Disabled students, retention programs, graduating seniors, seniors classified graduates, juniors, sophomores, freshmen and unclassified seniors; does this list mean anything to you? Well it should, because it is the order in which registration dates are determined.

Students reaching the end of their time in college find that the minimal amount of upper division class sections being offered each semester is the biggest nuisance.

To the naked eye, it may seem that graduating seniors have a good ranking in the line-up because third doesn’t seem so bad, right? Wrong. Graduating seniors follow a long list of students who fall in the retention programs category.

For example, athletes, athletic trainers, resident advisers, the university debate team and band are all considered retention programs.

While this factor limits the availability of space in classes, it does not seem to be the biggest problem.

Morgan Haberman, a junior journalism major, said she had trouble adding some of the upper division classes she needed because she is so far down the priority list.

“I think it’s really horrible that they’re only offering one or two classes for your major,” Haberman said, who was unable to add an elective class to her schedule this semester that she will need for graduation.

Journalism professor Scott Mackey said these classes should be limited to upper-division students and because they are not, he does not rely on priority registration or the new university waitlist to determine who gets in.

“I try to accommodate graduating seniors if my class has an opening,” said Mackey.

Nick Burnett, the Communication Studies Department chair, said the waitlist does not guarantee students into a class, but is designed to add students in as other students are dropped during open enrollment.

“We don’t think the waitlist should decide who should get in a class,” said Burnett.

The class schedule is determined by the chair and is based on the budget the particular department is being offered, the availability of professors and the demand for the class in past semesters.

Burnett said there is a lot of thought and planning that goes into determining the class schedule.

He has already begun planning the schedule for the 2008-2009 school year. He said he gets frustrated when students come to him complaining the class schedule conflicts with unreasonable work schedules. He said he has even received requests from individual students to add a class because he or she only has availability at 6 p.m. on Thursday evenings.

“It’s not my responsibility to accommodate people’s crazy schedules,” Burnett said. “That’s just bonkers.”

Although, he said, when graduating seniors come to him explaining their situations, there are ways to work with them to find other options to fulfilling the major requirements.

This semester, the communications department replaced a class with low enrollment with one that was in high demand around the beginning of September, which is very late to be adding to the class schedule.

Burnett said this method of scheduling classes is not preferred because it means the class will not be completely full, but he had students who needed it and was able to find a professor with availability.

“It was the first time in four semesters, since I started, that we were able to do it,” Burnett said.

Tygenae Harris can be reached at [email protected]