Some seniors in the School of Management face the possibility of not graduating on time this spring due to limited seating in MGO403, Fundamentals of Strategic Management, a course required for completion of their degree.
"Typically, there are a few students who cannot get into a course and try to take it the following semester but the only thing is that with [MGO403] you need it to graduate," said Tony Roman, SA Treasurer and a senior in the School of Management.
Roman said the course was full by the time his class registration window opened, but the School of Management office instructed him to fill out a form to be force-registered. Roman received an e-mail a week later that instructed him that there were no available seats in the course and that he would be able to take a similar course at another school.
"This was discouraging when I read it because I wanted to graduate in May without having to take a course from another school or taking the course in the summer," Roman said. "If I would have known how difficult it would have been to get into the course, I would have tried to take the course in the fall, but I didn't know how limited the seating would be."
Luckily for Roman, he received an e-mail a few days later stating that he had been force-registered in the course. Only a handful of students are allowed to be force registered in courses with limited seating during the first week of registration.
"I suppose that with any 400-level course there is a chance of not getting in but if there is a large number of students who need to take the course to graduate in May, then there should be some type of assistance to help them achieve that goal," Roman said.
Other students were not as lucky.
Nikita Maldorado, a senior business administration major with a concentration in human resources and supply chain operations, was unable to be force-registered in the course and was left with two options: taking an equivalent course at a nearby college or taking a class over the summer that would postpone receiving her diploma.
According to Maldorado, advisors in the school told her that there were plenty of students in the same predicament.
"I personally just feel like UB is leaving us out to dry," Maldorado said. "How can they just assume that all of these students could make these accommodations? What about all of the students that don't have cars or that live check to check? How do you expect them to do either one of these plans, and if there are so many students left out of the class, why can't they either expand the classes they currently have or add additional sessions?"
There are a total of nine sections for MGO403 that are now closed for the spring 2011 semester. According to the UB Academic Schedule website, eight of these course sections seat 50 students, for a total of 400 seats that were available for the course this semester. One of the course sections lists that there were no seats available at any time.
The prerequisites for the course include senior standing and the completion of at least three of six listed management courses (including MGB302, MGS301, MGM301, MGO302, and MGE302) and concurrent registration in the other three.
There were only five sections for MGO403 available in the Fall 2010 semester, seating fewer than 300 students total.
"The issue was seen as forthcoming, and notification was given to students before registration," said Rachael Lowe, president of the undergraduate management association. "With the problem only keeping, from my understanding, less than 0.5 percent of graduating seniors in a difficult situation, the best I can personally do now is work with the School of Management to help sophomores and juniors avoid the problem in the future."
According to Katherine Ferguson, associate dean of academic programs in the School of Management, the department was aware as they were putting together the 2010-11 academic course schedule that because of the current budget situation, there would not be a sufficient number of sections for MGO403 throughout the academic year to accommodate the number of students anticipated to graduate.
"As you know, it is difficult for us to determine, with the present student system, how many students are actually graduating," Ferguson said. "We don't know if [students] are officially graduating until they turn in their card [to Student Services]. We thought there would be 70 to 80 students who were planning on graduating in June or prior to that, who would not be able to be accommodated in MGO403."
The School of Management began a process before the academic year to figure out how to provide services to students that would not be accommodated. According to Ferguson, no one in the School of Management felt comfortable with the situation of students not being accommodated from the beginning of this process.
The School began by sending out a mass e-mail before last summer to students they believed to be graduating in the upcoming year to warn them of the limited seating and to register for the course during the summer.
"There were going to be as many seats in the summer as possible; if one section fills, we'll add another, if that section fills, we'll add another," Ferguson said. "We had a marginal growth in the number of students who took the course over the summer and we understand that there are complications with students taking summer courses. We're not assuming that [taking summer courses] is naturally an easy thing."
By fall 2010, the School of Management was aware that there were around 60 to 70 students that would not be accommodated, according to Ferguson. The department came up with another solution to the problem by utilizing other institutions in Western New York. Ferguson said that the department chair was notified of the issue and was asked to find equivalent courses at other institutions in Buffalo where students would be able to cross-register, meaning that UB students are able to register for courses at other institutions in the area without formal admission or additional tuition charges.
According to Ferguson, about 15-20 students found seats in other classes at institutions in the area including Buffalo State College and Canisius College.
"We do not think this is a solution, we do not think students should be taking Capstone courses at other institutions, but we wanted to accommodate students as best as we could and this was a solution," Ferguson said.
By the time registration windows opened, there were a number of students in the department who registered on time, had no check-stops, and had a GPA of over 2.5 and were still unable to register for the course, according to Ferguson. The School of Management then spoke to Vice Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Education Scott Weber, who helped the school to add another section to accommodate an additional 55 students.
The staff of School of Management advisement center went to the "ends of the Earth" to find spots for people and offered three accommodations to students including adding another section, offering cross-registration, and offering as many seats during summer registration as possible, according to Ferguson.
"In the end, there were a handful of students who were not accommodated and I can say with confidence that they were students who did not register when their windows opened," Ferguson said. "There are many legitimate reasons why these things happen – but they didn't come forward as having a problem until the first week of class."
The options for students unable to fulfill this requirement are identifying a course at another institution if they're not from Buffalo and asking for it to be reviewed for waiver credit to be able to graduate in September or to take the course over the summer and walk at graduation in May, according to Ferguson.
"It's a small number of students," Ferguson said. "The people who were not accommodated – and this sounds pejorative – and I don't mean it to be, are probably people who weren't on track anyway and who didn't plan their schedule properly, or they dropped it because they didn't like the time and wanted to add it at a later time."
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Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
