Undergraduate Change of Major, Minor, Concentration Approval Process

Please reference instructions found at this article:  UG Change of Major, Minor, Concentration - Student Instructions.

If a change request affects any of the above listed college programs, the form first will be routed to the designated college Workflow Approver group which is maintained by Enrollment Management. The members of these groups (may include one or more persons) will receive an email notification from ‘Villanova Softdocs Notification' indicating that a change of major, minor or concentration has been requested and are directed to their Etrieve inbox to review and approve. 

Any member of the WF Approver group can review and either approve or decline the request which directly affects their college program. 

APPROVE REQUEST 
Please review the request for accuracy and contact the student if there are any questions before approving a request.  

If any adjustments are needed, the approver can add them now or Return the form to the student for correction. For example, the item selected by the student might not reflect what they indicated in the description, or part of the request is incorrect or will be denied. After a discussion with the student the approver may adjust the form to reflect the correct change. Also, if the change involves a change of advisor, the approver can make Advisor Updates. Finally, if the change requires an update to Attributes (removal, addition, or change), the college approver can also do this. 

If approving the request please provide College Comments indicating the approval, and any adjustments made to the student's request before clicking the Approve button on the bottom of the form screen. The form will then be routed to the next stage of the process. If additional requests are made which affect another department or college, the form will continue through those steps. If it does not involve another step, then the form will be routed to the Office of the Registrar for processing.  

DENY REQUEST 
If denying the request, you will be required to enter a Denial Reason before clicking on the Decline button on the bottom of the form.  For more information, go to Decline in the Key above. 

If a change request affects a CLAS student, the form will be routed to the student’s Primary Advisor to notify the advisor of the change request and details. The primary advisor will receive an email notification from ‘Villanova Softdocs Notification’ and will need to approve the request to move it through the approval process for CLAS programs. If the form was previously approved by another college (due to a minor or concentration request that falls under their purview) the details will be contained on the form and/or behind the History icon on the form.  

Please record advisor comments behind the History icon on the form.  Don't forget to save the comments and close before taking further action with the workflow icons.

APPROVE REQUEST 
Please review the request for accuracy and contact the student if there are any questions before approving a request.  If any adjustments are needed, the advisor can add them now. For example, the item selected by the student might not reflect what they indicated in the description. Or part of the request might be denied (ex: student is declaring primary major prematurely along with minor declaration, the primary major cannot be evaluated at this time, but the minor can.) After a discussion with the student the approver may adjust the form to reflect the correct change or return the form to the student to make the correction. 

If approving the request, click the Approve icon on the bottom of the form screen. The form will then be routed to the next stage of the process, which is CLAS department review. 

DENY REQUEST 
Typically, the advisor should not deny a curriculum change request unless they know a valid reason the request would be denied by a department or college program (i.e, declaring the major prematurely or other reason). If denying the request, the denying party will be required to enter a Denial Reason before clicking on the Decline button on the bottom of the form. For more information, go to DECLINE in the Key section. 

If a change request affects a CLAS department program, the form will be routed to all the departments (one at a time) affected for review. A maximum of 6 departments can be involved in change requests which constitute removal, addition or change of a major, minor or concentration. The designated Department Workflow (WF) Approver group, typically the department chair, admin or their designee will be responsible to review and approve the request. The members of the Department WF Approver group (may include one or more persons) will receive an email notification from ‘Villanova Softdocs Notification’ that a change of major, minor or concentration has been requested and are directed to their Etrieve inbox to review and approve. 

 Any member of the WF Approver group can review and either approve or deny the request which directly affects their college program. Note, once a member of the WF Approver group opens the form in Etrieve, the form is LOCKED, and the person must either move the form through the process (approve/refer/deny) or unlock the form before it can be accessed by anyone else. If you open a locked form, it will indicate who has the form locked and you will not be able to act on the form until it is unlocked (by the person who locked it or by a workflow administrator).  

APPROVE REQUEST 
Please review the request for accuracy and contact the student if there are any questions before approving a request. 

If any adjustments are needed, the approver can add them now. For example, the item selected by the student might not reflect what they indicated in the description. After a discussion with the student the approver may adjust the form to reflect the correct change. Also, if the change involves a change (removal, addition or change) of advisor, the department approver can make that change on the form. 

Advisor Update Section (to be performed by the Department)

To change a Primary Academic Advisor, click on the Remove check box to cross out the existing advisor and search for the new advisor in the row below.  Select the new advisor. Both rows will turn blue indicating there is a change.   The college/OUS will perform the change in Banner after the Registrar updates the student's curriculum record in banner.  
 

The student's Other Academic Advisors will appear in this section (if any).  To add another academic advisor (in addition to Primary Advisor), click on Add Row and search for the advisor in the row.  Select the advisor name and ID.  To remove an advisor from the list, click the remove check box to cross out the advisor name and ID or click remove row.

If approving the request, click the Approve button on the bottom of the screen, beneath the form. The form will then be routed to the next stage of the process. If there are more departments involved this process repeats until all departments have reviewed and approved. Then the form is routed to the Office for Undergraduate Students for review before processing.

DENY REQUEST 
If denying the request, the denying party will be required to enter a Denial Reason before clicking on the Decline button on the bottom of the form. 

The Ellis Center  is involved when a change affects a CLAS program, or a change is made by a CLAS student. The form will flow to the OUS WF Approver Group (maintained by Enrollment Management).  An email notification will be sent to the group members indicating that a change is awaiting final approval. 

Any member of the OUS WF Approver group can review and either approve or deny the request. Note, once a member of the WF Approver group opens the form in Etrieve, the form is LOCKED, and the person must either move the form through the process (approve/refer/deny) or unlock the form before it can be accessed by anyone else. If you open a locked form, it will indicate who has the form locked and you will not be able to act on the form until it is unlocked (by the person who locked it or by a workflow administrator). 

APPROVE REQUEST 
Please review the request for accuracy and contact the student or previously approving department if there are any questions before approving a request. 

If any adjustments are needed, the approver can add them now. For example, the item selected by the student might not reflect what they indicated in the description. After a discussion with the student the approver may adjust the form to reflect the correct change. Also, if the change involves a change (removal, addition, or change) of Advisor, the college approver can make that change on the form. 

Advisor Changes - Ellis Center Update to Banner

Advisor changes that were updated by the department will be highlighted in blue under the Primary Advisor and Other Advisor sections of the form. Ellis Center staff will update Banner SGAADVR for these changes.   Make sure the changes on the form correctly reflect the changes in Banner.     

Attribute Update Section (to be performed by the Ellis Center

If the change requires an update to Attributes (removal, addition, or change), the college approver should enter this information on the form. Registrar staff will make the necessary updates to banner regarding student attribute changes.

Changes in Student Attributes should be updated by the college by clicking the remove check box to remove existing attributes or by adding rows to add others. Search the row for a drop-down of available student attributes. 

If approving the request, click the Approve button on the bottom of the screen, beneath the form. The form will then be routed to the next stage of the process. If there are more departments involved this process repeats until all departments have reviewed and approved. Then the form is routed to the Ellis Center for review before processing. 

DENY REQUEST 
If denying the request, the denying party will be required to enter a Denial Reason before clicking on the Decline button on the bottom of the form screen. 

Once the form has completed the entire flow process, the form will be routed to the Registrar Group inbox. A notification will be sent to the party responsible for updating changes in curriculum on the banner record. The changes will be entered into banner (SGASTDN student form) according to the request and all history will be tracked on the form for reference.  

Once the Registrar staff approves the form, the workflow sends email notifications to the following parties with confirmation of the change: Student, All Approvers, Primary Advisor (pre and post change), and Registrar Officials in the case of Veteran, Athlete, Foreign Nationals and Students with Senior class status.

FINAL RECORD STORAGE OF APPROVED CHANGE REQUEST 
The approved request document will be automatically routed and saved in the student’s electronic student record (Etrieve Content) with the document title “Curriculum Changes MM/DD/YYYY”, retained according to the University’s retention requirements for a change in Academic Program.

DENIED REQUESTS 
The Declined Document (pdf) will be saved in the student’s electronic student folder (Etrieve Content) where the form history will be retained.