Despite a population of 155,000 students enrolled across the 12 universities and two colleges in the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, only between 650 and 700 students participate in cross-registration each semester, amounting to a participation rate of between 0.41 percent and 0.45 percent.
Students at member universities are eligible to cross-register by enrolling in classes at other member schools in the program, meant to give students an opportunity to branch out in their scholarly endeavors and experience other academic institutions.
“No university can possibly offer every conceivable course, so cross-registration opens many other avenues,” Consortium President and CEO John Cavanaugh wrote in an email to The Hoya.
The universities and colleges in the Washington consortium include American University, The Catholic University of America, Gallaudet University, George Mason University, The George Washington University, Georgetown University, Howard University, Marymount University, National Intelligence University, National Defense University, Trinity Washington University, University of the District of Columbia and the University of Maryland, College Park.
This semester, 32 Georgetown graduate students and 22 undergraduate students are enrolled in consortium courses at other schools, while 50 graduate and students 123 undergraduate students from other schools are taking consortium classes at Georgetown. One hundred and ninety-seven and 195 students were enrolled in classes at Georgetown through the consortium in fall 2013 and spring 2014 semesters, respectively. A total of 39 Georgetown students cross-registered through the Consortium last fall and a total of 43 Georgetown students did so in the spring.
“From what I hear from students, the excellent opportunities are not as well-known as they could be,” Cavanaugh wrote.
By contrast, though it includes fewer members, Five College Consortium, a consortium of five colleges in or around Amherst, Mass., has about 6,000 students who participate in cross-registration, according to its website. There are approximately 36,500 undergraduate students in the Five College Consortium, which amounts to a participation rate of around 16 percent, over 39 times higher than the Washington consortium’s participation rate. Students in the Reserve Officer Training Corps are more likely to take advantage of cross-registration within the consortium, according to School of Foreign Service Director of Undergraduate Program Mitch Kaneda.
In the Washington, D.C. area, Georgetown is the host school for the Army ROTC, named the Hoya Battalion. There are 134 cadets currently enrolled in the Army ROTC, 27 of whom are Georgetown students, according to Army ROTC Director Lt. Col. Michael Donahue.
Since the Army ROTC program is housed at Georgetown, students from the other participating schools — GWU, CUA, American and Marymount — usually have to travel to Georgetown for required military classes.
“We’re just very fortunate that there is the consortium so it is very easy for a George Washington student to enroll in a class here at Georgetown University,” Donahue said. “Across the country a host program, for instance at the University of Pittsburgh, would also have ROTC students out of Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne, but there may not be a consortium that sort of unites them academically.”
One hundred and four of the 174 visiting students enrolled at Georgetown this semester are in the Army ROTC program.
Aside from fulfilling ROTC requirements, students opt to take part in the consortium’s cross-registration program because they have already fulfilled their major requirements and want to explore other areas of interest that are not offered at Georgetown, according to Patricia Grant, the senior assistant dean of undergraduate programs at the McDonough School of Business.
“Students are rarely doing it to expand their social network and meet other people on other campuses or see what it’s like to take a course at another campus,” Grant said. “They’re more so doing it because they have a free elective space in their curriculum and they have no requirements.”
Students who are interested in registering in a class at another Washington consortium university can do so by requesting that class through their dean. The dean’s office will then work with the registrar’s office to register the student at the other school.
“We are fortunate to be in a metropolitan area with several higher education institutions. When our students identify an opportunity at a consortium university, we work with them to determine its feasibility and, if so, provide our support,” Douglas Little, the senior assistant dean and director of academic affairs at the School of Nursing and Health Studies, wrote in an email.
Zach Highley-Gergel, a GWU junior, took organic chemistry at Georgetown over the summer through the consortium. Highley-Gergel had missed the start of the class at GWU, after studying abroad in the United Kingdom.
“Actually getting into the consortium and starting it was a bit of a pain because of the actual paper writing and stuff like that,” Highley-Gergel said. “But once I was actually in it, it was great. I was integrated as a normal student, classes were good, the lab was good.”
Highley-Gergel said that a setback in his consortium experience was that he did not have access to Georgetown facilities and resources.
“The only annoying thing was I wasn’t allowed a GOCard. And because of not being allowed a GOCard, I couldn’t access some of the things like the library, and I think one or two other places,” Highley-Gergel said.
Aside from cross-registration, the consortium offers a number of other programs such as the Consortium Research Fellows Program for graduate students in certain areas of psychology and computer science and joint library services.
“[The Washington consortium is] a resource that many college students just don’t have,” Grant said. “And so we are pleased that it is something that the Georgetown student can take advantage of if it’s in their academic plan and need.”
