The petition
BROWN AGAINST BANNER
...The End of the Open Curriculum?
Brown University is about to introduce BANNER, an online registration and record system, to its student body. The Administration, with the aid of SunGard HigherEd, has spent $20 million dollars and more than a year on BANNER’s design and development. However, not once has it asked its students for their input.
Now the Administration plans to deliver BANNER to us as a finished product. What could this mean for our Brown experience?
Electronic registration.
Say goodbye to little pink slips and long lines at the registrar, but get ready for 6 AM mornings spent frantically pressing “refresh” whilst 1000 other students log onto the system at the same time.
Binding Pre-Registration.
This spells the end of shopping period as we know it, and a violation of the spirit of our Open Curriculum - the ability to find classes that we truly love.
Mandatory pre-requisites.
You won’t be able to skip an enormous intro lecture class in favor of a specific seminar any longer. You won’t have a hope of taking a senior seminar before your fourth year, let alone a 200-level class. So much for academic experimentation, and the ability to craft your own, challenging curriculum.
Registration based on seniority.
Seniors sign onto the system 24 hours before juniors, who sign on 24 hours before sophomores, and freshmen… well, you guys might as well not bother signing on at all.
Strict caps on classes at pre-registration.
If you’re not among the first 20 students online, you’re out of luck. For the next three years, expect to see VA10 and other highly competitive classes filled entirely with graduating seniors. Don’t expect to see any new Visual Arts concentrators wandering around campus.
Certain classes limited to concentrators.
Not only will this hurt students who are banned from the class, but it will severely impact the diversity of viewpoints and experiences within the class itself. In addition, this will result in people serially declaring concentrations, or double and triple-concentrating, in an effort to “beat the system”; hardly what our supposedly “Open” Curriculum is designed to do.
Although electronic registration could be an enormous asset to both students and faculty, the current plans for BANNER threaten to violate the very ethos of our Open Curriculum. The fact that students were never consulted about the design of BANNER is a terrible indictment of Brown's plans for Academic Enrichment. Worst of all, students continue to be kept in the dark.
Please join us in urging Brown University to put its students first, by signing this petition.
We call upon the Administration to inform us fully of their intentions with BANNER.
We insist upon our right as students to have a say in the development and implementation of BANNER.
We refuse to accept any form of BANNER that robs us of our educational freedom.
- Brown Against BANNER
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