On April 2, Enrollment and Student Services at NSU announced a new class registration process for the Fall 2021 semester and the foreseeable future. The new registration process was passed by the Undergraduate Student Government Association and can be defined as tiered registration.
Course registration is now broken up by weeks. For the first week, the schedule allows seniors, having 90 credits or more, to register for courses first, followed by juniors with 60-89 credits before opening up registration to all seniors and juniors. This part of registration started last Monday and wrapped up this past weekend. In week two, which started Monday, April 12, sophomores with 20-59 credits can register for courses, followed by freshmen with less than 29 credits. Afterward, registration is open to all students from April 19 at 8 a.m. to Aug. 22 at 10 p.m. Registration is only available to students during their designated days and times.
Elaine Poff, the director of NSU’s registrar’s office, said, “Seniors, or the students with higher credits, need the priority to classes because they need to graduate. That was the main thing, getting the students who need to graduate the better selection of classes.”
This new process also removes priority registration for students with the designations of honors or athlete. Instead, honors students and athletes will follow this new tiered process based on class level. However, a special dispensation will be provided to all Farquhar Honors College students to achieve their course of study, meaning if an honors student is closed out of a class they have to have for graduation, they can contact their academic adviser and work with them to get them into a class that fulfills their requirement.
A major difference between this new process and the previous one is that all course registrations begin at 8 a.m. instead of midnight the night before. Poff explained the reasoning behind this change.
“We wanted to start it at a time when there would be people in the office, so if there is a problem we could address it right then instead of waiting six to eight hours to address it. It was really to serve students better. That’s why we chose a time that we would be able to fix an issue if it happened,” she said.
While seniors and juniors faced some difficulties because of technical issues last week, Poff says that, with time, the registration process will get better.
“It will improve. This is the first semester, so [there have] been some bumps and we’re working through them. Any time a new process is put in place, you have some difficulties, but we are working with undergraduate student affairs, and as the problems come up, we resolve them. It’ll work a lot better for the winter semester, so we can’t wait for that to happen,” Poff said.
