Registering with the Registrar

This week Rose students had an opportunity to register for classes in the spring quarter. On Monday, January 15, the Rose Thorn had an opportunity to meet with Timothy Prickel, the Registrar, and Jan Lind, the Associate Registrar, to interview them about registration.

Thorn: What is it like on registration day?

Prickel: Today has been very smooth. It is exciting and we do enjoy registration. We like it when students come in.

Thorn: What is the most challenging aspect of registration day?

Lind: Usually the third or fourth day, since that is when more of the situations where students are not able to get into the section or the class they wanted, or had planned on taking. It usually goes pretty smooth on the first day, and more issues come up in the later days. If everyone is getting what he or she wants and so on, it is really quiet for us. When it doesn’t work out, then we hear from those students.

Thorn: Who all is involved in registration?

Prickel: Everyone here in the office, as well as the department heads who determine what is going to be offered. The folks in IAIT help out, as well as the print shop with the printouts. The advisors are also very busy.

Thorn: How long does it take you to prepare for registration?

Prickel: I usually request the information from the department heads about 3-4 weeks before finals, and start working on scheduling during finals week. The schedule of classes is the biggest time consumer, and the schedule is created and put together here.

Thorn: How is it decided the number of sections offered, the number of people allowed in a class, what hour the classes are offered, and what room they are offered in?

Prickel: The department heads determine the number of sections and the number of people in the classes, and they also assign the instructors and the classes offered. We, then, based on that and based on student majors, create the schedule. We only assign what hours the classes are offered, and which classrooms they are in. For example, the chemical engineers have a required lab from 7-10th hour, and required lectures in addition to those, which can’t be during 7-10th hour, so we try to juggle around that. The same thing occurs when there are students with double majors, such as a chemical engineer and a chemistry major. We try not to schedule both their labs at the same time. There is no formula we use; we just try to accommodate as many student schedules as we can. By far, the biggest frustration is when there are two classes in conflict for students. I do not like making people take other classes if there are conflicts.

Lind: There are certain classes, which have been requested to have certain rooms, and we have to schedule those to work out, as well as make them available to the professors and the students, so it is really complex.

Thorn: Why does registration occur in the mornings, and not in the afternoon?

Prickel: We think students are anxious to register. We hope the students like the fact they have extra time to register, and hope it opens up an availability for a class. I think it’s good for some of the students, and if it helps them, then it is worth it to us.

Lind: I think we picked 7:00 a.m. because we used to have five time slots (seven, nine, eleven, one, and three), and we started at seven in order to fit it all in. Instead of every two hours now, it is every hour and a half, and we extended the length on how long students are able to register. It used to be that students would walk into our office and hand us their list of classes, and we would write it all down. It was basically like a wish list. We would then enter it all, and then make a lot of changes. At least now, the students are able to make the changes themselves. There is a lot less we have to change behind the scenes.

Thorn: Any other thoughts?

Lind: There are usually very minimal problems, and we would like everyone to be happy. There are some situations that won’t work out, but it seems like it is going well. It’s impossible to know what all the possible scenarios for scheduling classes for all the double majors and so on to avoid scheduling conflicts, but we do our best to make everything work out.