Tim Tai, Senior Photographer

With course registration for next semester having opened for the class of 2025 on Monday morning, global affairs majors shared frustration with a number of changes to this year’s registration process, including the removal of preregistration and a limited number of course offerings listed on Yale Course Search.

Undergraduates in the global affairs major are not able to pre-register for fall 2024 courses, according to an April 9 email from Director of Undergraduate Studies Bonnie Weir. Many students sorely feel the loss of preregistration — a process that global affairs major Rohan Krishnan ’24 called “extremely helpful.” 

“The course selection process is going to be a free-for-all all when it opens, which is really frustrating for me,” said global affairs major Ross Armon ’25. “Seniors in the major should get the highest priority for classes, but that isn’t possible this year.”

Other majors, such as history, allow students to pre-register for certain departmental seminars in order to give priority to students in the major. The global affairs major has previously worked under the same system. 

Some students in the major told the News that the reason for the change is because the department does not have a registrar for this semester. The department’s previous registrar, Jana Baslikova, left Yale in January to take a position at Denison University, while the previous assistant registrar, Taylor Spadacenta, now works as a senior administrative assistant in degree audit. The department still lists Baslikova and Spadacenta as registrars on their website.

Eleanor Schoenbrun ’25 wrote that she became aware of the vacated position’s impact when the department was slow to resolve scheduling concerns at the start of the spring semester, forcing professors to work through concerns themselves.

Schoenbrun also noted the unusually low number of courses offered within the global affairs major next semester, which has dropped from 94 in fall 2023 to 52 in fall 2024. The drop is part of a college-wide trend, as the number of courses overall is down from 4,268 in fall 2023 to 3,114 in fall 2024.

Armon, who chose the global affairs major due to its selection of seminars and opportunities to engage with faculty, says the lack of communication overall regarding the department’s class offerings next fall has been upsetting.

“I don’t really know what the available options are or if they’re going to add more,” he said.

In an email to the News on Sunday, Weir wrote that an interim registrar had been assisting the global affairs department.

She added that the department has found a new registrar who would begin work on Monday.

“Jackson’s new full-time registrar and director of academic affairs begins work tomorrow,” Weir wrote, withholding a name. “And we thank our global affairs students for their patience and understanding during this transition time.”

The Jackson School, known before 2022 as the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, was built after a 2009 gift from John W. Jackson ’67 and Susan G. Jackson.