Student Government Column - November 2022

By Ashlyn Espinosa

Dear Students,

This fall, the Faculty Senate at UAF debated and passed a motion concerning the add/drop date for classes.

Currently, students may adjust their schedule at will during the first two weeks of the semester by adding and dropping classes. 

The senate motion would change this so that during the second week of the semester, students could drop classes as usual, but would not be able to add classes unless they first emailed the professor of the course and received permission to enroll in the class. The faculty member would then have to manually toggle the permission on UAOnline to allow the student to enroll in the class. 

The primary concern for this motion is that students may struggle to reach a prospective professor during one of the busiest weeks of the semester – this creates another hurdle for students registering for classes. Of course, in an ideal world, students would sign up for classes well before the start of the semester. However, the ability to adjust schedules after experiencing them firsthand is preferable. 

Another issue at the forefront of this motion concerns financial aid. Much of the financial aid students receive requires a full-time academic standing of 12 or more credits. Currently, if a student receiving aid registers for 12 credits then proceeds to drop one or more credits, they are required to add another class to meet full-time enrollment. This change would present a significant challenge if the student could not receive a response from a faculty member in time to add the supplementary credit(s). 

This motion was presented and passed with very little opportunity to address these issues and is a cause of great concern for the student government. As the president of the student body, I have been talking to students and the overwhelming majority of them strongly disagree with this motion. Students do not support the motion to alter the class addition process and we intend to challenge it, starting with bringing it back to the Faculty Senate for further discussion.