As Boston University students plan their class schedules for the fall semester, an ominous new warning in bold red letters greets them on the Student Link: “Holding a class in which you do not intend to enroll in is prohibited.”
The administration said the message is meant to deter students from registering for a class, only to drop it later so that a friend could add the class that may have been full when it was their registration time.
“We just wanted to prominently feature that it is the policy,” said BU spokesman Colin Riley.
“It’s always been prohibited.”
Those who hold classes, Riley said, “are being discourteous to their fellow students who are trying to register for classes and find it is already over-subscribed.”
Student Union Senator Anant Shukla, who has spearheaded a Union campaign to change aspects of the registration process, said Union could claim credit for the appearance of the notice.
“The reason why that warning is up there is because of the issues and awareness that Union has brought to class holding,” he said. “No way it would have come onto their radar had we not passed that resolution and had it not been approved [by the Undergraduate Academic Council].”
The resolution, approved by the council earlier in the semester, proposes to combat class holding by preventing students who have not completed the prerequisites or have already taken the class from registering for that class. It also calls for the creation of a waiting list for students who wish to add a class that is blocked to them.
Information Services and Technology received the waitlist request from the Office of the Provost and is researching and testing the proposal, Shukla said.
As far as monitoring any class holding, “the faculty members have a pretty good idea when it occurs,” Riley said.
Riley declined to comment about whether anyone found to be holding classes would face disciplinary action.
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation sophomore Dana Pelerin said she did a double-take when she saw the warning, but said that it would not dissuade her from asking someone else to hold a class because, she said, she feels it is unenforceable.
“For a second I was like oh sh-t, I can’t do it this year,” she said. “But then I was like, oh wait, they can’t do anything about it.”
College of Communication sophomore Isabel Shanahan said that there are other ways to get around a full class.
“Usually it’s not impossible to get into most classes,” she said. “You can ask a professor to do it for you.”
Scott Ellis, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said students see many pros and few cons about holding classes.
“The incentive is so great to have a class with a prime timeslot,” he said.
School of Management sophomore Leigh Pressman said she had an upperclassman friend hold an upper-level Spanish class for her last year. She said she thinks there is nothing inherently unfair about holding classes.
“Everyone has a fair advantage to ask someone else to hold a class for them,” she said.
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