With class size and physical growth the basis for a new comprehensive UB Master Plan, university departments are now addressing the needs of growing enrollment across campus.
At a meeting this past Wednesday, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee addressed plans for graduate school admissions as well as recent renovations made to electronic class registration for undergraduate students.
Changes to grad school admissions have already started at a basic level, with application fees raised from $35 to $50.
"A portion of the fee may go to the departments," said Peter A. Nickerson, chair of the FSEC. "But they have to have a plan to get more competitive students, and also increase the number of students who are going to be admitted."
The FSEC also considered how departments with an already high number of applicants could be affected over the next five years, especially within the health and science programs.
For many students, such as those hoping to get into in the pharmacy graduate program, competition is fierce. According the department's Web site only 120 of over 1,000 applicants were admitted in 2005.
Pharmacy in particular hopes to increase the number of students accepted into the program from 120 to 140 per year. Other departments looking to increase enrollment are Architecture and Computer Science. Currently, the total number of enrolled graduate students at UB is 9,300.
The FSEC also explained the recent chances made to the undergraduate catalog. New updates to the online registration system aim to help students make better decisions before registering for courses.
In order to better facilitate the registration process, several changes have been made to make the electronic catalog more user friendly according to Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Kara Saunders.
"In the last few years we've made a number of updates to the catalog," Saunders said. "There is more information about the degree programs, the courses, course size, how often TA's are used, down to career information."
The course descriptions page has also been changed. By searching title and definition, all courses in the class schedule that match the description will appear just as they would in the electronic schedule, complete with registration information.
"This is something we didn't have before," Saunders said. "It's used very frequently by students. It gets thousands of hits a week."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
