March 30, 2020
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The following is being sent on behalf of Jeffrey Stopple, Associate Vice Chancellor, Office of Undergraduate Education
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Dear Faculty Colleagues,
I am writing with an urgent request: Please consider opening your GauchoSpace sites to crashers. I will explain why this is so important momentarily. To assuage your fears, though: please be aware this certainly does not give students an approval code, any more than allowing them in the classroom does in a face to face class.
Here are the reasons for my urgent request:
First, in the switch to remote instruction, we lost about 2400 seats in classes, and created 1700 in new or expanded classes. The 1700 seats are already more or less full. But the 2400 seats lost are still on the books as phantom units. The process of cancelling classes is distinct from the process of dropping students from those classes, which has not yet happened. Thus about 10% of undergrads are going to lose a class on their schedule soon. Another 168 students are categorized as EAP in programs which have been cancelled. These students also need classes or will have to withdraw for spring.
Second, despite efforts on messaging about waitlists, only 4% of all Gauchospace sites are configured to allow course crashers. For virtually all classes, there is no way to get off the waiting list.
Over 400 students are enrolled in classes but have not yet paid their spring fees. Many of these will be lapsed for nonpayment, and space in their classes will become available but will go to waste if you do not facilitate course crashing. Opening your courses and posting your policies on crashing on Gauchospace will save you from a deluge of emails.
For details about how to do this on Gauchospace, see
Thank you for considering this.
Jeffrey Stopple
Associate Vice Chancellor
Office of Undergraduate Education