End of an Era
For generations of San Diego State students, crashing classes was as regular a part of a new semester as buying books and paying tuition. That’s no longer true.
With the start of the 2016 spring semester, the Wait List is coming to campus. It is a new computerized system designed to replace the practice of course crashing wherein students attend classes for which they are not registered with the hope of being allowed to add desired courses to their schedules.
SDSU Registrar Rayanne Williams ('82) will oversee implementation
of the new Wait List at the start of the spring semester.
Instead of beseeching professors to admit them to class, students will simply go online and submit their names to a list where their rank will be calculated based on completion of prerequisites for the course, their units earned, and whether they already are enrolled in a section for that class. The list is fluid and rankings may change throughout registration based on the number of students who sign up for the class and their individual qualifications.
AN EVEN PLAYING FIELD
SDSU Registrar Rayanne Williams (’82) has been working for almost four years to help facilitate the transition. She says the Wait List will eliminate the stress caused by class crashing for both students and faculty.
“Every class is being ranked basically the same way, so it's taking out the inconsistency of how faculty have decided who they were going to give add codes to,” she explained. “It makes for an even playing field across the campus."
Social Work Professor Tom Packard, (’70, ’75) DSW, likes the idea of relieving the faculty of the responsibility of ranking students. He says he is impressed by what he has heard about the equitability of the new system.
"It sounds like it will be more efficient for the students and faculty,” he says, “and it sounds like it's also going to be fair because the programming is going to do the right prioritizing” to determine who needs the class most.
Social Work Professor Tom Packard ('70, '75) says the Wait List
should reduce stress for students and faculty and create less of a
burden for SDSU staff.
Packard says years in which his department’s budget was lean increased the stress on students, faculty and staff. When sections of certain required courses had to be reduced, students became more desperate in competing for fewer open seats.
“I would have to tell students, ‘You have to go see our adviser to make sure you have all of your prerequisites,’” he explained. “I think this is going to take a big burden off of our advisers because they won't have to search individual records and see if people have all of their prerequisites.”
Packard says he is still concerned about students who have special circumstances, like child care issues, and may not be ranked high enough on the Wait List to get a course at a time that will work. But Registrar Williams says faculty may refer such cases to her office where a review process will take place.
“We would see what the situation is and we would take it from there," she said, “but we don't think there are going to be that many exceptions because the logic of it is the people on your wait list are ranked on who has the highest priority and that's it.”
A MESSY PROCESS
Associated Students Vice President of University Affairs Andrea Byrd says her organization is helping to make students aware of the coming changes through electronic communication and posters around campus. The senior advertising major from San Diego says the feedback she has received indicates there is some concern among students about how the Wait List will function, but that most students are looking forward to a workable alternative to crashing.
SDSU Associated Students Vice President of University Affairs
Andrea Byrd says class crashing has always been a problem for
students.
"Crashing classes has always been a problem even for me and my friends,” she said. “It was just a messy process.
“I think the Wait List will cover virtually all of the bases and hopefully this rollout will remedy most of the issues. There's no more having to beg professors and the less time students have to spend on crashing classes, the more they can focus their attention somewhere else.”
The task force that worked to implement the Wait List at SDSU researched how similar systems worked on other campuses, including other CSU institutions. Byrd says she is pleased with the cooperation from all of the campus stakeholders to find a solution to the decades-old crashing problem.
“Students wanted it and faculty and staff were willing to work with students to get it,” she said. “I hope everyone is happy with how it turns out because this is really a true testament of shared governance on this campus.”
To learn more about the new system, visit the Wait List website at www.sdsu.edu/waitlist. The website provides information about how the Wait List works, FAQs, and tutorials for faculty, staff, and students.