On March 23, a new course selection system called “Courses @ Dartmouth” will debut, according to a presentation made during a Dartmouth Student Government meeting on Sunday.
The new system is meant to streamline the process of course selection by creating a single interface that is “user-friendly” and offers a “personalized view of information” for both undergraduate and graduate students, deputy institutional registrar Andrew Ager said during the meeting.
“We squished as much information as possible in a single interface,” Ager said.
The new system will allow students to “shop” for classes through filtered searches by time, availability and course type, which they can then add to a “shopping cart,” Ager said. When selecting courses, students will also be able to see short class descriptions, prior course assessments and course requirements. Courses placed into students’ carts will populate onto a calendar to allow students to view potential course schedules.
The new system also includes the ability to view student course priority rankings and waitlist, as well as a mobile interface and a conditional add/drop that allows students to add classes to their shopping cart before the registration period, according to Ager.
Ager said that this new program will additionally help prevent system malfunctions during heavy user traffic such as the course add/drop period.
“There have been a couple of times when things went down about two minutes into a course change period — that’s not going to happen [anymore],” Ager said.
General senator Ikenna Nwafor ’27 asked about the “visible efficiency difference” for students with the implementation of this program.
Ager noted that the main objective of this new system is to “reduce the number of students with zero courses” following course registration. With this new algorithm, Ager shared that there will be a decrease in the number of students who do not receive any classes, though they did not clarify exactly how the algorithm would do so.
At the weekly meeting, senators also discussed Hanover town government’s plans to renovate South Main Street and their desire for student input on the renovations. The town’s current plans include widening the sidewalks and adding bike lanes.
Allen House senator Daniel Cai ’26 proposed sending a survey, created by the town, to students with questions about improvements to bike lanes and sidewalks.
“Because the students are a big part of the town’s economy, they would like a lot of students to fill out the survey to say that [students] would like improvements in the sidewalk, as well as, bike lanes,” Cai said.
Senators are also exploring implementing DASH as an alternative payment method at Dick’s House Pharmacy. DASH is “a declining balance feature that is available through the Dartmouth ID card … by adding value to your DASH Account you can take advantage of nearly every service on campus,” according to the Dartmouth ID card accounts website.
North Park senator Issa Allison ’29 said the potential implementation of DASH would establish a reimbursement process with financial aid to “ensure that students aren’t feeling like they’re unable to purchase medications.”
Allison also proposed a potential coupon system, funded by Dick’s House, to reduce the prices of medications and make medicine more accessible to students.
“We will ensure that students aren’t feeling like they’re unable to purchase medications, furthermore [we want to put] systems in place to [help] pay for prescription or overtime medications,” Allison said.
During last week’s meeting, HanUnder student organizer Shakeb Arsalan ’26 proposed expanding HanUnder, the annual student-led arts festival that features performances, visual art, film and digital installations across campus and Hanover, into a regional student arts festival.
With this proposal, Arsalan asked DSG to endorse the HanUnder expansion and co-sign a budget proposal to the Special Programs and Events Committee to fund the expansion. Arsalan said they hoped to develop a Greater HanUnder Arts Management Board to oversee the festival’s expansion and work alongside the Hop Fellows who plan HanUnder.
“The Hop Fellows are already working on this, and this committee will work in collaboration with them,” Arsalan said. “So it was important to make this committee more democratic and more representative of the rest of the campus.”
The senators unanimously passed a vote to endorse the expansion of the HanUnder student arts festival. HanUnder will take place this year from April 23 to April 25.
In a look ahead to the upcoming spring and summer terms, General senator Reece Sharp ’28 shared a proposal to add four new picnic tables across campus to increase outdoor seating availability. Two of the picnic tables will be placed outside Kemeny, one will be on the southwest corner of the Green and the final table will be on Tuck Drive.
Sharp’s request to earmark $5,500 for the picnic tables was unanimously passed by the senators.
DSG Senate meetings occur weekly on Sundays at 7 p.m. in Collis 101 and are open to all students.
