- In Archive
- 2012-11-24 16:52:13
- 1138 Views
New course registration system and internet connection problems on campus were addressed on latest SG meeting, November 21. Around 40 students attended the meeting and had the chance to engage in a discussion with Latchezar Filtchev, Director of OCC, Lucia Miree, Dean of Faculty, and Lydia Krise, Dean of students.
[caption id="attachment_9353" align="alignleft" width="125" caption="Tijana Stojanovic, Photo from SG Website"]
[/caption]
Sophomore Senator Tijana Stojanovic addressed the administration and OCC with the concerns of the student body. In her report she pointed out that AUBGers are dissatisfied with the new registration system and also highly disappointed by the decreasing quality of the internet on campus. "The registration process have been the huge failure," said Stojanovich."We do not think that any problems have been solved between the trial and actual registration time."
Later in her report Stojanovic talked about the importance of the internet connection in students' academic and personal lives. She emphasized that most AUBGers need internet to finish their projects, research papers and simply to communicate with their families back home. "We think that time has come to solve the problem. (...) and we urge you [the administration] to take care of the problems as soon as possible," said Stojanovic. After her report discussions began.
According to Lucia Miree, Dean of Faculty, the goal of the new registration system was to give an easy access to students, who are not on campus, during the registration period. "But it did not work well. It failed beyond our expectations of failure. (...) I do not want to give you excuses. It just really sucked. It really did not work well," she added.
[caption id="attachment_9313" align="alignright" width="285" caption="The Number of Students Who Were Waiting in Line in MB, November 22"]
[/caption]
"Students were role models today in terms of organizing themselves and having the sign up sheet," said Miree. "We learned from you today." The Dean also said that administration tried to fix all the glitches of the new system after the trial preregistration in which about 20 percent of the student body participated. Later, Filtchev said that the main reason why the administration decided to "jump" on the new system was positive feedback from the students about the trial. However, the unexpected problem with the application appeared.
"Definitely we will do everything possible to fix the problem as soon as possible," said Filchev.
Dean Miree promised students that the administration will be "very flexible" with the waiting lists and will try to accommodate most of the students in the classes according to their preferences. She also said that the administration is aware of the fact that some of the students were dropped unexpectedly from the waiting lists and later added again. Consequently, they were moved downwards in the list from their initial positions. "We do not want to punish students because of this," said Miree.
Discussion topic shifted to the students' concern about the low quality of internet on campus. Latchezar Filtchev explained the reasons for the "bad behaviour" of AUBG's IT infrastructure. He said that OCC is dealing with some technical difficulties that were created by the over-voltage from the local electric company.
In terms of solution, of the frequent disconnections from the internet, Filtchev said that OCC is planning to replace the damaged devices as soon as possible. As for the overall improvement of the internet' quality on campus, he said : "My view is very simple. We have two options. To spend extra money, or to start cleverly using the internet." He clarified that by the term clever usage of the internet he meant not to use traffic intensive applications, especially during the "pick time" (from 4pm to 4am).
In the end of the meeting the Vice President of SG, Venelina Miteva, announced that the Student Government plans to organize one more meeting between the students and the administration about the registration and internet quality issues. The date has not been set yet.
Because of the failure of the online registration system, students who had to register on courses starting from Thursday, November 22, decided to stay overnight in main building in front of registrars office. They made a list of student according to the "first come first serve" principle. Most of the freshmen brought blankets, food and alcohol with them. They were checking attendance every hour and crossing out the ones who did not stay in the building for the entire night.
Below you could see the video and pictures taken at 4am in Main Building.
[/caption]
Sophomore Senator Tijana Stojanovic addressed the administration and OCC with the concerns of the student body. In her report she pointed out that AUBGers are dissatisfied with the new registration system and also highly disappointed by the decreasing quality of the internet on campus. "The registration process have been the huge failure," said Stojanovich."We do not think that any problems have been solved between the trial and actual registration time."
Later in her report Stojanovic talked about the importance of the internet connection in students' academic and personal lives. She emphasized that most AUBGers need internet to finish their projects, research papers and simply to communicate with their families back home. "We think that time has come to solve the problem. (...) and we urge you [the administration] to take care of the problems as soon as possible," said Stojanovic. After her report discussions began.
According to Lucia Miree, Dean of Faculty, the goal of the new registration system was to give an easy access to students, who are not on campus, during the registration period. "But it did not work well. It failed beyond our expectations of failure. (...) I do not want to give you excuses. It just really sucked. It really did not work well," she added.
[caption id="attachment_9313" align="alignright" width="285" caption="The Number of Students Who Were Waiting in Line in MB, November 22"]
[/caption]
"Students were role models today in terms of organizing themselves and having the sign up sheet," said Miree. "We learned from you today." The Dean also said that administration tried to fix all the glitches of the new system after the trial preregistration in which about 20 percent of the student body participated. Later, Filtchev said that the main reason why the administration decided to "jump" on the new system was positive feedback from the students about the trial. However, the unexpected problem with the application appeared.
"Definitely we will do everything possible to fix the problem as soon as possible," said Filchev.
Dean Miree promised students that the administration will be "very flexible" with the waiting lists and will try to accommodate most of the students in the classes according to their preferences. She also said that the administration is aware of the fact that some of the students were dropped unexpectedly from the waiting lists and later added again. Consequently, they were moved downwards in the list from their initial positions. "We do not want to punish students because of this," said Miree.
Discussion topic shifted to the students' concern about the low quality of internet on campus. Latchezar Filtchev explained the reasons for the "bad behaviour" of AUBG's IT infrastructure. He said that OCC is dealing with some technical difficulties that were created by the over-voltage from the local electric company.
In terms of solution, of the frequent disconnections from the internet, Filtchev said that OCC is planning to replace the damaged devices as soon as possible. As for the overall improvement of the internet' quality on campus, he said : "My view is very simple. We have two options. To spend extra money, or to start cleverly using the internet." He clarified that by the term clever usage of the internet he meant not to use traffic intensive applications, especially during the "pick time" (from 4pm to 4am).
In the end of the meeting the Vice President of SG, Venelina Miteva, announced that the Student Government plans to organize one more meeting between the students and the administration about the registration and internet quality issues. The date has not been set yet.
Because of the failure of the online registration system, students who had to register on courses starting from Thursday, November 22, decided to stay overnight in main building in front of registrars office. They made a list of student according to the "first come first serve" principle. Most of the freshmen brought blankets, food and alcohol with them. They were checking attendance every hour and crossing out the ones who did not stay in the building for the entire night.
Below you could see the video and pictures taken at 4am in Main Building.