The first few days of classes often begin with a rush of confusion for many University students. Some students show up to classes and are horrified when they realize their name is not on their professor’s class roster.
The missing names often are a result of one of the University’s class purges conducted by the Registrar’s Office and Bursar Operations at the beginning of every semester.
During the semester break, Student Government worked with the Registrar’s Office to help eliminate some of this confusion.
The purpose of the class purges is to open seats in certain sections to students who pay their fee bills, said Robert Doolos, University registrar.
In the past, many students did not realize they had been purged until they arrived in class on the first day of the semester.
Darrell Broussard, SG president, asked Doolos to begin sending purged students an e-mail notifying them and telling them what they can do about it.
The Registrar’s Office accepted the idea and sent the first group of e-mails after the spring semester’s first purge Jan. 4.
“We’re really glad we can do it,” said Doolos. “We always knew there were students out there that didn’t know their classes had gone away.”
The e-mail is part of Broussard’s attempt to fulfill his campaign promises.
“One of the things we ran on was to help clean up the purge process,” Broussard said. “This semester we were able to give this idea to the Registrar’s Office.”
Broussard recognized the pains of the old purge process.
“They used to just purge you and leave you alone, and you had to find out yourself,” Broussard said. “Then you had to go back and do everything yourself, reschedule and repay. It was a big mess.”
Broussard said the e-mail will tell the students their classes have been purged and give them guidance about what to do next.
“It’s kind of a reminder e-mail also showing you where you need to go, what exactly you need to do and who you need to talk to,” Broussard said.
This e-mail notification is meant to take the surprise out of the purge process. Broussard hopes this will eliminate a great deal of student confusion on the first day of class every semester.
There always is more than one purge day at the beginning of each semester. Doolos said the Registrar’s Office will send a similar e-mail after each one.
The Registrar’s Office received only 25 responses to the notifications they sent.
Doolos believes one reason for the lack of responses might be students forgetting to check their PAWS e-mail accounts.
He said many students may forget the University does not keep up with their personal e-mail accounts, but Doolos also reminded students they easily can forward their PAWS e-mail to their personal accounts.
Doolos assures students the University will continue to send out this e-mail notification in future semesters, despite the lack of responses from students so far this semester.
“The better informed we keep the students, the better we all are,” Doolos said.