At last Monday’s board of trustees meeting, board members discussed a new proposed priority registration policy that will affect students who have earned 90 units or more.

The new priority registration system, which is said to possibly begin in Fall 2012, will no longer grant priority to students who have reached 90 units or more. Instead, students who have reached the 90 unit mark will have two registration points deducted for each unit earned beyond 90 units until the registration points equal 15 points.

Bill Mulrooney, Director of Admissions and Records, wrote the enrollment priority section of the board of trustees agenda and explained how the new priority registration system will motivate students who have been enrolled in EC for a long time to earn their associate degree or certification.

“The more units you have, you start losing points in priority registration and the reason we will do that is because students have been here for many, many years,” Mulrooney said.

The new system will also help new students at EC register in classes that fill up quickly by students on campus with priority.

Although the new system was discussed in the recent meeting, there are still more details that need to be finalized before implementing it, because the new system may possibly have exceptions for some students.

“Somebody is going have to come up with how each cohort comes up with registration stuff,” Don Treat, Technical Services Supervisor, said. 

As to how students will be informed when this takes affect, Mulrooney said it will highly be publicized through class schedules and the Web.

John Wagstaff, Director of Informational Technology Services, said it is budget cuts that force the state to look at what the college is doing with registration.

“The irony about this is we don’t tell you your point total and your point total is what decides your registration time,” Wagstaff said.

However, with the system being reviewed and details under discussion, Mulrooney said that another idea that was given was to put students at the 90 unit mark back at zero, setting their time of registration farther on the list.

“One section in the agenda might change because the legal affairs office is making us reconsider that students with 90 units may go back to zero units once they reach 90,” Mulrooney said. 

Even though many students will be affected by this new system, Wagstaff assures that students are a priority here at EC.

“Were committed to serving students here and making as little cuts as possible,” Wagstaff said. “At the end of the day no one wants to hurt new or continuing students, we want students to fulfill their goals.”