Washburn has altered their Complete Withdrawal process. Before this Fall semester, students had readily available access to withdrawing themselves from the university completely with no ifs, ands or buts. After seeing possible negative student impacts from this process, the institution is adapting their process to what they feel will be most beneficial to their students.

Following the new protocol, in order for students to withdrawal themselves from the university, the student must contact the institution’s new student success coach. The SSC can be found reached through the academic advising office, which is located in Mabee Library.

“The new process is that when [one] is trying to complete a total withdraw from the university, we have a new Student Success Coach that was set up to try and catch those students who may be dropping prematurely or who may just be dropping their classes because maybe their financial aid hasn’t gone through,” said Yvette Phifer, University Service Adviser. “We try to catch those students to try to help them to make sure that there is nothing we can help them with before they do the total withdrawal.”

Phifer explained that issues arose with the original self-withdrawal process because some students sometimes get frustrated with the financial aid process.

“They don’t really understand how it works, so sometimes they may need a little guidance on how to complete it so they can get the payment for school. Or, some students, say, if they’re having a personal issue with an instructor,… they just drop not knowing that there may be a work-around, or maybe we can get them into a different class,” Phifer said.

The faculty at Washburn University want to help students in any way they can in order to keep them enrolled in classes so that the student can further pursue their degree.

“I think that it’s good just to learn feedback for Washburn, like if [the student is] withdrawing because they decided they don’t want to go here or [are] going somewhere else, [Washburn University] know[s] the reasons,” said Rheanna Leckner, sophomore. 

Hannah Arneson, another Washburn University sophomore, and Leckner are both in favor of the new policy. Leckner and Arneson think that the student success counselor will serve as a benefit rather than as a disadvantage, “…especially if [the student(s)] are just overwhelmed. If [the student(s)] want to drop out completely, talking to somebody could help them and they could figure out a better plan than just completely leaving.”

Arneson added, “And it might be their first time actually talking to a faculty member about it because they may not have known where to go before.” 

However, this newly created process covers only total-withdrawal from Washburn University, not dropping singular classes. Regarding the means of dropping one or a few classes, a student is still able to do this by themselves. They can complete this process through MyWashburn. There are a few, yet extremely vital things to remember about all of this, though.

The last day to receive a 100 percent tuition refund is Friday, Aug. 31. The last opportunity to receive a 40 percent tuition refund is Friday, Sept. 7. The last day to receive a 20 percent tuition refund is Friday, Sept. 14. The final day to withdraw, student will not receive any percentage of a tuition refund, is Friday, Nov. 2.

It is highly suggested that students analyze how their classes are going and what actions they wish to pursue with them.