Committee investigates registration

Reta Pikowsky, head registrar, has taken an active interest in the opinions of the SGA, faculty and advisors from the various departments to make changes to the ways that registration and scheduling at Tech caters to the needs of students.

Last semester Pikowsky set up an advisory board to gather input from the campus community on the performance of the office as well as other comments and suggestions. "Basically what we're doing is gathering information and just looking at everything," Pikowsky said.

This information gathering phase is being utilized to find and note any problems or concerns with registration as it currently stands. Alexander Wang, undergraduate vice president of Academic Affairs, said that Tech's reputation as a top tier institution necessitated the need to address concerns with registration.

"We're a top tier institute and there's no reason why, if there is a problem with the registration process, that we shouldn't be cutting edge," Wang said.

According to Pikowsky, it is important for Tech to remain competitive with schools within its branch of the rankings. There are several proposed changes that are going to go into the final report which will be made to the advisory board. Among those changes include ways in which the registrar can deal with the increase in the numbers of freshmen students every year.

Another change that is being discussed is the amount of time available for registration. In addition to these proposed changes for registration, several ideas about class scheduling have also been asked.

The registrar's office is looking into the possibility of using a shopping cart style technology on the online system in order to pick classes. Other ideas include possibly having a system that is similar to Amazon where people registering for one class can see what people in general have been trying to get into.

"It's a lot of ideas to make registration more intuitive and more user-friendly. Maybe like a drag-and-drop where you have a window of a week that you can drag your classes into and you can see what days (the class) is on," Wang said.

In the midst of this fact finding mission the office also has a tentative timeline for when these changes could be in place.

However, Pikowsky said that it will still be a matter of trying to prioritize which changes are ranked most important.

"Prioritizing the needs is a really, really important thing, because we [the registrar's office] don't have the resources to do everything," Pikowsky said.

Wang stated that this is one of the jobs that the Academic Affairs Committee is going to be responsible for doing.

"Some of the things are just small grievances. Like having a list of when classes will be offered. Those lists aren't even publicly available," Wang said.

Since many of these grievances are considered to be small things that could easily be implemented some students may wonder why it has taken this long to put some of them into effect.

"There is such a lack of communication right now that I think it is absolutely necessary for students, faculty and administration to get together, and figure out what to do," Wang said.

Some of the proposed changes are small enough that they could take effect as early as this summer. Other changes such as the proposed move from WebCT to Sakai could happen next fall. SGA will also be responsible for encouraging debate on the subject of registration and scheduling changes.

In the end, both Wang and Pikowsky agree that any changes will have to be decided through a democratic process conducted by the students.