Donuts, coffee, long waitlists and early-morning alarms were features of this semester’s registration week, running from April 13–17, as DePauw carried out its first round of course scheduling on the enterprise system Workday.
DePauw’s three-and-a-half-year implementation of Workday, beginning in October 2023 as part of the Bold and Gold Strategic Plan, aimed to replace e-Services and ADP for student information, human resources and financial systems. The last step before e-Services is eclipsed will be for students to pay bills for the fall semester through the Workday platform over the summer. Incoming first-years will continue to register the way they always have: by submitting lists of courses and seminars to be curated into their fall schedule by administration.
Registrar Scott Spiegelberg said switching to Workday for registration was a necessary way to modernize both operations and the student experience.
“It was just a 25-year-old system that was no longer maintainable,” Spiegelberg said, “we wanted to bring it into the 21st century.”
Spiegelberg affirmed that using Workday has already proven to be more equitable and transparent: unlike e-Services, Workday enforces prerequisites and clarifies reserved seats, rather than e-Services’ discretionary SPAC system in which professors could give students guaranteed spots in classes upon request. Moreover, students can now see course descriptions in Workday instead of having to switch tabs between e-Services and the university website.
Despite these improvements, many students expressed frustrations with navigating the new system, including its first-come, first-served nature, which some felt required them to wake up early to register right at 7:30 a.m. when the window for their class opened.
“There’s always going to be somebody first registering, no matter what system,” Spiegelberg said, pointing to the rotating alphabetical method used by e-Services.
Some students reported that the prerequisite system was faulty, not allowing them to sign up for classes for which they had already met the requirements.
“I personally had some of my classes marked as a conflict even though they were on different days with no labs,” said Colton Vaclavek ‘29, who was waitlisted for every course he tried registering for.
“I know a lot of my friends had a lot of frustrations with not getting into classes they needed,” said Gigi Lefevere ‘28. “Registering for classes on e-Services was so much better because you had eight options instead of just your four in your saved schedule, and if you didn’t get your first four options, you had multiple back-ups.”
In light of this concern shared by both students and administration, Spiegelberg reassured that being waitlisted for courses doesn’t mean students won’t be able to eventually enroll. He estimated that students first in the waitlist have, on average, about an 80% chance of getting in, giving students in the second or third spot about a 50% chance, and after that, about a 30% chance. Still, in the meantime, he advised students who aren’t fully registered for the necessary credits to enroll in classes with open seats.
“Hopefully some of the issues we had with the transition won’t be permanent,” Vaclavek said.
To make improvements for next semester, the Office of the Registrar plans to communicate better with students and advisors about registration windows as well as consider feedback from student surveys and department chairs.
