Registrar's Letter to Parents

August 2007

Dear Parents of All New St. Olaf Students,

Let me take this opportunity to welcome you to the St. Olaf College community. We in the Registrar's Office are preparing for the arrival of our new students to campus on Saturday, September 1, 2007. I hope that the following information will be useful to you and to your son or daughter as you make preparations for the beginning of his or her college experience.

Once a student is admitted to the College, our work in the Registrar's Office begins. Each student receives a student number and is entered into the computer system. We also create a paper file on each student. Between these two sources, we keep a complete inventory of the major items that document each St. Olaf student's educational record. In this way, we maintain not only an accurate accounting of each individual student but of the history of the College as a whole.

In addition to being the Registrar, I have also been a faculty member in French at the college, since 1978. So I’m interested in students’ intellectual development and academic progress. Recently, I read a book that, I think, would be great preparation for both your student and you as you prepare for his/her college experience. The book is by Richard Light of Harvard, and it is called Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). It’s a quick read (I read most of it on a three-hour plane trip), and is full of wonderful suggestions for students as they begin college. The book has a lot to say about time management, about not being afraid to ask for help, and about the value of making connections with faculty and with other students. I strongly recommend it to you and your student!

Parents are sometimes surprised to learn that their son’s or daughter’s educational record, which includes course registrations and grades, is, according to federal law, the private information of the student as soon as s/he has matriculated (that is, enrolled in courses) at the College. Unless we have express permission of an individual student, in writing with a signature (that is, not via e-mail or phone), we cannot release this information to anyone--a potential employer, a graduate school, even the student's parents! You will find that, in order to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), we do not send out paper grades to parents (students access them through their St. Olaf computer account). Nor do we make any part of a student's educational record, including his or her schedule of classes, available without permission from the student. The best way to get this information from your son or daughter is to ask him or her for it. Your student should also know about FERPA so that s/he is aware of what s/he would need to do, should you require access to the educational record for any purpose. I have included a link to our on-line information on FERPA for your reference. This information is easily accessible from the Registrar's Home Page.

Many of our incoming students have taken some Advanced Placement (AP) exams and/or have participated in the Post-Secondary Educational Option (PSEO). Other incoming students are transfer students from other institutions. If the work done elsewhere meets specific conditions governed by the academic policies of the College, we award St. Olaf credit for this previous work. The conditions under which we award credit are specified in the Academic Catalog, available on line. In order to make decisions about the awarding of credit, we MUST have an official transcript from the post-secondary institution where the work was completed or, in the case of AP credits, the official report from the College Board. We are processing these credits, and students may check their degree audit, the record of how much and what type of credit they have received, at any time from our Student Information System (SIS), accessible from the Registrar’s home page (login required). Any questions concerning transfer credit can be addressed to Katherine Baker, 507-646-3758 or bakerk@stolaf.edu.

Also during the summer, we are busy coordinating information that will facilitate registration for the first semester. Your student has received information on two important items:

• General Education (GE) 111, First Year Writing OR Religion 121, Bible in Culture and Community. Most new students need to take both of these courses during the first year. We have now pre-registered all students the appropriate section of the American Conversation, Asian Conversations, or Great Conversation, General Education 111, or Religion 121. Additionally, students accepted into the Music program have been pre-registered into Music 111 and 113. Students may check their current registration at any time via the SIS.
• Summer Placement Exams. Our chemistry, mathematics, French, German, and Spanish programs require students to take placement exams over the summer prior to their arrival on campus to facilitate placement in the appropriate courses for the first term. Students have received information about who should take these exams and the procedures for doing so. These exams are accessible via the St. Olaf web site and are to be completed electronically. It is extremely important that students complete these exams over the summer, since it helps us to verify that we are offering an appropriate number of sections of various courses. Please encourage your student to complete the appropriate exams. It is important to note that these exams are for the purpose of placement only; we do not award credit based on placement exams.

Over the summer, also, we assign an academic adviser to all new students. In order to do this, we take into account academic interests that students have expressed in Admissions questionnaires, but we also take care to distribute the number of new students evenly across the faculty who are first year advisers. St. Olaf faculty take their responsibilities to students very seriously, and our first year advisers make every attempt to provide accurate information to students, even if that information pertains to another department or major. In some cases, faculty advisers encourage students to visit, as well, with faculty in another department to obtain the most complete information. Your son or daughter should never hesitate to seek out a faculty member for advice or assistance. In most cases, however, the place to start is with the adviser, at least at the beginning.

Some new students have already asked me when they will register for their first semester. Some colleges and universities have begun the practice of registering new students over the summer. At St. Olaf, we have resisted this trend, because our faculty feel strongly about the desirability of personal contact with students prior to registration. When new students arrive on campus on September 1, they will have waiting for them in their residence hall room a packet of registration information, including an Academic Catalog and a class and lab schedule for semester I, 07-08. They will also find a schedule for Week One, our four-day new student orientation.

The first day of Week One will be devoted to moving in and saying good-bye to families, as well as meeting their academic advisers. Right after the Welcome Ceremony in Skoglund Auditorium, students will be asked to bid their parents farewell and proceed to the field house in the same building to meet their academic adviser for a picnic. Sunday begins with chapel in the morning, after which the Student Life division has planned a variety of activities for the afternoon and evening. Monday will offer the opportunity to learn more about the academic programs of the college and to ask questions of faculty. In the afternoon, a carefully planned Academic Transitions workshop, sponsored by the Academic Support Center and Academic Advising Center, and staffed by trained student advisors, faculty, and staff, will help new students prepare for individual meetings with faculty advisers, which take place on Tuesday morning. Later on Tuesday, after the meetings with the advisers, students will register for their first semester at St. Olaf College. Classes will begin on Thursday of that week, and we will be off and running!

Periodically throughout the academic year, I send e-mails to all students reminding them of important deadlines. It is crucial that students check their St. Olaf e-mail regularly, that they see if there are any messages from the various offices around campus, including the Registrar, and that they read these messages carefully. Please encourage your student to be vigilant about checking and following up on such messages.

If you and your student wish to explore the academic program of the College before arriving on campus, please make use of the Registrar's Home Page. There you will find links to the Academic Catalog, to the Class and Lab Schedules, to information related to academic policies, procedures, and deadlines, and many other items. If you, or your student, have questions after exploring the web site, I encourage you to contact me at cisar@stolaf.edu.

Finally, I invite you to plan to return to campus for Homecoming and Family Weekend. For more information on this weekend, please visit the Office of Alumni and Parent Relations.

I wish you a productive and relaxing end of the summer, a safe trip to Northfield, and the very best for your son's or daughter's time as an Ole. We are looking forward to meeting him or her on September 4 at registration!

Sincerely,

Mary Cisar
Professor of French, Department of Romance Languages
Registrar and Assistant Vice-President for Academic Affairs