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Oregon daily
emerald
Friday, June 3, 1983
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 84, Number 167
Jury’s still out on ‘pre-registration’
By Aleta Zak
Of ttw Emerald
What has been called the first step
toward pre-registration — the course
request form students filled out earlier
this term — is now helping depart
ments adjust their course offerings for
next year.
Or is it?
Although some department heads
say they welcome the new information
about courses students plan to take
next fall, others say the figures are of
little help in planning specific classes.
Nearly 5,000 students listed the
courses they plan to take next fall and
returned the forms to the registrar’s of
fice. The information was compiled
and forwarded to individual depart
ments to use in planning course sizes,
adding needed sections and dropping
others.
“It’s very helpful information,” says
James Tattersall, economics depart
ment head. "We were able to add an ex
tra class in one case, and we got a
larger room for another. Our problem is
trying to spread the resources of the
department around the best we can."
Tattersall says using the course re
quest data to plan future courses is
better than using enrollment figures
from past terms.
“It’s hard to go by historic enroll
ment data, because sometimes we
change the curriculum material or the
time of day the course is offered,” he
says.
However, Richard Brown, head of
the history department, prefers to go
by past enrollment statistics rather
than the new course request informa
tion to plan course offerings.
“If 10 people say they’re going to
take a certain course next year, but
we’ve had 40 people in the course in
the past, what are we going to do?”
Brown asks. “We Know the 10 figure is
low, so we have to go with the higher
number to make sure we order enough
books."
Theodore Palmer, mathematics
department head, says the course re
quest data helped faculty plan for one
class that will become a business
school requirement next year. By ex
amining the pre-enrollment statistics,
the department decided to add extra
sections.
But Don Lytle, director of
undergraduate affairs for the business
school, says the course request
statistics were of no use to his depart
ment because business school faculty
already is stretched to its limits.
“We don’t have the resources to
meet the demand that’s already there,”
Lytle says. “We knew we had more
students than courses we could offer,
so we can’t use the information to add
any more courses.”
Registrar Wanda Johnson says
she’s glad to help the departments
plan their classes in the future, but she
is disappointed that so many students
returned the forms without first seeing
their advisers.
“Any pre-registration program is on
ly as good as the academic advising
system,” says Johnson.
Joseph Hynes, associate dean of
arts and sciences, believes students
would benefit by simply reading the
University catalog more carefully.
"We can’t police the students,” says
Hynes. “It’s up to them to be more alert
to the graduation requirements. They
should just turn off the stereo, sit still
for five minutes and read the
catalogue."
Pretzel man twists wares into profit
By Sean Meyers
Of th# Emerald
Ah, yet another story about the broken
dreams of youth. Another maudlin story
about the unmarketability of an arts
degree in a depressed economy:
Man gets degree. Man tries to get a job
in his field but fails. To survive, man ac
cepts menial tasks — sprucing up lawns,
whatever. The work isn’t steady enough,
so man ends up selling foodstuffs on a
streetcorner to make ends meet.
But the man, Tom Visoky, is on a very
prestigious streetcorner. And the
foodstuffs, soft pretzels, are considerably
more lucrative than Depression-era
apples.
"I'm very happy with where I am right
now,” Visoky says. “Things are really
coming together. I see a lot of things on
the horizon.”
Visoky, a 1981 University journalism
graduate, grew discouraged at his lack of
job prospects. With the landlord baying at
the door, he turned to that most venerable
of American institutions for help — the
small business.
“I just sat down and thought ‘what can
you do on your own, your own business,
and do it on a shoestring?’ At that point, I
only had $20 to $30 left," he says. “Then I
realized that nobody sold soft pretzels in
Eugene. I got really excited thinking
about it, and that’s when I came up with
the name ‘Pretzel Logic.’ ”
But Visoky correctly guessed that
street vending was not without its share
of bureaucratic snafus. The more he in
vestigated the possibility of starting up
his pretzel business, the more com
plicated the task became.
First, he had to win approval from the
Eugene Parks and Recreation District,
which regulates street vending on the
downtown mall.
With only three days to go before the
deadline, he wrote and submitted a suc
cessful proposal to sell pretzels and ap
ple cider.
Then the state health department had
to approve Visoky’s kitchen. After hemm
ing and hawing, the state decided the kit
chen fell under the county’s jurisdiction.
The county refused to issue him a license
to prepare his pretzels in a private
kitchen.
“That just about killed me,” Visoky
says. “I almost lost it right there."
He began a long search for an
established bakery that would either bake
Visoky’s pretzels or allow him to use its
facilities for a fee.
But businesses willing to bake his
pretzels wanted too much money, and
other area businesses, such as Monster
Cookies, didn’t have the time or
resources to put out another product.
Visoky needed to find someone who
was “hungry like me,” he says. In other
words, he needed the Cookie Man, one of
Monster Cookies’ competitors.
They cut a deal, but Visoky couldn’t
begin cutting pretzels yet. First, he need
ed a vending cart, which he says can cost
as much as $3,000 for the bare
necessities.
Again he scoured the city, finally
locating a hot dog vender who wanted to
unload his cart for $750.
"I asked him if he would take $725,”
says Visoky, who had arranged a $1,000
loan wilh a friend’s help. “I was looking to
cut corners wherever I could.”
But Visoky's troubles weren't over yet.
He still had to figure out how to heat up
the pretzels.
“Steam heat is too hard to work with,”
Visoky says. Again, fortune stepped in.
An acquaintance got married, and the
union created a homeless General Elec
tric Toast R Oven. It fit into a cubbyhole of
his cart perfectly.
After hurdling all the obstacles, Visoky
is now cranking out whole wheat, plain
and salted pretzels and selling them by
the downtown mall fountain, a premium
location for which he pays the city an ex
tra $15 fee each month.
As summer temperatures rise, so will
apple cider sales. And Visoky plans to
come out with a cheese pretzel soon. He
also talks of putting another cart on the
streets.
"I’m not getting rich, and I don’t think
I’ll ever be Zoke’s Pretzels International,"
says Visoky. “But I see some possibilites,
the potential to make a good living.
Maybe I’ll find my niche.”
As for his aborted journalism career,
Visoky harbors no hard feelings. He even
plays with the idea of working a few
freelance assignments into his busy
schedule.
“I don’t feel any remorse at all,” says
Visoky. “In a few years, I might end up
back in journalism, but first I’m going to
give this a chance to go as far as it can
go."
Photo by Bob Baker
Tom Visoky, a graduate from the University journalism school, now owns and
runs a soft pretzel stand in the downtown mall.