RU Fall 2004 Newsletter for Abingdon Students
Gerald Blankenship, RU Site Director
I trust that you are having a great fall semester with Radford University at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center in Abingdon. Please feel free to contact me at (276) 619-4314 (office), (276) 698-5132 (mobile), or gblankenship@swcenter.edu if you have questions about your degree program or if you need my assistance in any way. I believe that your efforts in acquiring a graduate degree from Radford University will have a most positive impact on your future, and your success in achieving your goals and dreams is of paramount concern to me. I'll be glad to assist you in any manner that I can.
Since coming on board this past May as RU Site Director in Abingdon, I have enjoyed meeting you and offering you my assistance with the many issues you face in your graduate studies. Many of the obstacles you and I have to deal with involve tuition, class registration, recordkeeping, and related administrative concerns. As you might imagine, a university the size of RU requires that great care be taken by all of us as we attempt to follow degree guidelines and RU policy and procedures. The fact that we are participants in "extended education" makes this task a little more difficult, as we cannot merely walk across campus for a quick visit to the Registrar's Office or the Financial Aid Office. I appreciate the patience you have shown as we have attempted to correct mistakes or clear up areas of confusion in your program, and, again, I am always anxious to hear from you if you need my assistance.
One of the areas that requires care and diligence on our part is the class registration process. It is imperative that students exercise great care when either registering for or withdrawing from RU classes. In the paragraphs that follow, I will attempt to review proper procedures for these processes.
Class Registration:
Abingdon students typically register for classes in one of three ways:
1) Through the RU Site Director at the Higher Education Center (paper registration form is faxed to RU Graduate College)
2) Through RU instructors who register the entire cohort for next class(es) in the program sequence
3) By registering online at http://www.radford.edu/~registra/Web_Registration.htm
Methods one and two are generally accurate and result in few, if any, errors. Registering online, however, requires great care. As you know, "the devil is in the details," particularly when it comes to course numbers, section numbers, and course index numbers.
When registering online, Course, Section, and Index numbers must be entered absolutely correctly. In the past, Abingdon students have inadvertently registered for classes taught on the RU campus because they entered an incorrect Index or Section number during the online registration process. This has resulted in the necessity to file Academic Petitions and has also caused problems in the areas of tuition billing and financial aid.
Before registering for Spring 2005 classes online, please view the RU Spring 2005 Schedule at a Glance at:
http://www.swcenter.edu/ru/Spring'05Schedule.htm.*
Here you will find the entire schedule of RU courses to be offered on the Abingdon campus. Locate the course(s) you plan to take and enter the correct Index, Course, and Section numbers during the online registration process. Following this procedure will eliminate the many problems we have experienced in the past in regard to online class registration.
* Classes offered by RU at the Higher Education Center in Abingdon may also be accessed at https://hpwebsrv.runet.edu/ru_stuff/registrar/course_related/sprg/allsprg.html on the RU Registrar's page. Many students who have used this page in the past, however, have failed to scroll down to the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center portion of this page (listed alphabetically under S) and have consequently registered for graduate classes taught on the RU main campus. A safer bet, in my opinion, is to obtain registration information from http://www.swcenter.edu/ru/Spring'05Schedule.htm.
Withdrawing from One or More Classes but not All Classes:
Abingdon students occasionally have a need to drop a class from their semester schedule, particularly when they have inadvertently registered for the wrong class, when personal circumstances change, or when changing RU degree programs altogether. Following the RU withdrawal procedure below will assure students of timely processing of their request and avoidance of confusion in regard to financial aid and tuition billing.