Vice Provost Rohan Williamson announced in an Oct. 20 email the start of class registration for undergraduate students would be pushed back from Nov. 9 to Nov. 30.
This move came after the GUSA Senate passed a resolution at their meeting on Oct. 18 to request Georgetown postpone class registration until after the university announces the plans for the Spring 2021 semester. It is not clear if the decision to push back registration was influenced by the GUSA resolution.
Pushing back registration is part of the university adapting to an undecided spring semester. President John DeGioia shared in an Oct. 12 email the university is planning on sharing the initial plan for Spring 2021 instruction by Nov. 16. The university is in the process of evaluating whether it is safe for more students to return to campus for the upcoming semester and whether any instruction will be held in person, according to the email.
The resolution points out that at the time of the meeting, registration for spring was slated to open for undergraduate seniors on Nov. 9 and for first-year students on Nov. 12, four days before students are supposed to learn the university’s spring plans. Students currently on leaves of absence were also expected to apply to return to the university before the plans were announced. It argues registration dates should be pushed back to allow students to take information about spring instruction into account when registering for classes.
Sen. Rowlie Flores (COL ‘22) introduced the bill, arguing students need more information to make class decisions. “It’s really absurd that we’re applying for classes in two weeks when we have no knowledge of what’s going to happen in the spring,” he said. The resolution argues that without knowing whether they will be on campus, students will not be able to plan their classes around factors like time zone constraints.
The resolution also asks the university to create and distribute a new Housing Stability Application, which students needed to fill out to be eligible for on-campus housing for the Fall 2020 semester. It called for the application to be available for more than seven class days and evaluated within a reasonable timeframe. The university has not made an announcement on spring housing.
Speaker Leo Teixeira (COL ‘21) spoke in support of this part of the bill by arguing students did not have enough time to adequately fill out the Fall 2020 housing application when it opened this summer. “We were given literally a matter of days over the course of a weekend,” he said. “While it may seem arbitrary, this is still something that’s up in the air for a lot of people.”
The resolution passed unanimously with no abstentions.
Additionally, the Senate elected a vice chair for the Ethics & Oversight Committee and a Senate Ethics & Oversight Committee representative. Sen. Lily McGrail (COL ‘21) was elected as vice chair and Sen. Erique Perez (COL ‘23) was elected as the representative.
The Senate will hold their next meeting on Oct. 25 at 6 p.m. EST over Zoom.
