USU/SA discussing easier registration
The USU Student Association Executive Council discussed improvements class registration, in addition to Common Hour and its meeting time, at their regular meeting Tuesday night.
Executive Vice President Emily Esplin said the organization in charge of Banner, the electronic system used to track grades, register for classes and make payments, is coming to campus to fix a bug causing the site’s crashes on registration night.
“This year they had problems with senior registration, and I think it’s pathetic they haven’t fixed it,” said Casey Saxton, Public Relations and Marketing director.
An idea was brought to Fiefia about changing registration times even further. Though the council made the time earlier, the system still crashed and many students had the same problems as in previous years. It was proposed to split each class group two times to lessen the amount of students on the server at the same time. Students currently register on separate designated days based on their class level to lessen the surge of people on Banner.
Trevor Olsen, USU/SA’s administrative assistant, said the main problem is often with big classes, like creative arts. He suggested splitting the lower classes in half because there tend to be more students in them.
Several other officers said changing times wouldn’t fix anything because the problem is about something different.
“Changing it too much is going to create more problems… seniors have problems as well,” said Sonina Hernandez, Organizations and Diversity VP. “I don’t think it’s how many people are registering. Something’s wrong.”
Esplin said as long as Banner gets fixed, changing registration times won’t need to happen.
“I think that if we can get the root problem solved, this would be an unnecessary change,” Esplin said.
In other business, Fiefia asked for feedback from the officers about Common Hour. Certain professors expressed disinterest in the time change because it affects the Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule.
A recent survey administered to students showed a majority support for Common Hour. However, Graduate Studies Sen. Brittney Garbrick said the council should gather more qualitative data versus relying on quantitative data.
The council also discussed changing their regular meeting time because an officer had a time conflict next semester. A time was not decided, but will be worked out at the latest at the next meeting on at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 7.
Twitter: @daniellekmanley