Officials to make changes in PARIS

Students who disobey PARIS may find themselves to be rebels without a class. Registrar's Office officials said last week that students who register improperly for multiple-activity courses will be stricken from pre-registration lists. They also altered the PARIS recording to warn students of the change. University Registrar Ron Sanders said last week that improper registration is "an age-old problem," adding that 1099 students failed to properly sign up for all sections of multiple-activity classes last semester. He said that some students requested recitations or laboratories for lectures in which they were not enrolled, and that others neglected to sign up for the sections at all. "Students would attend one lecture, and go to the recitation of a different lecture in the same course," he said. "It wasn't clicking that what they were learning wasn't following what was taught in lecture." He said officials were forced to toughen the system because the registration errors closed out other students and also posed difficulties for departments and for schedulers trying to sort out class lists. Under the new system, if a student registers for a lecture during advance registration and fails to register for the corresponding recitation or laboratory, the entire request will be automatically dropped at the end of the advance registration period, Sanders said. During the drop/request period, if a student registers for a lecture and fails to properly sign up for the recitation or laboratory, the request for all parts of the course will be dropped at the end of each day. Sanders said reminders will be put into the course register and programmed into the PARIS recording. Instead of the Ohio deejay who announces most of the PARIS instructions, a former information data specialist recorded a warning to students to sign up for all parts of multiple-part courses. He added that in some cases, students can choose not to sign up for a laboratory section of a course if the department okays the request. But those students will have to ensure that the department clears the particular request with the Registrar's Office before the student attempts to sign up for the course. Otherwise, the request will be treated as any other incomplete registration and will be dropped at the end of the appropriate time. Student Information and Systems Executive Director John Smolen said last week that the voice change in the PARIS recording is obvious and should draw attention to the message. "There is a distinct difference in voices," he said. "This one almost yells it out." "We don't want students to be surprised if their requests are dropped," he added. Smolen said he hopes the new warning and the voice difference will alert students to the consequences of improper registration and will be more effective than past attempts. "The old PARIS system had a kind of warning," Smolen said. "But students ignored it. They grossly ignored it." Advance registration begins November 5 at midnight. Students can call the 573-PENN number -- changed from last semester's 243-PENN number -- from 7 a.m to 3 a.m. for the following two weeks.

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