What was once exclusively offered to the College of Medicine, will soon be available for all Central Michigan University students.
Starting March 30, students will have the option to register for a full academic year.
Registrar, Keith Malkowski said if students chose this option, the university will be able to better coordinate course scheduling in a given academic year.
"It helps the academic department make better planning decisions," Malkowski said. "They start to see a little more clarity where the student demands are, where the students are naturally migrating with their course selections. They can plann ahead and get a sense of where they need to add a course or need to refine some of the enrollment capacities."
The university's enrollment has been on a slight decline for a number of years now.
Malkowski said CMU consulted with Grand Valley State University about the change and he said GVSU shows a greater rentention rate.
"What we want students to be able to do is to see a connectivity of their entire program or their interests to see where it might lead them," Malkowski said. "From the institutions that have done this in the past, they indicate that it has helped with retention because students start to see it as a longer range master plan."
CMU added a new feature called My Academic Plan (MAP). Malkowski said this will help students view their four years as a "road map". He said students should seek help from an academic advisor.
Malkowski said this option does not impact semester payments, students do not have to pay for multiple-semesters at one time.
Course schedules for summer 2020 semester, fall 2020 semester and spring 2021 semester will be avaliable on Feb. 13.
