Class Schedules Move Online
By Broadside Staff Writer Ryan Dempsey
Last week, the Office of the Registrar made the public announcement to the student body that the Schedule of Classes will no longer be printed in hard copy and will only be available through PatriotWeb. The proposal for the plan was created by then Senior Associate Registrar Joyce Staulcup last May and outlined five major advantages to an online-only system:
1. More Time in the Production Cycle: By having an online system, the Registrar’s Office would have approximately three additional weeks to make final revisions to include specific staff members for listed classes.
2. Static versus Dynamic Schedule: When the Schedule of Classes was printed, there were still changes that were needed such as adding or removing classes making the publication out-of-date.
3. Budget Savings: The Registrar’s Office will save approximately $18,000 dollars each year to pay for printing the 50,000 copies of the Schedule of Classes.
4. Going Green: With President Alan Merten’s initiative to help Mason “go green,” eliminating the printed Schedule of Classes will help in this endeavor.
5. Consistency with Other Virginia State Schools: Other Virginia schools have already moved to the online-only schedules, including Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, James Madison University and Old Dominion University.
Despite the positive steps made by university officials, students seem to disagree with the sudden change.
“I liked having a hard copy of classes so I could flip through pages and explore different interests outside of my major that I wouldn’t have found otherwise,” said sophomore government and international policy major Joel Zedd. “It’s more intuitive to find things when they’re all grouped together on paper and I think this is a really bad move by the Registrar.”
Senior information technology major Kevin Shannon also disagreed with the Registrar’s decision to make the change. “I don’t like the idea of eliminating paper. I have had problems logging on to the system and registering for classes in past semesters, and with students now bogging down the system to look at class schedules, I can only imagine it being worse.”
Junior nursing major Mandy Arora was not completely against the idea of having the Schedule of Classes online, but liked the option of a paper copy if needed. “I liked having the Schedule of Classes to highlight my preferences before registering for classes. With hundreds of students registering at the same time, I don’t always get my first or second preference [of classes] and need to have something to quickly refer to schedule the classes I need.”
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