What Went Into Preparing for Spring 2021
Like Fall 2020, the Office of the Registrar (RO) anticipated that Spring 2021 was going to look different. Many partners across campus – Academic Advising and Policy Leaders (AAPL), Academic Affairs Continuity Team (AACt), School/College Associate/Assistant Deans, Department Curricular and Enrollment Reps – worked with the RO to, yet again, help adjust for the semester and make associated changes, all while maintaining the usual high quality of work and normal business practices.
Several things changed for this Spring semester, and it started with the Faculty Senate voting to adjust the academic calendar. The RO worked to make several quick, necessary changes to the schedule, including several dates and deadlines. Once this decision was made, Academic Services and Student Services jumped to work to adjust the schedule build timeline, enrollment schedule timelines, and some correlated processes. It was crucial that these changes, as well as changes regarding rooms being used as GA rooms, revised modality changes, and improvements to CS&E regarding filtering, were made quickly and efficiently to allow others on campus to complete their work in finalizing the Schedule of Classes and begin enrollment.
Alongside all of the continuous change, the teams in the RO were also hard at work to maintain, and even enhance, the usual business practices. The RO prepared for the Spring term enrollment and continued collaborations from last semester to support virtual learning spaces and the use of the Remote instructional mode.
Despite the increased work to both maintain business processes and handle the changes, the RO still delivered high quality services. This was achieved through a few ways: amazing team members and campus support, increased communications, and the creation of resources. From holding virtual office hours for curricular reps, to working with DoIT AT to get Canvas course shells out to instructors prior to the release of the Schedule of Classes, to collaborating with the Office of Undergraduate Advising (OUA) to solicit feedback on the release of enrollment appointment times, RO staff continued to go above and beyond during this stressful time to reach out to campus partners and ensure they were included and their expertise was accounted for.
Furthermore, this work and collaboration yielded various, and increased, communications to aid campus audiences. The Academic Affairs Continuity team (AACt) and RO contributed to, created and sent many emails to students to help with enrollment adjustments, encouraging students to meet with advisors and utilize resources. The dissemination of this information was also a collaborative effort, relying on associate deans, curricular representatives, advisors, and other campus offices. In addition to email communications, there were many forums for advisors, curricular and enrollment reps, and associate/assistant deans to share information and gain feedback about changes and communications in anticipation of their involvement answering questions and circulating information more directly with students.
There were also several aids that were created to help students and others work through the changes and challenges of the semester. The Spring 2021 Enrollment webpage for one, included step-by-step information and FAQs to help with enrollment. Additionally, a course preview visualization and instructional KB were implemented to help students prepare for course enrollment when section level information was not available.
As the spring term begins, it is nice to reflect on and take pride in how much work was done to prepare for and continue to adapt to the changes, especially as we continue our work preparing for the Summer and Fall 2021 terms. We hope to take advantage of all that we have learned and adapt for the future to enhance our processes.