Fabrics Fake-Out — Technician 3/28/19

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News

TECHNICIAN

PAGE 3 • THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 2019

Behind the scenes: Creating course catalog Amber Detwiler Staff Writer

With enrollment for the fall 2019 term beginning on Wednesday, many students are utilizing tools such as the NC State course catalog in hopes of creating their dream schedules. However, few students are aware of the behind-thescenes process in creating, maintaining and updating the course catalog. Kyle Pysher, assistant registrar for scheduling, explained how students can best utilize this resource to create their desired schedules. “The course catalog contains all the information about courses on campus, from how many credit hours they are worth to the course description to when they’re offered,” Pysher said. “There’s a public-facing version that students can use to plan schedules, to know when courses are generally offered, what they are about and

how they may fit into their degree program… If students need to research the courses that are listed on their [degree] audit, the course catalog is a great place to do that.” Jessica Bronchick, assistant registrar for communication, also plays a role in creating the undergraduate catalog, which is a snapshot of all courses available for the given academic year. “There are two public-facing course catalogs,” Bronchick said. “There’s the one that’s searchable, so students can see in real time all of the class information, so anything about a course that is available in MyPack in the student enrollment system. There’s also the undergraduate catalog website, which is also public, but that is not updated in real time.” Pysher said that students with additional questions about course content can reach out

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SCREENSHOT TAKEN FROM MYPACK PORTAL

Students can use the Choose Subject dropdown menu to browse courses to add to their Pack Planners.

Despite rumors, fibers program to remain in College of Design FALSE ADVERTISING CONCERNS ARISE for the upcoming semester, students in the College of Design program were blindsided when t hey not iced there was no fibers studio being offered for the fall term. This caused many students to worry that the fibers program was being cut from the College of Design. However, in a meeting held for College of Design students on March 21 with GRAPHIC BY ANNA LEE/TECHNICIAN Pamela Jennings, a professor and head of the Department of Art + Design, she Rachael Davis confirmed that the fibers program is not beAssistant News Editor ing cut; the fibers studio is just not going to be On March 13, while many students were ex- offered for fall 2019. Evan Smith, a third-year studying art and citedly adding potential classes to their carts

design, said that the issue began to unfold when students began to put classes in their registration cart for the upcoming semester. “[Students] emailed [professors] to ask when the studio was getting posted, because some of the time, classes don’t get posted in a reasonable time,” Smith said in the meeting. “That’s when [a professor] told us it wasn’t happening.” Smith’s enrollment date has now passed. He said that his graduation has been complicated by the lack of communication between students and professors in relation to the studio class. “I’m supposed to graduate in the spring, and I wasn’t informed [about the studio],” Smith said in the meeting. “We [students] don’t need to know everything, but it was a little upsetting to be put in a position where I had no idea about my future.” In the meeting, Jennings suggested that students who will not have a studio for next semester should take elective courses instead. However, many students, like Morgan Cardwell, a second-year studying art and design, took issue with this solution, stating that most have already fulfilled their elective requirements. “[Electives] are not really a substitute for studio, because studios are 6 credit hours a semes-

ter; we’re there for at least 12 hours of class time a week, probably 20 hours of free time being used for free time and projects,” Cardwell said. “An elective, a 3-hour class where you work on a project, isn’t really an adequate substitute… because it’s not like studio, where you are really forced to focus on innovation. We are in studio-based majors. Electives are there to teach you new techniques; this is not an adequate substitute. It will not fill up the curriculum.” In addition, Cardwell recognized the lack of resources and faculty in their department, as well as issues with how the two different concentrations, fashion and fibers or animation, in art and design are advertised to students. “In my studio, the two suggested concentrations [are] either fashion and fibers or animation,” Cardwell said. “I started to realize this whole semester, every project we did in the joint studio was animation related. The one project that was planned for [fibers], which was constructing different backpacks and bags, they switched out with another illustration, animation project, and that’s when we realized there really was no resources available, and we started to really panic.” Jennings also mentioned that students in Art

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