Included within the Athletic Council’s annual report and address to the Faculty Senate this Thursday will be the proposal for priority registration for student athletes.
The Academic Committee, one of six Athletic Council subcommittees, reports within the compiled statement from the general council that they are currently discussing a proposal made by Assistant Athletic Director of Academic Enhancement Michael Jenkins to give student athletes priority when registering for classes.
According to their report Jenkins made the proposal due to the increasingly difficult issue of course scheduling for athletes.
“Due to the shifting of classes to a later meeting pattern, the unavailability of practice space, and the lack of lighted practice space, the scheduling of classes for student athletes has become more problematic,” explains the academic committee’s report. “Basically, the window for student athletes to practice is narrowing.”
Jenkins has been working since 1993 to enforce the policy of athletes enrolling in no less than a total of 15 credits per semester. However, he reports that during the past two years it has been virtually impossible to enforce this policy.
Recently, an associate of the Academic Enhancement office did a search for comparable policies of priority registration for student athletes. According to the report, within 24 hours of the beginning of the search information was attained that suggested that comparable schools had accepted the practice.
“94 responses were received showing that 84% of the respondents had some form of early course registration for athletes,” the report states. “Of the remainder, five schools were working on an early registration system for their athletes.”
Extensions of the proposal include discussing the possibility of including students in the University of Massachusetts band in the group of those who could benefit from a priority registration system. Thus far the committee has not been able to discuss the level of interest within the student band with their accompanying staff due to band leaderships’ lack of response on the matter when requested via email.
Currently students with disabilities protected under the American Disability Act of 1971 are the only group at the University with priority registration, a right protected by the Supreme Court. Disabled students with priority registration include those who are enrolled at the University as a physically, mentally, or emotionally disabled person. This designation requires clinical documentation as proof of necessity.
If implemented, priority registration would apply to the 701 intercollegiate student athletes at the University regardless of their academic status or grade level.
As is true for all students, mandatory clearance of all holds such as financial aid issues, University Health Services, advising, etc., would be required in order to register during the designated priority time frame which would be no more than one afternoon (noon to 5 p.m.) prior to the opening of regular registration.
According to the proposal, student athletes, not their coaches, would be responsible for entering their course requests for the upcoming term, as well as correcting errors made by them during the registration period (such as failure to register for a discussion or lab section that corresponds to one of their chosen courses).
During priority registration, override of capacity procedure as well as all course policies regarding majors, including pre-requisites, or admittance to offline courses would effectively stand. Student athletes would be allotted a limited number of seats in each section during registration, thus preventing certain courses from becoming solely populated by those with priority registration.
During the Add/Drop period of registration, student athletes would not receive priority enrollment, unless “specific problems were identified and validated from previous data.” Those with priority registration would not be granted access to their schedules any sooner than the rest of the general student body, who receive schedules at the beginning of the Add/Drop period.
The Academic Committee stressed that further discussion of the proposal with the Registrar’s Office is one of the plans for upcoming meetings. The Committee is interested in determining whether any other groups have contacted the Registrar requesting priority registration.
The Faculty Senate will discuss this as well as a report of the effects of last year’s reduction in the number of intercollegiate athletic teams upon both students and the athletic department at its biweekly meeting in 227 Herter Hall on Thursday at 3:30 p.m.
