It's within reason to say that, besides classwork and finals, Brandeis students are most stressed right around the time of course registration. We have good reason to be; it can be vital to our academic plans that we enroll in certain courses in order to complete graduation and major requirements. On occasion, these important courses have a restricted amount of seats that can prevent students from enrolling and continuing timely progress towards a desired major or minor. Even if the capped course in question needs to be completed for a requirement or is of unique interest to the student, the student's only option is to enroll on the demand list and email the professor, who likely is receiving several similar emails, in order to plead their case.

This type of problem could be easily rectified if Brandeis created an administrator, either for the College of Arts and Sciences as a whole or for each academic department, who could meet with a student to determine whether he or she should have priority to enroll in a closed course and then, if deemed appropriate, contact the relevant department to make it happen.

According to a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the University of Nevada, Reno has effectively solved this problem with the creation of a course concierge. The concierge is a man named Paul Neill, a faculty member in the Physics department who holds the title of "Director of Core Curriculum" and who wields the institutional clout of a university administrator.

He meets with approximately 50 to 60 students each semester to discuss their enrollment difficulties and can call academic departments to create a seat in a necessary but full course. Additionally, he works with related departments, such as Mathematics and Chemistry, to make sure that courses frequently taken together do not overlap in scheduling.

Before the creation of the course concierge, the process by which a student attempted to enroll in a closed course at University of Nevada, Reno was highly informal and generally inefficient: emailing the professor. The implementation of the concierge helped give the process structure and authority. Additionally, the retention and graduation rates at University of Nevada, Reno have risen because of the services that the concierge provides. Milton Glick, the former president of University of Nevada, Reno, explained that students who hit even minor snags in their course enrollment could become discouraged, have their progress toward graduation delayed or be more inclined to transfer or drop out. The concierge has been able to meet with these types of students to ensure that they can avoid these challenges.

However, the concierge doesn't just help anyone who walks in the door. Students who simply don't like the time of a class, missed several opportunities to enroll in a required course or are interested in taking a closed course on a whim won't receive enrollment assistance.

The purpose of the concierge is to help those students who encounter difficulties by no fault of their own or to provide advice to those students who are simply bewildered by the enrollment process. The concierge does not replace the position of a normal academic adviser but rather works with more specialized cases and has the power to cut red tape for students as needed. Brandeis could benefit from a course concierge, either for the whole College of Arts and Sciences or for each academic department, given some recent enrollment challenges that we've experienced. Some departments, such as Economics and Hispanic Studies, currently have almost all of their upper-level courses filled to capacity and spilling out onto the demand list, creating difficulty for students who need to take these courses to complete a major or minor. Other courses, such as "The Films of Disney," were given received an enrollment cap in the middle of the registration period. Students who wanted to take the course for the film requirement of the English major may have been caught off guard and were unable to register before the cap was met. Science lab sections are also a common source of anxiety and fill up very quickly because they take up an entire afternoon, preventing students from taking any desired classes that meet at any time during those four hours.

Courses such as "The Economics of Education," "Films of Disney" or "Public Speaking: The Art of Oral Communication," all of which have demand lists of over 50 students, could benefit from having the concierge prioritize the students on the demand list to determine who should be able to enroll. Departments who have courses that are co-requisites, such as Mathematics and Physics, could benefit from a concierge to ensure that as few of the courses as possible overlap in scheduling. Furthermore, students who aren't sure where to turn during course enrollment could benefit from a concierge who can provide them with informed and meaningful advice.

Faculty time could also be better utilized by diverting the responsibility of speaking with students on unusually large demand lists or who have more pressing course difficulties to a central concierge. Professors who teach popular courses would not have to spend their time communicating with 30 students on a demand list via email, trying to determine who should be able to enroll in their course.

Faculty advisers, who are frequently confronted with students having scheduling issues involving classes in other academic department, would be able to direct them to the concierge, who would be a more informed resource. The creation of a central enrollment figure could help faculty members utilize their time more efficiently during registration periods, when they can be very busy with student concerns.

The course concierge is an innovative concept that Brandeis ought to investigate. By developing a powerful student-oriented resource for enrollment difficulties, the administration would take a big step toward alleviating student stress during the registration period.