Newsletter WINTER 2009-10
Reminder: Add Day is Approaching
Just a friendly reminder that the last day for adding courses
and removing incompletes is this Friday, January 22nd. Please
remember to bring your add cards to the Registrar's Office by
5:00pm on Friday.
IMPORTANT! New Advising Requirement For
All Undergraduates
In response to a review of advising that included discussions
with undergraduate option representatives and members of the
Faculty Board, the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE)
and the Provost’s Office are pleased to announce new advising
tools and policies to enrich the Caltech advising experience for
both students and advisers.
Beginning now, Caltech undergraduate
students will be required to meet one-on-one with their advisers
at least once a year. Hopefully many of you are
already doing that. Advisers have been given several online
tools to record meetings with their advisees and students will
be able to see whether they have satisfied the requirement
through a new Advising Status presented on REGIS. Students who
do not satisfy this advising requirement before the start of
spring term each year will be placed on hold,
preventing them from enrolling during online registration for
the following fall term. We listened to students’ feedback and
have also provided a form that you as a student can download and
ask your adviser to sign as a way for you to initiate contact
with your adviser and fulfill the advising requirement.
Several new tools have been added to REGIS to assist the
faculty in helping your advisees. The once “Schedule Approval”
link has been renamed “My Advisees”. While you will still use
this link to approve student schedules, in addition to viewing
degree audits and unofficial transcripts, you can now record
meeting notes from advisee meetings, view previously entered
notes, set Advising Holds on students and indicate when an
advisee’s advising requirement has been met. Under the new
Freshman Advising model, many of the freshman advisors have had
group and in-person meetings with their advisees so advisors can
already indicate that these students have met their advising
requirement.
We have created a new “Advising Arena” website at
http://www.registrar.caltech.edu/advising.htm where you can
review details of the advising policies and online
functionality. This link is available within the REGIS
application as well. Please check it out! If you have feedback
about the content, please let the Registrar’s Office know and
additional materials can be added or updated.
To date about only 9% of the undergraduates have an indication
posted that they have met one-on-one with their advisors!
Freshman Progress Reports and Midterm Grades
With Add Day approaching, right around the corner is the
February 16th deadline for Freshman Progress Reports,
shadow grades for freshmen, and midterm grades for everyone. It
is essential that students have feedback on their work in
classes prior to Drop Day which is February 24th. If
you are teaching classes in which freshmen are enrolled please
do take the time to jot down a comment about the student’s
progress. TAs with access to REGIS can make a great contribution
to the freshman’s experience by entering narratives about the
students’ work to date. Some of the most constructive comments
that freshman receive are from dedicated TAs.
Bi 10 Spring Term
We wanted to notify everyone that Bi 10 for spring term will be
available by lottery only and preference will be given to
freshmen and sophomores in the lottery, so please plan
accordingly if you still need to complete an Additional
Introductory Lab.
Language Courses Used for Advanced Humanities
Just a reminder that the language courses beyond the fourth term
(i.e., beyond second term of any intermediate course) may be
used to fulfill the requirement for Advanced Humanities EXCEPT
for courses in the student’s native language. For example, if
you are a native speaker of Chinese, you
may not use Chinese language course to fulfill this requirement.
This is outlined on pages 176-177 in the Catalog. Please
contact us if you have any questions.
Still have questions about the general HSS requirements?
For a guide on the Institute's Humanities and Social Science
requirements, check out the guide from ARC published on the
Advising Arena (see section above).
Submissions for Catalog Changes by the Faculty
To ensure that curriculum changes are reviewed and approved in
time for inclusion in the Catalog, it is requested that
Divisions follow these procedures for submitting changes. All
curriculum changes begin in a Division, and require the approval
of the Division Chair. All course descriptions should be within
100 words. All courses that have not been offered in the last
three years should be removed from the catalog. The Division
should send proposed changes by e-mail to
kabraham@caltech.edu, (Officers of the Faculty - OOF) on the
Request form
Curriculum Change form. Changes for the next academic
year must be submitted before April 30, 2010. Officers of
the Faculty coordinates and manages the approval process and
here is link to their website.
http://oof.caltech.edu/curriculum.html
Kristen Abraham, the Registrar’s Office and IMSS are working
together to automate the flow of work from the Division to the
Officers of the Faculty and the respective curriculum
committees.
REGIS
Enhancements
In addition to the new undergraduate advising changes made to
REGIS a few other upgrades were added in the fall term.
New
Enrollment
Verification Letters – On the student view there is now a
button on the Student Academic Information Page that reads
“Enrollment Verification”. Upon pressing the button, students
can open a PDF report with an Enrollment Verification Letter
displaying today’s date, their name, student status, sub-status,
matriculation date, program name, degree seeking, options
seeking and
expected graduation date. The current academic year start and
end dates also appear. These letters can be used as proof of
enrollment at Caltech.
New
Nicknames
– The following web
pages in REGIS have been updated to reflect the student’s full
name as well as their nickname: Class Roll Sheets, Department
Academic Information Department Advisees page, Grade Reporting,
TA Grade Reporting, and Schedule Approval.
New
Course
Conflict Messages - Students now receive clearer messages
about the classes that are in conflict.
New
Advisers’
Confirmation Emails -
When advisers approve student schedules or request a meeting
with their advisees, a system generated email is sent to their
advisees. Some advisers would like to be notified that they
have either approved or requested a meeting and a copy of the
comments that they sent. Advisers now have the ability to
request email copies if so desired. Simply select the
checkbox on your "My Advisees" page that states "Please
send me confirmation emails of schedule approvals and meetings I
request."
REGIS Future Projects
– The next big REGIS project we have undertaken is the
automation of the MS and PhD candidacy processes for graduate
students. We hope to look at online Drop/Add and the opening day
of registration as the next big projects.
