The
Registrar’s webpage states “We are here to help you.” From my experience, this has not been the case. The page also states, “Our
responsibilities include the entire registration process.” If this is the case, then it is their
responsibility to revise their inefficient processes set forth by the academic
regulations. Their antiquated and inflexible system was brought to my attention
when I decided I wanted to learn piano. Little did I know that learning piano
first required 10 signatures and visiting four offices in three different buildings
across the campus on multiple occasions.
My dissent with the Registrar, however, is not necessarily that their
processes wasted my time and that of the university faculty and administration,
but that the process is so inefficient that it does not align with the values a
university should uphold.
I decided I wanted to take MUS071
Private Piano Study during the second week of add/drop. As required, I
collected the add/drop form from the Registrar and proceeded across campus
seeking three signatures. First I stopped in Zoellner where the instructor signed
my form and overload petition. I should also explain here that the reason I was
overloaded was only because of credits that accompanied a winter break study
abroad program, and not because I genuinely was taking on more than an
appropriate course load. Next stop, Rauch Business Center. I got the advisor’s
signature then proceeded to the associate dean’s office. The associate dean is understandably busy at the beginning of each semester, so I was told I would
receive an email once the associate dean got a chance to put down her
signature. The next day, I
returned to her office, picked up the signed form, and submitted it to the
registrar. Then it was time to wait for the decision by the Committee on the
Standing of Students (SOS).
I
did not hear back for another three and a half weeks, when I received an email from the
dean’s office. As to why I was informed of the decision 10 days after the
petition was seen by the committee on Feb. 8, I do not know. So, on Feb. 18, I
went to see the course instructor who told me there is no more capacity in the
course. Several days later, after noticing that the Bursar had already done me
the courtesy of billing me the extra $440 required to take the course that I’ve
never been to, I went to the registrar to be taken off the course list. I
described the situation about how I was unable to take the course due to it
being over capacity and that I needed to be officially taken out of it. What
does the lady at the registrar do? She hands me an add/drop form, along with a
Petition form that I will need to remove the “W” that will appear on my
transcript because my enrollment in the class is already “in the system.” What
is this notion of a supernatural system to which we grant authority? To the
registrar I say, YOU ARE THE SYSTEM. So when they say that another six signatures will be required to get out of the class I have
never been to, am not allowed to take, and was already billed for, from the
same people whose signatures I were required to get into the class three and a half weeks
prior, I politely questioned whether it was necessary since, in actuality,
I’m not even in the class. Why do
advisors, teachers, and deans need to approve something when doing otherwise
would be so utterly insensible?
The
quiet lady at the registrar replied saying that “this is the way our office
works,” which was actually the same filler line she used when I first submitted
the forms to the SOS Committee. If
people were content with “the way things are,” then nothing would ever
happen. Alumni would not be so
generous as to donate their hard-earned money which the university so actively
seeks out. I hope some of this
money will fund some administrative restructuring so that we do not have to
continue wasting our own time making sure our own students aren’t over-stepping
the university’s bounds. If the
benevolent SOS Committee approves my petition, it will be the 17th
signature in this process. I’m sure the administration would agree that they
have better things to be dealing with, which is probably why the committee only
meets every 2 weeks. It amazes me how unrefined this process is at such an old
institution. If the Registrar is really here to help students, I have yet to
see it done. It looks like I won’t be taking piano.
-"Regis Strar"
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