Registration for seniors begins on March 28, with underclassmen registration right after. Although registration is only a month away, many changes are to be expected, one of those being multi-term registration.
According to Registrar Kristine Dozier, one of the benefits of multi-term registration is that it gives students the possibility of more sections for waitlisted courses.
“I think a lot of students—once they register for classes—they might feel a little hopeless,” Dozier said. “We’re hoping that this [multi-term registration] will help relieve a little of that angst. Now we have eight months to prepare…. So this first year will give us an idea on where we can get better at our schedule planning in order for students not to be upset when they don’t get into the classes they want.”
Director of the Center for Advising and Student Achievement Lela Mixon said a benefit of multi-term registration is the ability to create a plan for a year.
“We’ve been slowly but surely trying to incorporate comprehensive academic planning,” Mixon said. “We have been working with Student Affairs, some academic units and others on campus to create a pilot of a Greyhound Plan.”
According to Mixon, a Greyhound Plan is a way for students to think big about what they want to accomplish throughout their college career.
Dozier said that the decision to schedule a full year was not solely based on one person’s perspective, but more on a collective perspective from a few years ago. According to Dozier, the Educational Advisory Board, a nonprofit organization that does data studies on institutions, kept returning to the idea of multi-term registration, so the administration started thinking more about it for the long term. She said the University of Indianapolis campus is the right size for this transition.
Junior nursing major Caitlyn Armbruster said scheduling a full year does not bother her.
“I like the opportunity to be proactive about your schedule and meeting with people for the whole year rather than just a semester,” she said. “You can look at more options, and you get to see if you have the ability to graduate early or the ability to fit other things in your schedule. And you might not have known that if you just [had] planned one semester.”
Sophomore community health major Anna Buttgen has reservations about multi-term registration.
“I don’t like it because I feel like too many things could happen between now and next spring,” she said. “I can see why administration thinks it’s a good idea, though.”
Multi-term registration will only be available for sophomores, juniors and seniors. Incoming freshmen will register for the first semester at their orientation day and then again in mid-October for the second semester, according to Dozier. She said this may be an inconvenience for freshmen, but since the learning curve is so steep coming to college, doing this will put less stress on them.
Multi-term registration will be a learning process for everyone, Dozier said and she wants to make sure students are comfortable with asking questions.
“I figured students might have a lot of questions about financial aid, billing and how does this change?” Dozier said. “It’s not really changing anything you do besides just scheduling for an entire academic year. They still have a deadline each semester for their bills, and financial aid will still be packaged one semester at a time.”
For more information or to ask questions, students can email Kristine Dozier at dozierk@uindy.edu or Lela Mixon at lmixon@uindy.edu.
