Who Signs What? A guide for signature seekers

  • Adding an Adviser: the faculty member you have asked to serve as your adviser; alternatively, the chair of the department for advice about an available faculty member
  • Adds/Drops: during the second week of term, your actual professor (of the course) your adviser, and a dean. Later: petition FEC (Dean Straughan).
  • Changing an Adviser: the new adviser and the chair of the department, if you are also declaring a major or minor.
  • Degree Applications: Your adviser and chair of the department. Do not leave this until the last minute!
  • Degree Audits: see your adviser for analysis of your degree audit. The department chair or his or her delegate may act as the degree audit officer. Discrepancies must be approved departmentally and forwarded to the University Registrar's Office.
  • Major/Minor Declarations: your new adviser and the chair of the department.
  • Registration permission: see your adviser. Do not expect your adviser to clear you for registration without a conversation.
  • Overloads: now an electronic procedure, routed through your adviser and an associate dean. Here are the acceptable reasons for overloading.
  • Study Abroad course credit preapprovals and final credit applications: See either the department chair or, in some departments, a departmental study abroad liaison. Check in with your adviser. You must ask each person to enter the web-based system for these approvals.
  • Underloads: don't count on it. See a dean for an 11-credit underload after consulting with your adviser. Lower than 11 requires an FEC petition (Dean Straughan). For a medical drop, you must see a doctor or counselor in Student Health Services; SHC recommends action on medical drops to the deans.

"I waited until the last minute and now I can't find my adviser. What do I do?"

Come to the building to find the administrative assistant or the chair of the department. Some assistance may be possible, but if you've left signature-seeking until the last minute, you must recall that faculty have other duties on deadlines: teaching, attending committee meetings, and responsibilities that take them off campus. If you are late with a form to the University Registrar, you may have to pay a fine.