Earlier registration for athletes

A new group of students can now register for classes on the first day. Student athletes join undergraduate seniors, undergraduate honors students and graduate students in the registration process on November 13. Director of Athletics John Harper was the initiator of this new facet of registration. He said that having student athletes register at this new time will enable athletes to better schedule classes around practice times.

"The whole idea behind this project was to try to get student-athletes a chance to register for classes that were not in conflict with their intercollegiate games," said Harper. "We have a long-standing departmental policy that student-athletes cannot miss classes/labs for a practice."

Athletes are allowed to miss classes and labs for games only.

Varsity student athletes must meet certain requirements in order to join seniors and honors students in registration.

"Varsity student-athletes who will be eligible for this process are those who are: one, academically and athletically eligible; two, have no "holds" of any kind on their records; and three, for freshmen, must have seen their advisor in the mandatory advising process," Harper said.

There are also some restrictions among student athletes who meet the first three requirements.

"This will be available for any student-athlete on a varsity team who has intercollegiate contests during the week," Harper said. "This would eliminate the football, track and cross country student-athletes as they compete only on the weekends. However, it will only apply to the student-athletes whose teams will compete in the semester during which the classes will be held. As an example, pre-registration for spring classes will not be available to the soccer, field hockey, women's' tennis or volleyball teams since they play their regular season games in the fall."

There may be some concerns that non-athletes may be unable to register for classes that they need to take. Registrar Irene Checkovich believed that there should not be problems like this, if students follow proper registration processes.

"Based on our observation of the pre-registration process, most students are able to register for their upper-level course requirements if they take full advantage of the pre-registration period and register early on the designated day for their class," she said.

Checkovich outlined the process that students should follow in registering for classes.

(Students should) meet with their advisor well before the week of November 13 and obtain both an advisor signature on the registration form and the web access code on InfoBear," she said. "The web access code enables web registration, and the advisor signature can serve as a back-up if for some reason there is a problem with web registration for that student."

Beyond simply getting approval from an advisor, students should also check to make sure that their account does not have a hold on it.

"(Students should also) make sure they have no active "registration holds" on their account by checking their own "View Holds" screen on InfoBear, well before the week of November 13," Checkovich said. "If a registration hold is found, the appropriate office which placed the hold should be contacted by the student as soon as possible, and the hold resolved, before pre-registration begins."

BSC is still in the process of finalizing this registration change, but with this it will join colleges around the country in allowing student athletes to register on the first day possible.

"The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee has been trying to get early registration for their colleagues for many years," Harper said. "It has always been seen as a way to support their fellow student-athletes' academic efforts. Further, there are many colleges in the area and across the country that have offered this program to their student-athletes for years, and we are playing 'catch up.'"

According to both Harper and Checkovich, students are at this point not fully aware of this change. Students who are eligible will be informed of the potential of earlier registration, as advising begins over the next two weeks.

"They will be, once the policy has been finalized and put in place, which we are working on right now," Harper said. "We only received permission to move ahead with this last week, and we are working with the Registrar to make sure it is a smooth implementation."

"I am not sure if students as a whole are aware of this new practice," Checkovich said. "If not, they will become aware of it soon as they prepare for advising and the upcoming Spring 2007 pre-registration, which occurs the week of November 13."

Student athletes in general, regardless of their eligibility status for the early registration, were supportive of the initiative.

"(I am) relieved because I never get the classes that I want with the soccer schedule I have," sophomore varsity women's soccer player Erin Mislak said.

I think it's a great idea," sophomore football defensive back Brent Kasabian said. "Athletes have to schedule classes before our practices and sometimes we can't because the classes are already filled, and it forces us to take classes we don't want to at 8:00 and 8:50 with teachers we don't want to take because the 10:00-11:00 a.m. classes are taken already and stuff."

"Sometimes it's hard to get the classes to work around the soccer schedule and if we get to pick earlier, then we have a better chance of doing so," sophomore women's soccer player Ashley Spingler said.

However, senior Jamieson Wicks felt that registration on November 13 should be more restrictive.