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SUNY Sullivan eyes spring semester

Patricio Robayo - Staff Writer
Posted 12/6/18

LOCH SHELDRAKE — The new year is fast approaching and for many that means reflecting on the past 12 months and spending time with friends and family.

However, for SUNY Sullivan, their focus …

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SUNY Sullivan eyes spring semester

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LOCH SHELDRAKE — The new year is fast approaching and for many that means reflecting on the past 12 months and spending time with friends and family.

However, for SUNY Sullivan, their focus now is on spring registration and having the students who attended in the fall return.

According to SUNY Sullivan President Jay Quaintance, only about 70 percent of current students are eligible to register for the spring semester.

The teaching staff is given a set of students they advise during the school year and also to help encourage the students to register and guide them through college.

Quaintance stated during the SUNY Sullivan Board of Trustees' Finance and Development Committee meeting on November 29 that he will be reaching out to those advisors to see which students have not registered yet and why.

The college is looking for any roadblocks that might prevent a student from resigning with the college.

For example, a student could be missing an ID card or have some unpaid bills which will stop the student from continuing their education.

“We are trying to eliminate bureaucracy nonsense that is preventing students from registering,” said Quaintance.

“I am getting weekly reports from the advisors on what percentage they are at. Some advisors have 100 percent of the students enrolled; others have only 15 percent.”

Quaintance noted that some advisors could have as much as 60 students or as low as four students, depending on the major of the student.

“We are working diligently with those advisors to make sure they reach out to their students and to why they have not registered,” said Quaintance.

Another way the college is looking to retain more students is by changing the withdrawal policy.

In the past, faculty was able to withdraw a student if there was a valid reason to do so.

Now the college has done away with that policy and only the students themselves will have the power to withdraw from a class if they need to during a semester.

Furthermore, Quaintance stated that the college would retool their “fresh start” policy which will look at a student's GPA history and “clean” it up to get them in good standing with the college.

“They might lose some credits, but now they can move forward and apply for financial aid,” said Quaintance.

Another problem the college wants to solve is the loss of students between the time they are accepted into the college and the time they actually register with the college.

According to Quaintance, the college will speed up the enrollment process. Instead of waiting two to three weeks to enroll, students will be connected right away with someone from the Learning Center to help kick-start registration.

“The new motto is, ‘every day is registration day' here at the college, said Quaintance.

CFO Retires

SUNY Sullivan will lose a longtime Chief Financial Officer, Susan Horton, who joined the college in 2006 as Controller.

According to the college, after 12 years with the college, Horton will spend her retirement visiting grandchildren and traveling after officially leaving college in mid-January.

The college have started to search for a new CFO and would like the new person to also be a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Currently, the college is writing up a job description before putting a notice out.

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