After much anticipation, the Office of the University Registrar released the spring 2022 course schedule on the morning of Thursday, Nov. 18, also announcing that course registration will begin on Dec. 1. The release, weeks later than is typical, came largely without warning, as the Registrar’s website up until this week listed the beginning of registration as “TBA.” This board expresses its disappointment in the Registrar’s office in giving students just under two weeks — one of which constitutes the Thanksgiving break — to create their course schedules for the spring.

The later release of the schedule is particularly impactful for seniors, as it leaves very little time for consultation with an academic or faculty advisor to ensure that all University and degree requirements are fulfilled in time for graduation. This is a problem exacerbated by the Thanksgiving holiday break. With the University closed for much of the coming week, the usually limited number of appointment slots are even fewer. Additionally, due to the recent migration of academic records from SAGE to Workday, not all records have been accounted for, increasing the need for individual reviews prior to registration.

Frustratingly, the course schedule is, as of press time, only  available on Workday. The cumbersome system makes browsing the semester’s offerings challenging, to say the least. Locating course descriptions is not at all intuitive, and information regarding prerequisites and other requirements is hard to find — when it is included at all. In addition, it is difficult to locate information on cross-listing and which University requirements courses fulfill. The board admonishes the Registrar’s office for neglecting to post the course schedule to its usual place on their website and the ever-popular Schdl tool. 

Were this the first time registration was occurring on Workday, the board would have been understanding of any technical challenges. However, this semester’s registration took place utilizing Workday as well and made use of the previously mentioned superior browsing options. Given that the schedule was released later than anticipated, this oversight is even more irksome. While the board could appreciate the difficulty in departing from the hour-and-a-half-long-class system that has been in place since the pandemic hit, the University is not transitioning to a new system but rather returning to the pre-pandemic system, and as such we do not see how this could have contributed to the delay.

The board calls for transparency as to the delayed release of the schedule, particularly given that some departments have had their schedules finalized for some time now. Some departments sent a list of course offerings to their email listservs days or weeks ago, and student TAs in some circumstances have already selected the time block of their course for the spring. Bills for the spring semester were sent on Wednesday Nov. 17, and meal plan selection opened the same day — the board was left with a bad taste after being expected to pay for a semester whose courses had not yet been made public, nevermind selected.