wait until their regular spring semester queued registration time
(November-December 2002) to add spring semester classes.
5.
Assuming
everything works OK, do we want to allow our continuing students next spring
(queued registration April 2003) to register for both Fall 2003 and Spring 2004
or continue to do this only for new students? Should we consider allowing
students during queued registration for Spring 2003 to also register for Fall
2003 (queued registration November-December 2002)?
If full year registration works OK we will plan to expand this option to all returning and new students for fall 2003 and spring 2004 registration beginning with continuing students during the regular registration queue beginning in April 2003. New freshmen and transfers will again register during the scheduled new student registration days spring and summer 2003.
6. Do we need to be concerned about the number of students who will cancel spring courses or who must repeat a course due to poor performance?
It is assumed that this problem will not be significantly different than what currently exists with students who early register for spring semester in November before they have completed fall semester classes.
7. Are there some unique considerations due to the addition of ITM 5- and 10-week modular courses?
Advisers need to be aware of the
new census date registration deadline in determining eligibility for financial
aid. Students who add classes after the term census date will not be able to
have those credits count toward financial aid. These deadlines, however, really
have no practical effect during the early registration period. Information will
be included in the class schedule and the Office of Student Financial Aid will
provide more information for faculty and staff.
8.
Should we have
freshmen complete a short (2-3 question) survey during early registration about
how they viewed full-year registration? How else do we measure the success?
Two or three additional questions
will be added to the New Student Survey completed at early registration.
Another opportunity to solicit information from new students will be during the
6th Week New Student Survey completed in the fall. Additional
evaluation criteria will need to be identified to help gauge the success of
full year registration.
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