On Mar. 12, the Registrar sent out a mass email announcing that registration for the fall semester at Brooklyn College, set to begin Wednesday, would receive an “extension” to Apr. 5.
“We understand the planning your academic journey has been challenging this year due to the uncertainty we all face regarding modes of instruction this fall,” the email read. “In order to ensure that all are fully prepared to plan for this upcoming fall semester, we are moving the fall 2021 registration start date from Wednesday, March 17 to Monday, April 5.”
The extension seems to have been made in order to “give faculty time to establish the best modality for their fall class–in-person, hybrid, or online–based on the latest information that was available,” according to Rich Pietras, the University’s Media Relations Manager.
As vaccinations have been steadily rolling out, the slim promise of an in-person semester this fall, after being online for a year at this point, looks to be especially tantalizing for the school. With vaccinations set to go wide for all adults by the beginning of May, projections point to an in-person semester being a likelihood by the time the fall rolls around.
This move would be an immense boon to the University and CUNY broadly. The last year of online schooling has been especially harsh to CUNY, the result of a downturn of students, slashing of budgets, and an increase in technological costs, among other issues.
The University thus seems to be holding out for promising news on the vaccination front before going ahead with registration, with the likely hope being that they can assure an in-person semester in order to convince lapsed students to come back and incoming students that they are a safe place to carry out such a thing.
Registration appointments are now set to be given out tomorrow, Mar. 18. In the downtime between now and the new registration date, the University’s students services will be offering virtual sessions to help students prepare for registration.