From the Registrar | Academic Newsletter | Seneca Polytechnic

by Sharon Kinasz, Registrar

in the September 2019 issue

Welcome Back!

We are set for a busy and exciting term with several moves underway to bring programs to their new home in the CITE building at the Newnham campus and or to relocate to the Seneca@York campus. The King campus will also be the new home to our INSCOL students and two new programs: Workplace Safety and Prevention and Honours Bachelor of Crime and Intelligence Analysis. We are on track to meet our overall fall enrolment targets but our new domestic enrolment continues to be a challenge.

Over the summer, a number of projects have moved forward. We successfully implemented our new online registration system with a soft launch during the summer term and a full implementation in the fall, which also included the release of the student adviser module. During the first week of August, almost 15,000 students selected their courses online for the fall term. As a reminder, students must be in good financial standing, have paid their annual tuition deposit, and completed an intent to enroll to be eligible to select their class schedules online.

The registration window will remain open until Day 10, although classes will only be able to be added until Day 5. Students have been provided with a number of online resources including an instructional video. In-person support rooms will be open on each campus during the start of term for students who are experiencing difficulty selecting their courses. These support rooms are for problem-solving, not basic instruction or course selection requirements. Students are encouraged to read through the available resources, watch the instructional video, and/or consult with their student adviser if they are unsure of the courses they require before visiting the on-site support rooms. For your reference, please direct students to the information on the Office of the Registrar website: Selecting your Class Schedule (if you want to learn more about the process, watch the class scheduler builder video).

As you may also recall, another initiative we were required to implement for the fall term was a process to allow students to opt out of non-essential ancillary fees. As a result of a Provincial mandate introduced in January of this year, students must be given the choice to opt out of ancillary fees deemed to be non-essential by the provincial government. Information on Seneca’s mandatory and optional ancillary fees is available to staff and students through the Office of the Registrar website: Fees and Payments. Students have the ability to opt out of the optional fees until Day 10 of the fall term through a link on their online student centre in the Finance portion under My Options. There are court challenges underway by several Student alliance groups with regard to the provincial policy, but no decisions have been made at this point. Since the largest portion of the optional fees relate to the Student federation, students are encouraged to read through the explanations provided and speak with a Seneca Student Federation representatives regarding the optional fees to ensure they make an informed decision on the opt-out process.

As part of our fall 2019 work plan, the RO is supporting a number of new initiatives driving to more self-serve and automated process. To highlight a few, we are improving the International Web Application, converting a number of forms to an online submission process, and developing a completely online transfer credit application process. I will provide more detail and a status update in the next newsletter.

As always, if you have questions or suggestions for added support or services we can provide to support you and our students, please let me know. Good luck with the start of term.

View the September 2019 issue of the Academic Newsletter.