“We’re looking to give everybody something that they want.” That is Lorie Mackenzie. She is the Associate Dean of Academic Administration and Registrar here at SLU. Lorie was addressing the apparent frustration voiced by students and faculty with regards to registration. At the issue’s core is the rollout of St. Lawrence’s new advising system, APR 2.0, created in consultation with Ellucian, a software company specializing in higher education services.
Implemented this spring, the system was purchased, according to Mackenzie, “To increase student satisfaction, that’s why we are here.” The decision to update the system arrived at the old system, E-Saint’s 14th year in function. Researching the story, I spoke with James Mattice, SLU’s Director of Infrastructure and Applications.
In an e-mail, Mattice said, “The decision to move to a new advising and registration system came as part of a larger initiative to migrate our legacy mainframe base administrative in 2008. The legacy system that included the original APR was unsustainable and needed to be replaced.” Moving towards something more sustainable in the long-term was a calculated decision to invest in SLU’s further future. Mackenzie also pointed out that the E-Saint software also developed to fit student and faculty needs over time, and was no walk in the park when it was first put in place.
Nonetheless, the main qualms about APR 2.0 rest with the student body, and their faculty advisors. The issues in question surround problems largely irrelevant to the long-term goals of SLU.
“Because there is no seniority, seniors are put in a very difficult position, and the benefits of the system aren’t going to come through until current sophomores are seniors.” Natalie Dignam ‘15 takes issue with the situation it puts her in as a senior at SLU. Under the new system, no priority is given to upperclassmen.
This, according to Lorie Mackenzie, “Levels the playing field” as freshmen and even sophomores in past years were unlikely to get into the classes of their choosing. Dignam acknowledges that these problems will cycle out, but it does not change the situation current upperclassmen are placed in for their final years at the university.
The decision to remove class-year from the equation arrived in October of 2013. Mattice provided me with a document logging communications between APR 2.0 committee and SLU faculty regarding the new system. Under October 2013, it reads “As a result of the information we gathered and continued conversations, the faculty group agreed we should move forward with our decision to plan for registration to change so that all students would register for one course at a time, with no class-year priority.”
For some, two class years experiencing sub-par class choice is not the end of the world, but it is at faculty involvement that things get complicated.
Dignam pointed out that some of the problems have stemmed from the fact that some faculty members are not adhering to the class-year stipulation to begin with. “I don’t think anyone was really prepared, because a lot of professors circumvented the new system, and just saved spots no matter what the system said.”
Faculty skirting around the new system sets APR 2.0 off on unsteady footing, however, complaints about the new system seem to imply that the software is difficult to use to begin with.
I asked Lorie Mackenzie about this. “We’re still in the process of implementing it, and just had a new update that IT installed.” She pointed to the Timeline Tab, a feature on the software created specifically for SLU that allows students to look at each individual class they have taken in each semester over the years at SLU.
The question remains, are the changes enough to keep up with students? At the end of our conversation, I asked Natalie Dignam about what she wanted to see adjusted. “I think that they should change the system so that professors have more controlThough these frustrations are warranted, it is also important to note that the system has improved class satisfaction overall.
According to the Registrar’s office, in the fall of 2013, the number of adds were 1,480 and drops 700. As of Fall 2014, under the new system, adds totaled to 1,200 while drops fell to 630. The new system, for Mackenzie, “didn’t put us in a worse place.”
Nonetheless, it is hard to ignore the conflict between the system and the faculty using it. The nature of the troubles experienced by students and faculty implies that they, in Dignam’s words, were “not really prepared.”
When I asked Mattice about faculty participation, he replied by writing, “Over forty members of the St. Lawrence community, including several faculty & students were invited to attend and provide feedback during sessions with the vendor that occurred on Dec. 3rd and Dec. 4th, 2012.
Following these meetings and after further consultation, the University decided that the Ellucian Colleague student system was our best option going forward.” Indeed, as noted in the section from the document provided, there was a “faculty group” present during the decision and implementation of APR 2.0.
The first communication with faculty, according to the document, was September 5th, 2013. It says that Lorie Mackenzie attended a Faculty Council meeting to talk through the system and the schedule.
The Council then agreed to put together a faculty that would work with the original committee on registration-related decision-making. It also lists a second meeting September 13th of the same year where “Lorie Mackenzie attended a Science Chairs meeting to talk through necessary changes to lab section course building and numbering. The group reached an agreement.”
The faculty group worked closely with the team assembled, as well as the consultant from Ellucian. This document would imply that through at least May 14th, a faculty group consented and aided in the construction of the new system, making frequent adjustments as needed, including “Requests for tools within the system.”
So where did communication drop between the faculty group and the rest of our school’s instructors? On October 14th of 2013, Lorie Mackenzie sent out a “Request to see if Faculty Council could put ‘a hold’ on the Feb. 18, 2014, full faculty meeting time so that the team could meet with the full faculty with updates and to begin training.” After receiving no response, the committee followed up with the following e-mail:
“I appreciate your willingness to bring my request to [Faculty] Council tomorrow. Just so you know where we are coming from: Of course I understand what you are saying below, but I do want to be sure you know that Feb. 18 is a day when our consultants will be onsite with some time to devote to help us with this training. Considering we will go live for registration this spring, it’s a very high priority that we find work-able time to train faculty in the system that they will need to use for advising, grading, etc., before they actually need to do it. We were thinking that using a designated faculty meeting time might allow for greater participation from faculty.”
There was no February 18th contact with faculty listed on the document Mattice provided me with. I tried to get the names of the “faculty group”, to obtain the e-mails they were replying to, as well as understand who was on the committee working with the Registrar, IT, etc. but James Mattice replied, fairly, “I didn’t arrange that meeting, so I’m not able to provide that information. However, in general I don’t think anyone would release names without permission of the participants. Sorry.”
The question remains in all this discussion, where and why did communication drop off between Faculty Council and the APR 2.0 committee?
If you are looking to inform yourself, be you faculty or student, Lorie told me that they will be having drop-in advising sessions for anyone who wants to come. Two have already been held this semester, and without a doubt more will be planned. Better yet, just stop by their office in Vilas.