AS YET another class registration period comes to a close, the University is abuzz with all the same old complaints that always come up around this time. Whether it be "The class I need for my major is filled with first-year Echols scholars," or "I couldn't get to my computer at my registration time," or "ISIS was too slow," the same complaints are uttered every semester as bitter students try to figure out why all their desired classes are full by the time they sign up.
While there has been much debate over the way sign-up times are handed out, the fact is that whether the first-year Echols scholars go before fourth-years or whether Advanced Placement credits should count in assigning times are just semantic questions that gloss over the real problem. The real problem is that budget problems have reduced the number of TAs and professors the University can hire and subsequently sizes of the University's courses, and the University has no fair system to help get more students into the classes they desire.
This year, the University began toying around with an idea that may begin to fix this problem. Six departments in the College began a pilot program of electronic waiting lists. These waiting lists allow a more practical way for students to get into a class that has filled up without having to sit in front of ISIS typing in the same course number ten thousand times.
The idea for this electronic waiting list is long overdue. Following the program's test run last semester, most of the feedback from College faculty was positive, according to J. Milton Adams, Vice Provost for Academic Programs. Adams says that now the University is "waiting to see how [the wait-list program] is working" and that the program may be expanded across the University "if it works well."
Indeed, if the electronic waiting list system does continue to prove successful, the University should immediately implement it across all schools and all classes beginning with registration for classes for the spring of 2006. Furthermore, the waiting list system must be moved to ISIS, and made part of the regular registration process.
An automatic electronic waiting list system on ISIS could give students who sign up for a full class during their registration process the option to join the waiting list for the class. Joining the waiting list would require students to meet the same requirements as joining the class (so the waiting list for a class restricted to Government majors would also be restricted to Government majors, or the waiting list for a class restricted to Instructor Permission would also be restricted to Instructor Permission), and as soon as a space opened up in the class, the first student on the waiting list would be automatically bumped into the class.
Under our current system, luck plays too great a role in who gets into popular classes. The student who happens to be on at the right time gets the spot over the student who has been dedicated to grabbing an opening and going on ISIS every five minutes but just missed the only opportunity. The student who happens to know the right Echols scholar to save him or her a space in a class gets the class over the fourth-year major who needs the class to graduate.
While there can be many arguments about the fairness of our current registration order, it is undeniable that the current order is more fair than the simple randomness about which students currently get into classes when a slot opens up. By having the automated waiting list on ISIS, sign-ups to take newly opened spots in classes would follow the same registration order as regular sign-ups already do.This would be yet another way the waiting lists take away the random chance so heavily involved in the current system.
Our current class registration system at the University is fundamentally flawed. With our fewer number of classes, and often smaller class sizes as well keeping students out of the classes they need, luck is allowed to play too large a role in determining who winds up in what class. The University must expand its electronic waiting list program to the entire University and make sure this system is implemented in time for registration for spring 2006 classes. Only then will the University be able to begin making the course registration process significantly more fair.
Sam Leven's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at sleven@cavalierdaily.com.
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