Staff Editorial: Delayed registration just a symptom of wider dysfunction

Many students at St. Joe's were surprised to learn recently that registration for fall 2010 courses would not take place as early as it has in years past. Originally estimated by some as a three-week delay, the actual wait turned out to be about a week. Juniors will begin to register for classes next week, while sophomores and freshmen will sign up in the weeks just before final exams.

The reason for the delay is the confusion brought about by expanded introduction courses for freshmen associated with the new General Education Program (GEP), increased numbers of students, and a change in course numbers to correspond with organizational layouts used by other universities. The changes are meant to make St. Joe's undergraduate education both more thorough and more compatible with other universities' practices, but the effect of the rushed implementation has been to make life difficult for both students and faculty.

The delay in registration will be felt especially hard by rising juniors, who likely will not be able to find out their required course numbers until the Wednesday before their registration date.

The increased number of introductory classes has also stretched the capacity of the already-overburdened faculty. More and more professors are being asked to teach introductory classes—classes which will have caps at 20 students for freshmen seminars and higher for regular introductory courses and could be a drag on faculty members' time.

The rushed course changes are driving a wedge between faculty and the administration, at a time when relations are already tense over cost-cutting measures imposed in the last year, like a university-wide salary freeze and departmental budget cuts.

The unwillingness or inability of many professors to take on additional introductory courses for this fall may be part of this tension. Either way, a lack of professors who are fully on board with the GEP signals that there are issues with the curriculum overhaul that must be discussed and addressed immediately.

The fact is that many of these changes were decided on months ago, and only in recent weeks did the administration ask the Registrar's Office to change the registration process. The delays and confusion we are now seeing are not the fault of the Registrar's Office, which is working hard to fix the problem before registration starts. Instead, responsibility rests largely with the university's administration, which failed ultimately to adequately prepare faculty for the issues in implementing the GEP. In the future, we would hope that the institutional planning for long-decided policies would begin earlier and with more foresight.