Let the battles begin
For LSU students in compact dorm rooms, cluttered apartments and library computer labs, Oct. 26 will mark the beginning of battles for small pieces of territory.
The skirmishes will not be part of Civil War re-enactments, role-playing video games or even debates over political ideals. They will be fights for desk spaces in classrooms all over the LSU campus.
It is class-scheduling time.
At 4:59 p.m. on Oct. 26, thousands of students will anxiously stare at computer screens. When the clock strikes 5 p.m., the simulated battles will begin with a blitz of points and clicks of the mouse on the “Schedule Request” option in students’ PAWS accounts.
The students who schedule on this day – the first day for the top priority scheduling group — likely will win their battles and build the schedules they have planned. Students who fall lower on the priority registration totem pole won’t even be able to start their fights for desk space until Nov. 14.
Some will wait with hope, while others will wallow in the gloom of future defeat.
Systematic hierarchy
LSU uses a staggered system of computerized class registration to accommodate the battle among its 31,234 students enrolled for the fall 2003 semester. Campus administration uses a student hierarchy so certain groups can register for their classes before others.
Many members of the campus community misconstrue the term “priority registration,” confusing it with a single group of elite schedulers rather than the what it is – an entire system.
The University Registrar Office’s course scheduling priority list divides student enrollment into 17 groups.
Each group’s name begins with PH1, for Phase 1. The groups are hierarchically labeled with a letter, starting with A and running through R, with PH1A registering first and PH1R going last.
Robert Doolos, University Registrar, said every group except for PH1A has an approximately equal number of students – about 1,500. Students are placed into groups PH1B through PH1R according to the number of hours they will have completed after the fall semester.
PH1B contains undergraduate students with 122 hours or more, and PH1R is for transfer and re-entry undergraduates and students with fewer than 15 hours.
PH1A is the largest scheduling group with more than 8,000 students. It includes graduate students and some campus groups with elite scheduling privileges.
The University Registrar’s Office determines students’ cumulative completed hours differently during fall scheduling for spring classes, as compared to spring scheduling for summer or fall terms.
“In fall, there is a number of students who don’t have a lot of hours because they are freshmen,” Doolos said.
Since most freshmen do not have any completed credits during the fall semester, the Registrar’s Office includes the number of hours students are enrolled in at the time they schedule for the spring. For summer and fall classes, the Registrar’s Office uses a student’s actual number of completed hours.
Without a staggered enrollment system, Doolos said, registering for classes would be a difficult and aggravating process.
The previous registration system divided campus enrollment into six groups, which meant significantly more people attempted to register at the same time.
“It was very frustrating,” Doolos said about the larger groups.
Students registered via telephone through a system called “Reggie,” a process Doolos said was slower and more tedious than the current system which uses PAWS – an Internet-based method.
Student Government passed a resolution in fall 1999 requesting a change in the registration process. The resolution stated the system did not recognize groups with fewer than 60 cumulative hours.
SG wanted a more efficient registration system for underclassmen.
“We wanted to do something even better for all students,” Doolos said.
Campus administration responded by restructuring the five lower priority groups and dividing them into the smaller, more manageable categories currently in use.
Still, Doolos would like to see one more major change.
“I wish we could put, in the very first group, graduate students and graduating seniors,” he said. “Then in the second [I would put] athletes, Honors and disabled students.”
But the first and most controversial scheduling group has gone unchanged.
Not so lonely at the top
PH1A stands on the front line of the registration battle.
Fall 2003 numbers were not available at press time, but PH1A for the Spring 2003 semester contained 8,676 students.
Of the 8,676 PH1A students, 4,482 were graduate students. That left 4,194 undergraduate students, more than twice the number of students in each of the 16 other scheduling groups.
This group receives first choice among all classes offered at LSU. PH1A consists of graduate students, Honors College students, student-athletes, athletic managers and trainers, students with disabilities, graduating seniors and students labeled with “special cases” by their college advisers.
Scheduling for this initial group comes at a price to students who must wait, but it is a price many campus officials think is necessary.
Roger Grooters, executive director of the Academic Center for Athletes, said LSU Athletics brings the University $30 to $40 million every year.
Because of the amount of money LSU athletics earns, priority status might seem like a payoff to some non-athletes.
But Grooters said priority registration is a way for the University to meet student-athletes’ needs and a way to compensate for the “enormous” pressures they face.
“The University needs to provide them with all opportunities to be successful,” he said.
Doolos said athletes get first priority in scheduling because of their rigorous practice schedules.
“One reason I’ve always heard is that they are officially representing the University, therefore they have to make practice,” he said.
Many teams start practice at 1:30 p.m., so athletes must schedule morning classes to be available for mandatory practices.
Ty Barrett, a secondary education senior, fits into two categories that place him in the top tier of schedulers. He is a wide receiver for the LSU football team and a member of the Honors College.
Barrett said having priority registration is not a payoff for student-athletes, but is simply the only way for athletes to complete their degrees in a timely manner.
“I don’t think us getting priority registration has anything to do with representing the University,” he said. “I guess if we registered with everyone, we would be here forever.”
As a high school senior, Barrett attended LSU Spring Testing – an orientation event for high school seniors who scored a 26 composite on the ACT and who had a minimum composite GPA of 3.00.
Spring Testing students take placement exams and register for classes in PH1A.
Barrett said priority registration was not his main goal when he attended Spring Testing.
“I wasn’t concentrating on priority registration,” he said. “I don’t think I even knew what it was.”
Grooters said the benefits of priority scheduling for athletes are twofold.
Priority scheduling helps athletes meet certain academic requirements sanctioned by the NCAA, along with compensating for University pressure to perform.
“There are a lot of NCAA rules and regulations that non-student-athletes don’t have to adhere to,” Grooters said.
One NCAA rule requires athletes to have completed at least 40 percent of the classes for their majors by the end of their fourth semester, which leaves little time for them to change their minds about their majors.
Grooters said athletes don’t enjoy the same academic freedom other students do.
“They have to choose [a major], and they have to get into classes,” Grooters said.
The NCAA also does not allow athletes to take fewer than 12 hours during a semester.
Because athletes are faced with these regulations, Grooters thinks the University’s duty is to meet as many of the athletes’ academic needs as possible, which includes getting them into required classes as soon as possible.
“The University decides to bring in athletes,” he said. “If they’re going to bring them in and run a $30 to $40 million-a-year business, then they need to give student-athletes a chance to graduate.”
Scholarly schedulers
Other PH1A schedulers in the registration battle are Honors College students.
James Hoover, a biological engineering freshman, is one of the Honors College students who joined simply because of its academic benefits. He said priority scheduling was not a goal for him.
“I joined because I like smaller classes,” he said. “In regular classes, I’d be bored out of my mind.”
Hoover said he took honors and Advanced Placement courses when he was in high school because they were more challenging than typical high school classes. He said honors courses at LSU present the same academic challenge.
“If I didn’t have priority scheduling, I probably wouldn’t get the classes,” he said. “But it’s mostly honors students in those classes anyway.”
Though priority scheduling was not his main reason to join the Honors College, Hoover said he still would not want to give up his PH1A status.
Michael Blandino, an Honors College adviser, agreed with Hoover’s and other students’ reasons for joining the Honors College.
“There has not been a problem with students joining the Honors College with the sole purpose of obtaining first scheduling priority,” he said.
Blandino said Honors College policies prevent students from abusing PH1A scheduling. LSU students are not allowed to join the Honors College in mid-semester, and students who already have been admitted must remain in “good standing,” or have a cumulative 3.0 GPA.
Location is key
The strategic battle plan for students with physical disabilities starts weeks before scheduling begins.
Students with mobility impairments must be sure that classes they take are in accessible locations.
Doolos, University Registrar, said special class arrangements are made for students with particular medical conditions.
“For certain medical regimens, students have to be at a treatment center at certain times,” he said. “Some students with mobility impairment can’t have classes back to back.”
Students with disabilities must first be classified as disabled with the Office of Disability Services. Once that process is completed, those students receive PH1A scheduling for classes.
Amanda Turner is a psychology junior who has cerebral palsy, a condition that causes loss of muscle control. Turner travels to most places on campus using a motorized wheelchair.
Turner said students with disabilities schedule with group PH1A because the campus is not handicap accessible.
“This [priority registration] is a way for LSU to prolong getting things accessible,” she said. “They bypass it [accessibility] by saying, ‘We can shuffle classes around.'”
Students with disabilities choose the classes they want to take, then physically check out each building or classroom to be sure it is handicap accessible, Turner said. If the student can not access the building, the class itself is moved.
“I like it [being in PH1A] because I get all the classes I want,” Turner said. “But I’d give up priority registration if I could get everywhere on this campus.”
Turner said LSU does not have the needed funds to make the entire campus handicap accessible and that giving students with disabilities priority registration simply prolongs the process.
“When the money gets here the system needs to be re-evaluated,” she said.
Happy medium
In the inner circle of registration battling are students whose accumulated hours place them near the center of the scheduling groups.
Michelle Jackson, a studio art sophomore, said she is one of those students who is “in the middle.” Jackson feels skeptical about the reasoning behind PH1A scheduling for athletes and Honors College students.
“My friend has priority scheduling because he has a disability. I think [students who are disabled] are a priority,” she said. “But athletes and Honors College – no.”
Jackson said priority scheduling should strictly follow students’ number of completed hours.
Extra-curricular and even family obligations would have no bearing on the scheduling system if Jackson had her way.
Jackson is married and has a 10-month-old son. She said she has to plan her schedule around her son’s needs and activities.
“If you’re in college, you’re working or something,” she said. “I shouldn’t have priority [because of my son]. That’s just not fair.”
Taking advantage of the system
When they feel like they can’t win the battle because of the registration system’s constraints, some students use covert actions to get what they want.
Many underclassmen feel they need upper-level classes early in their collegiate careers, but they do not have sufficient hours to register in enough time to get those classes.
Few sections are offered for upper-level classes, so they fill up quickly – often before freshmen and sophomores begin to schedule.
Underclassmen who can’t register for particular classes themselves often get upperclassmen to register for a class and “hold” it. When it is time for the underclassmen to register, the upperclassmen will drop the class so the underclassmen can immediately pick it up.
Holding classes for other students is against University policy.
Kevin Price, Dean of Students, is responsible for reprimanding students who break University regulations. If a student is caught holding a class, that student can face consequences set by Price.
“If there were sufficient evidence, a student could be sanctioned for circumventing the priority registration system,” he said.
Price said there have been no recent reports of students holding classes, but it has occurred in the past.
Price said he could not release student names to the public.
Megan and Amy, whose last names have been omitted to avoid sanctions by the Dean of Students, admitted to taking part in class holding.
Amy, a kinesiology senior, said she held a class for Megan because Megan had no other options to get in that particular class.
“I felt like I was helping her out,” Amy said.
Megan, a general studies senior, said she needed to get into the 3000-level psychology class Amy held for her. Psychology was her minor, and she did not have enough cumulative hours to get into the upper-level class.
Megan said even when she has talked to advisers about getting in the classes she needs, she was not been able to schedule those classes.
But Mitzi Trahan, an adviser in the University College Center for Advising and Counseling, disagrees.
“We definitely work with them as much as possible as far as contacting professors [to get them in certain classes],” she said. “Most of the time somebody can get classes during that last drop/add week.”
Trahan said that though many freshmen might not get exactly the schedule they want, few have a schedule with none of the classes they want.
Campus administration has taken action to hinder students from holding classes.
Selective colleges like the Manship School of Mass Communication and the Ourso College of Business hold entire sections of certain classes and require students to get permission from an adviser to be placed in the class.
Doolos and other campus officials lowered the initial number of hours undergraduate students can register for in a single semester.
“It used to be 19, now it’s 17,” Doolos said.
The maximum number of hours is 17 only at the beginning of the registration process. After everyone has scheduled, Doolos said, the number rises to 19.
“It gives them all a chance to build a good schedule,” he said.
Doolos also said a reason for lowering the number of hours undergraduate students can register for is that the average number of hours completed each semester is considerably lower.
“At the fourteenth class day, the average number of hours undergraduates carried was 13.89,” he said. “At the end of the semester, the average number of hours undergraduates carried was 12.41.”
LSU not alone
LSU is not isolated in its registration battle.
Though some students are dissatisfied with the process of registration LSU uses, it seems other American universities’ scheduling follows suit.
Yale University, which U.S. News & World Report ranked No. 3 on its list of America’s best universities, uses a priority registration system similar to LSU’s.
At Yale, seniors register first because they have the most accumulated credit hours. Certain colleges at Yale also place students on priority lists.
Aaron Tang, a Yale political science junior, is satisfied with the system’s structure and said it is necessary.
“People who are freshman will be seniors one day,” he said. “Freshmen know they don’t have to worry [about getting classes they need].”
End in sight?
With all the questions and opposition, the battle for registration calls for peace.
Doolos, University Registrar, said he has done his best to eliminate any “good ol’ boy” ideas that might exist in priority registration.
“I think we’ve done our best to minimize abuse to the system,” he said. “We’ve tried to minimize exposure of the priority system from individual decisions to eliminate the ‘who you know’ situation.”
Grooters, director for the Academic Center for Athletes, recognized some students at LSU do not care about athletics and attend the University to focus on their studies. But he stands by athlete’s registration status.
“If they did that [priority scheduling] to the detriment of other students, then it needs to be revisited,” he said.
Though students such as Michelle Jackson and campus officials like Doolos would like to see more changes in the system, it is a difficult process.
Doolos said he would like to divide PH1A one more time, but he is not the one who gets to make the call.
“At the Registrar’s Office, we implement policy,” he said. “Policy is made by faculty and Academic Affairs.”
With or without changes to the system, the registration battle will rage on beginning Oct. 26.