RATIONALE:
The attached Proposal seeks to clarify the order to be employed by the Registrar in scheduling priority registration for honors students.
Although Faculty Senate had approved priority registration for University Honors College (UHC) students by the mid-1990's, searches of on-line and Ganser Archive Faculty Senate Minutes have yielded no specific procedural guidelines for implementing UHC registration (searches have been conducted by past UHC Committee Chair, Dr. Marjorie Warmkessel, and current Office Manager, Ms. Barbara Erdman).
With the recent implementation of priority registration for eligible student athletes, it seems appropriate for UHC registration to be coordinated with Senate-specified guidelines for athletes and with registration for Learning Services' students with special needs, another important group that is mandated for priority registration. Recently UHC students have followed students with special needs and registered with seniors. In registration for Spring 2006, honors students were scheduled after eligible senior athletes and concurrently with the first day of general seniors. Thus senior UHC students were not scheduled "early," and all UHC students followed senior athletes, resulting in a mixed and unequal "priority."
As in the past, honors students need priority registration to balance their schedules among major, general education, and UHC requirements and prerequisites. The Honors College requires 30 credits of honors course work, most of which falls in general education categories. Priority registration is necessary for retention and recruitment of Honors College students and is practiced by all PASHHE honors programs & colleges.
PROPOSAL:
To clarify Priority Registration for University Honors College students, Faculty Senate approves that Honors College students be scheduled to begin registration after Learning Services' students with special needs and before seniors or other regular-registration students.
Thus Honors College students will begin to register no later than senior athletes eligible for priority registration but not earlier than students with special needs identified by Learning Services.