The senate reviewed a letter drafted by the Student Government Organization (SGO) Executive Council that suggested registration improvements.
The council stated that the "shopping period" fails to provide students with the opportunity to select the most desirable courses-many courses close before the end of pre-registration, pressuring students to rush into course selection before being able to survey classes during the shopping period.
The SGO letter also addressed students' struggles to meet with their advisors during pre-registration to discuss courses and obtain signatures for their desired schedule.
Marina Reti '01 mentioned the difficulty of obtaining the required department chair's signature when an advisor is on leave.
The letter recommended that syllabi be published online before pre-registration, that professors' class schedules be more compatible with others, that the course catalog be published sooner and that the College move to an online registration system as soon as possible.
Several senators suggested that pre-registration be open to students whose tuition is not yet fully paid.
The SGO will attach suggested guidelines for advising-which the senate also discussed yesterday-to its letter to the dean of the faculty.
Ashley Ebersole '01 suggested that seniors be assigned career center advisors since the process involved in finding jobs and going to graduate school "is underway and over before we even know it."
Steve Vladeck '01 said that providing additional advisors from the career center for seniors would "place a rather overwhelming burden on the career center that they're not able to meet."
Vladeck also suggested that incoming freshmen be told that their advisors will be assigned based on their expressed academic interests.
Leif Bohman '01 said freshmen whose advisors are also their professors are often placed in a "sticky situation" if the students want to drop their advisors' classes.
Jesse Freedman '03 said thesis advisors often have little time for younger students, while SGO Treasurer Ben Armour '01 said thesis writers are often frustrated with younger students' occupying their advisors' time.
Arthur Lord '03 introduced two propositions for increasing the network's bandwidth. For $35,000 a year, the network's speed could be increased by up to 300 percent or students could fund their own internet service (about two megabytes) for about $50 a month, a suggestion Lord anticipates students will object to. However, "there's no way Amherst could give you the speed your own cable modem could," Lord said.