Students at Eastern may no longer be able to register for advanced classes before meeting prerequisite requirements.

The Council on Academic Affairs will discuss Thursday the enforcement of the prerequisite policy. The council meets at 2 p.m. Thursday in the Arcola/Tuscola Room of the Martin Luther King, Jr. University Union.

Students have been able to register for classes without meeting prerequisite requirements, because no system is in place to stop the registration. The prerequisites are listed in the student catalog, but not in the registration systems.

As a result, “students are getting caught in the backlash,” Tim Shonk, chair of the CAA subcommittee on prerequisites and an associate English professor, said.

If students complete a class before meeting its prerequisite, “they have to go back and complete the prerequisite but don’t get a graduation credit for it in some departments. Then they would still need three semester hours to complete their graduation requirements,” which would have been covered by the prerequisite, he said.

If the proposal passes, the council will ask the departments which courses they want Information Technology Services to flag during registration.

Then Panther Access to Web Services system and touchtone registration systems “wouldn’t let students register for courses if they have not met the prerequisites for it,” Shonk said.

Currently the only prerequisites being managed by ITS are class standing requirements and admission requirements to a major or program. According to the proposal, it is highly unlikely that all 245 permutations can be codified in order for the system to manage the prerequisite policy.

But if the goal is to enforce this policy, then the academic departments are going to have to manage their own prerequisites, Shonk said.