Students stumble over graduation requirements; Registrar responds

Graduation resides in the back of students’ minds as the culmination of years of hard work here at the university. But while students envision that day, many fail to adequately monitor their own academic progress towards that end. This leads to surprises and a desire to return that graduation gift. At the open student Senate meeting of Sept. 24, Senator At-Large Matthew Hall informed Student Government that students had voiced to him their concerns over not being informed about graduation requirements outside their specific major’s course requirements. Hall cited a “lack of promulgation” of these requirements but declined to elaborate because of the time.Weekly open Senate meetings take place on Wednesdays and usually run from noon until 1 p.m. At the beginning of this meeting, however, the Senate approved a strict 12:35 p.m. end time for the opening meeting so they could convene in a closed session. Sen. Hall brought up the subject of the graduation requirements roughly around 12:30 p.m. The Senate gave no indication that the closed session was related to the requirements issue. Just before the close of the meeting, Hall stated that a representative from the Registrar’s Office would be attending the following open meeting. He also suggested that Student Government consider helping promote non-course graduation requirements and even request a list every semester of candidates for graduation. Individual senators would then contact students in their respective colleges and remind them of those requirements. When asked to comment further for The Bridge, Sen. Hall declined. A scheduling conflict prevented a representative of the Office of the Registrar’s from attending the next open meeting on Oct. 1. Rene Prado, Associate Registrar and the assigned delegate to the meeting, elaborated on the matter. “There was an issue with students not knowing about those non-course requirements, requirements that are not part of the degree plan,” said Prado. “They’re not necessarily going to show up as part of a student’s coursework. I think, based on my conversation with Mr. Hall, that there’s confusion amongst the student body.”Non-course requirements are courses needed to complete a degree that are neither part of a particular major’s degree plan nor the university core curriculum. They include computer literacy (BCIS) and a foreign language. More specifically, the 2008-2009 University Catalog enumerates non-course requirements on pages 71-72. “When students come into our office,” Prado continued, “they’re being told, okay, these are the course requirements that you’re missing, and these are the non-course requirements that you’re missing. When you get a printout from UOnline, now you’re able to see whether you’ve met those requirements or not.”University Registrar Oscar Reyna added that his office takes proactive measures to ensure student cognizance of these requirements. “The minute we realized there was some confusion, the Office of Admissions began placing registration holds. What this does is when students register for the upcoming semester, they’ll see those holds as a reminder of the requirements they may be lacking,” said Reyna. “Once they’ve met those requirements, we remove the hold. We’re also working with the Office of Information Technology to seek out students who may not have a hold but still haven’t met those requirements. Once we find them, we put a hold on their record.”He cited the e-mails sent to students and posters placed around campus reminding students of registration deadlines as other examples of the Registrar’s Office attempts to inform the student body.Reyna also pointed out that non-course requirements should, in general, come as no surprise. “Again, this is nothing new. These requirements have been in place for many years now. These requirements are published in the (university) catalog. We don’t keep anything a secret. Our division is the Division of Student Success. We want for our students to succeed,” said Reyna.Both Reyna and Prado agree that academic advisors sometimes don’t know of these requirements themselves and, consequently, those advisors sign off on the student’s next semester of classes without bringing up these non-course requirements. Reyna believes, though, that a new addition to the campus may mitigate the problem in the future.”We’ll be moving into the new Student Success Building. The most-visited offices will be housed in that building. Once we move there, we’re looking at a one-stop advising center, where all students will go to be advised. [It] will house advisors from every discipline,” said Reyna.As for further discussion of the matter, Prado says he hopes to attend a Student Government meeting in the near future while Reyna welcomes any feedback from Student Government as well as any individual student.