New Override Policy Upsetting to Students

The Office of the Provost issued a statement during the first week of classes stating that no overrides were to be signed except for seniors graduating in December. This declaration left much of the Howard community in a state of distress, especially students.  

Whitney Wright, junior political science major, said that she feels the system has been flawed from the very beginning.

"If Howard had an adequate amount of classes open and more lecture halls, there would be no need for the override system at all," Wright said. "It doesn't make any sense that we're the no.1 HBCU but can't provide adequate educational facilities for our students."

Wright said that students would be the main party to suffer from this decision.

"Professors not giving overrides will hinder students' possibility of gradating on time…until the situation is rectified and until we [students] see our money's worth in the standard of education on Howard's campus, overrides should be allowed," Wright said.

James H. Wyche, Ph.D., Provost and Chief Academic Officer said,  "We were flooded with overrides; it came to a point where we had over 5,000 overrides and the system couldn't handle it."

"Accepting that many overrides gridlocks the system, from the scheduling process all the way down to class size. If a class only has room for 30 and there are already 25 students and then overrides are given for 15 more then there is no longer ample space for students, and that is what we were trying to prevent," Wyhce said.

Although the system failed to work efficiently this semester, it definitely caught people's attention, he said.

"We plan to set this same system into effect for the spring semester. Next time however, I want to get the department heads and deans on board to help solve the problem. We have to start from the root and work our way up to ensure a system that works," Wyche said.

Wyche elaborated on the ill state of Howard's scheduling system, saying that he would definitely need help from administration in the coming semesters in order to see a sufficient change in policy.