The Honors College staff responded to difficulties some students have reported when using the new priority registration system this fall.

Students in Eastern’s Honors College have been able to use priority registration, a process where they sign up for the next semester’s classes a week earlier than other students.

According to the Honors College’s website, honors students in the past were required to meet with a departmental, non-honors adviser to choose classes and acquire a PIN. After that, the students would fill out a student information form and register early in-person at Booth House.

John Stimac, dean of the Honors College, said all the honors students coming in to Booth House would arrive during a three-day period for individual 10-minute conferences, bringing other activities and duties of the college to a stand still.

“The honors students saw one of three staff members in the Honors College,” Stimac said. “We typically saw 300-350 students during this time.”

Stimac said this semester, honors students no longer bring physical paper work describing their honors status or class choices to Booth House, but instead submit this information online without having to ever schedule an appointment at the college.

“This results in no scheduled meetings for students, better use of faculty/staff time, and hopefully, faster registration during priority registration week,” Stimac said.

Stimac said the new process is an intermediate step between eventually making honors students’ priority registration student independent of the Honors College as an intermediary.

According to the Eastern’s Honors College website, students were required to submit a “Student Information Form” by Oct. 13 in order to use priority registration. The form requires students to submit information, such as a PIN, that they can only receive from their departmental adviser. The website said after Oct. 13, the form would be “deactivated” and would not longer be able to be submitted.

Kelsey Myers, a junior special education major in the Honors College, said she was unable to meet with her departmental adviser before October 13.

Claire Smith, a junior history major in the Honors College, said she has not had trouble with submitting her form, but credits it to her adviser.

“My adviser is really good about having the appointments early,” Smith said. “He’s always been better than other departments.”

Stimac said he was informed by honors students of the difficulty in meeting with their department advisers so early. In response, the Honors College did not deactivate the form and notified its students that they would still be able to submit it.

According to the Honors College website, the form will still be deactivated after October 13, creating a potential for confusion.

This change to a system where honors students will be able to register themselves will resemble other university’s honors registration process.

Patty Battles, office manager of Centennial Honors College at Western Illinois University, said honors students at Western register in a process very similar to non-honors students.

“The only difference from non-honors students registration is that being an active honors student is one of the factors that determines a student’s assigned registration time and date.”

Smith said in spite of any troubles with the changing priority registration system, she is optimistic about the future.

“This is the first year, so of course there are a couple of difficulties with it,” she said. “But once they get things sorted out I think it will work out fine.”

Andrew Crivilare can

be reached at 581-2128 or

at [email protected].