During Orientation Week, changes to the class of 2028’s open-registration process culminated in a line outside the Registrar’s Office that spanned multiple floors of Chalmers Library. Members of Kenyon’s administration met on Monday to discuss changes to the process for the spring semester.

Complications arose due to the College’s plan to transition to credit hours starting with the class of 2028. During the 24-hour open-registration period that follows schedule releases, students in the class of 2027 and above can use MyBanner to change their courses because they are still earning credit units. However, MyBanner doesn’t currently account for the credit hours that first-years are earning; if first-years used MyBanner for open registration, the system would register 0.5 credit units as 0.5 credit hours, instead of 4 credit hours. This would allow some students to over-enroll, taking seats away from other students who hadn’t yet met their intended number of classes.

As in previous years, first-year students registered for their classes online using Plan Ahead. However, because MyBanner doesn’t recognize credit hours, the Registrar’s Office decided in June that the open-registration period for first-years would be analog, Registrar Ellen Harbourt explained in an interview with the Collegian. Consequently, students had to bring paper add/drop forms to the registrar.

Harbourt processed first-year Plan Ahead submissions on Aug. 27 from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The Registrar’s Office was then open from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. to help first-years during the open-registration period. According to Harbourt, this year’s initial Plan Ahead process was extremely successful. “We had better, fuller schedules than I have seen in quite a few years,” she said.

However, the analog attempt to circumvent open registration delays backfired when first-years flooded the library, overwhelming the Registrar’s Office and forming a line that snaked through the second floor of the library and down the stairs to the first floor. “We just didn’t anticipate that they would all — and it’s probably naive on my behalf, to think that… — feel the need to have their schedules done on Tuesday evening,” Harbourt said.

The Registrar’s Office couldn’t help all of the first-years in line before it closed at 4:30 p.m. Around 4:15 p.m., Director of the First-Year Experience Don Miller sent everyone home besides the five students at the front of the line. That evening, Miller forwarded the first-years emails from faculty members who still had seats available in their classes.

“My experience was very stressful,” Toms Russ ’28 wrote in a message to the Collegian. “I was in line starting around 3:30 p.m., and stayed there until Don Miller came by and cut the line off.”

“I just felt so helpless. I wanted to be able to help all of the first-years in any way I could but they were frustrated — and rightfully so,” Orientation Leader (OL) Alex Grenn ’27 wrote. “Having so many first-years leave that day with only a class or two on their schedule, or with a schedule full of classes they didn’t want, was really disheartening.”

According to Harbourt, problem solving was difficult in the moment. “Even if we wanted to change gears during [Tuesday’s open registration], it would have been impossible to do,” Harbourt said. “I mean, without a megaphone, but I don’t know if they would have liked the megaphone in the library.”

According to Assistant Registrar Phaedra Woodard, the Registrar’s Office attempted to minimize wait times with staff available to help students in the Carver Reading Room as early as 3:00 p.m.. Woodard and a team of staff were helping first-years in the Carver Reading Room until 5:00 p.m., thirty minutes after the Registrar’s Office had officially closed. However, some students, including Russ, were under the impression that the room was not staffed until 4:15 p.m., after the line had been cut.

The Registrar’s office opened the next day at 8:30 a.m. for students who still needed to make changes to their schedule, with snacks and drinks available in the Writing Center. However, an orientation event started just an hour after the Registrar’s Office opened, forcing some first-years to choose between their fall schedule and their orientation experience.

A variety of factors contributed to the complications with open registration. According to Grenn, the long wait, combined with the paper process, prevented first-years from easily keeping tabs on what classes still had seats available. Though course availability updates refreshed online every 15 minutes, students’ paper add/drop forms were static, meaning they had to leave the line to make changes when they discovered the class they intended to add had filled up while they were waiting. Additionally, according to Russ, many first-years were informed that they needed their ALT-Pin or advisor’s signature 20 minutes after the line began, forcing many first-years to abandon their spot in the queue.

According to Harbourt’s comments at the Sept. 15 Student Council meeting, understaffing of the Registrar’s Office exacerbated the situation. Additionally, Harbourt theorized in an interview with the Collegian that the line’s length was also influenced by the number of first-years who thought they weren’t enrolled in classes that they actually were. “It felt like a lot of students were not aware of their full schedule,” Harbourt said. “I don’t know if it was [because] they were looking at the schedule by day and time, rather than their detailed schedule, or if they looked early, I don’t know.”

Just days after Orientation Week ended, administrators scheduled a meeting for this Monday to explore improvements to the first-year registration process. According to Harbourt, plans to streamline the first-year registration process for this spring are almost entirely solidified.

The Registrar will run rounds one to three on Plan Ahead before releasing schedules on that week’s Thursday, which could get a student to 14 credit hours — the equivalent of 1.75 credit units. After viewing their schedules, and which classes have available seats, students can add to rounds four and five. On this timeline, first-year students will be able to see their completed schedule that Monday, when the add/drop period begins.

“When [first-years] do rounds four and five, they will be able to access the courses with seats remaining, so they should not be wasting rounds by putting in classes that are already filled,” Dean for Academic Advising and Support Thomas Hawks said in an interview with the Collegian. “We hope that gives them the greatest chance to add additional courses.”

The perceived lack of effective communication with the first-year class was also addressed at the Monday meeting, as many first-years felt unprepared for the registration process. “Aside from the First Things First curriculum guide and an email from Kenyon, the rest was left up in the air,” Addie Leone ’28, who was able to complete her registration by 3:15 p.m. on Aug. 27, wrote.

“I’m not sure I had really been told about it,” Margot Manning ’28 wrote in an email to the Collegian. “I hardly knew how anything worked and was prepared to not get classes I wanted as a first-year.”

Many first-years also believed the Plan Ahead process would leave them with a full schedule. “I was told that I would be getting four classes before the registration process started,” Russ wrote.

According to Harbourt, it is actually common for students to get fewer than four classes from Plan Ahead. “The expectation of ‘I’ll have four classes’ is an unfortunate expectation,” Harbourt said. “We’ve not yet learned how to help people understand that, if our average class size is 16 students… then we have limited numbers of sections… so [having fewer than four classes] is pretty normal.”

Additionally, Harbourt cites lack of proper communication with first-years as another hurdle to overcome. “The Registrar’s Office has no good way to communicate with first-years. They don’t read email, and the Office of the Registrar can’t get out to them, so they rely on OLs,” Harbourt said, according to the Sept. 15 Student Council meeting minutes.

However, some first-year students check their email regularly, often multiple times a day. “I check my email very frequently, probably now around four times a day,” Leone wrote. “During the course registration process I was pretty much always checking for updates on any sort of clarification about the process.”

Even though the process wasn’t as smooth as expected, first-year students eventually ended up with the intended number of classes on their schedule.

“My registration experience overall was hectic, but the help of my Orientation Leaders and my Academic Advisor made the experience a lot less stressful,” Leone wrote. “The looming thought of not having my course schedule until the day before classes started did stress me out, but I had trust in the process, which turned out alright.”

“After moving things around and getting five classes on my schedule (including music lessons), I was happy with how my schedule turned out,” Manning wrote, reflecting on the experience. “Honestly, it bonded me with the rest of the freshman class.”