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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 1987)
IIJ.USTKATION BV KIM III.K MKAII Registering by Remote Tired of long registration lines? Let your fingers do the waiting: register by telephone, as queue-weary stu dents are doing from Iowa State to Union CommunityCoI lege in New Jersey. Comput erized registration is in use or about to be installed at 30 col leges across the country, ac cording to Perception Tech nology, the Massachusetts firm that introduced the system lour years ago. Armed with a complex packet full of course code num bers, students gain access to their school’s computerized registration system by punch ing the appropriate keys on a touch-tone telephone. Coursescan Ik*chosen, added or dropped simply by entering the right codes. If the course* is full or another problem arises, a touch of a button can bring a live operator on for assistance. "This is really a ’have-it-your-way’ kind of thing,” says Perception Tech nology’s product-manage ment director John E. Halde man. "You're doing it where and when you want.” The process has not been en im "CHOICE" tirely glitch-free, however. When dost* to 20,000 students first used the system last fall at Texas A&M, the most com mon complaint was a frequent busy signal. "You have to get in by luck,” said Michael Buck, a freshman aerospace-engi neering major, who tried to get through to the computer for two hours and then was cut off twice. But most students sur veyed loved the convenience. As A&M junior David White put it: "Kven when you're wait ing with a busy signal you still can eat or watch TV.” That’s not easy to do in most registra tion lines. A Closer Shave at BYU Scrawling mustaches onto paintings is nothing new, but officials at Brigham Young have pulled a reverse twist. BYU’s administration asked artist Ron Bell to de whisker the portrait they had commissioned of Karl (J. Maeser, principal of Brigham Young Academy (BYU’s prede cessor). Maeser, who headed the academy from 1876 to 1892, was bearded in the old photo graph from which Bell painted. But since the hirsute ’60s, beards have been banned at the conservative Mormon cam pus.'They thought it was a con flict of codes,” says Bell, who complied and gave his por trait—done for the campus di rectory—a closer shave. Student leaders, however, took the opportunity tocriticize BYU rules, which prohibit any hairstyle on chin or pate that would draw "undue at tention.” The story inspired a special edition of the student newspaper headlined censor ship: IX)ES BYU HAVE A RE STRAINING HAND?and attracted unwelcome publicity off cam pus. Both Bell and BYU said the fuss was unwarranted. "Everything made it appear that I was violated as an artist, and that just wasn’t tTue,” says Boll. Those who want to see what Maeser really looked like in his hairy days, meanwhile, can always visit the campus statue that memorializes him—beard intact. Troubling stubble: BYUartist Bell with clean-cut Maeser _ c;h>ki;k KKKY Dealing With Bomb Threats Bomb threats are a fact of life for many big institu tions, but Oklahoma State may have achieved some sort of record: 44 threats in the last five years. In addition to disrupting classrooms and dormitories, the threats carry a hefty price tag—about $330,000 in overtime pay for se curity forces alone. Officials at OSU say that some of the threats are phoned in by students who try to dis rupt exams.Three years ago po lice solved the case of a bomb threat in the physical-sciences classroom building after in terviewing a professor who was scheduled to give a test there that day. When they found out that one of his students was failing the course, they ques tioned him—and found their culprit. Over the last five years, police have arrested five stu dents for making bomb threats; all were convicted and paid fines of at least $500. Bomb threats have become so common at OSU that offi cials are reluctant to evacuate a building unless they strongly suspect that someone has really planted a bomb—a policy that makes many students un easy. "The police are thinking there’s only a one in a million instance where a bomb exists,” says senior journalism major Greg Blanchard. "But I never want to be in that minority.” Duels Over Divestment Divestment campaigners at Syracuse want to put their money where their mouths are. After denouncing the board of trustees’ refusal to completely divest holdings in companies that do business in South Africa, the Syracuse Stu dent Government Association announced it would police stu
