SGA gets confirmation for a proposal to extend the registration for classes 

The Student Government Association’s (SGA) proposal to lengthen the registration time period and withdrawal period has been approved and will go into effect in the Fall 2025 semester. 

The proposal extends the drop/ add date for classes at the beginning of a semester from five days to eight days. The proposal will also extend the deadline to drop a class with a “W,” or withdraw, by 1 1/2 to two weeks, but those numbers are not official yet. 

Cade Roy, president of SGA, ran on this policy point last spring during the election. He was very passionate about this policy and knew he wanted to do the work to get it done. “This was something that I felt students would greatly benefit from, being able to make a better decision about what classes they want to stay in for the semester. I mean, they’re paying thousands of dollars for it,” Roy said. 

If a student drops a class within the time allotted for it, the student will be reimbursed. 

If a student drops and replaces a class within the time allotted, then their payment evens out. 

Dropping a class after the drop/add date has passed means the student will not be reimbursed for the class. 

For Roy, making sure students could firmly decide if they wanted to stay in those classes before paying for them was very important. Roy said, “It was trying to just solve making sure students get into a core schedule they could manage for the rest of the semester before they have to pay for those classes. If you drop/add in that period, you will get reimbursed.” 

Roy heard a lot of student complaints about not knowing whether to withdraw from a class because they didn’t have all their grades yet. 

He believed extending the withdrawal date was the best solution so students could have more information to decide without altering professors’ operations within their classes. 

“You can’t really make the best decision possible to stay in that class or not, withdraw or not. So if they get just a little extra breathing room and a week and a half and two weeks just ended up being the most we could get.” 

Stefon Clay, a freshman majoring in business administration, explained how he ended up with a “W” because he dropped a class too late. He wanted to get a feel for the class so by the time he decided to drop it, the date had passed. Clay said, “I feel like that would be a good proposal because it would give us more time to see if we like the class or not, and then we could drop it without it going towards our transcript.” 

Marlon Turner, a freshman majoring in business marketing, also missed the deadline to drop a class. “I wanted to drop a class, but I ran out of time. By the time I had the opportunity to drop I lost the opportunity to drop it. I found out my teacher was not a good teacher […] it was too late,” Turner said. 

Anya Hansens, a sophomore majoring in criminal justice, explained why she thought the proposal was a good idea. 

“I think the proposal is a good idea because during the first few weeks of school, we’re not focused on adding or dropping, we’re focused on if we can get through the classes first. […] We don’t even get a chance to start classes before we have to decide if we want to drop them or not. I think it would be better to have extra days.” 

Roy explained compromise with the administration was helpful in making SGA’s proposal a part of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “What we accomplished here with the drop date extensions, it wasn’t everything we wanted, obviously, so you have to come towards some sort of middle ground, but it’s still a win,” Roy said. 

Next fall, SGA will also be launching a syllabus bank through the Edith Garland Dupré Library. This database will catalog every course syllabi from previous semesters so students can see what a class entails or how a professor teaches before deciding to register for the class. 

This semester the library will do a trial run of the database, giving professors the choice to opt in or not. 

Roy hopes the database one day becomes the University’s policy. Roy said, “If you could take that stress off students for classes to drop or add a class or see the syllabi, then I feel like I did my job.”