To the Editor:
I have talked with hundreds of individuals in my role as leader of the Banner implementation project over the last year about what Banner is and how it works. As one might expect on a campus like ours, reactions are as diverse as our community membership. There are features of Banner that some individuals like, features that some individuals dislike, and disagreement about which features are positive and negative.
To some extent, our satisfaction with pre-registration in Banner this April - and add/drop next fall - depends on how we approach the next several months. Understanding what Banner is and how it works is the first step. The project team worked with faculty and academic departments last semester so that they could describe their course offerings with Banner in mind. UCS has scheduled student forums next week and the Banner project team has planned demonstrations of the software the last week in February and the first two weeks in March. As the project team completes more and more elements of the implementation, the project website (http://brown.edu/web/intranet/banner/) will become an increasingly useful resource; next week, for example, we will post our spring calendar and launch an interactive FAQ page. We trust that community members will use these resources to learn about Banner. In addition, and as Wednesday's editorial ("Calm down about Banner," Feb. 7) astutely reminds us, the project team must work proactively to assure that faculty, staff and students know how to use the Banner system, and a variety of training initiatives are planned for late March and April.
The second step is for students, faculty, advisers and deans to engage one another in discussing how to use Banner pre-registration to support academic planning. In my experience, faculty and students share common ground on one point: the value of the Brown curriculum and its core principles. After spring break, when the community has had an opportunity to review the Banner course catalogue and class schedule and deans' offices are actively guiding advising processes, we all have an opportunity to think creatively and generously about how best to use Banner.
Finally, after pre-registration and again in the fall, we will need to assess our experience - to identify what worked well and what needs improvement. Individually and collectively, we can expect to make some errors in our first pre-registration. But if we start with sound information, work together to use the technology to support our educational goals, and share constructive feedback, we will build processes that serve the curriculum, students and faculty.
Nancy Dunbar Associate ProvostFeb. 7
