TO THE EDITOR:
I would like to respond to the editorial Registration woes: Registering during the week unfair"" (April 3).
The Registrar's Office has made many changes to registration practices since 2005 — all in response to student concerns. Many do not remember the previous methods when 4,500 students were assigned to one time, 10 a.m. on Saturday morning. During the first 15 minutes of early registration for spring 2006, students received 50,000 system overloaded"" try later"" messages. The system was not serving students well and was in danger of failing.
Registration assignment times were not the only problem. Students could not register after 5 p.m." on weekends or during the summer. Yet we were limited in our ability to make changes because our computer system is old and not very flexible. Several great committees of programmers students and staff helped us find ways to make improvements.
Our first change was to spread registration out on Saturdays dividing students randomly and assigning multiple start times. Some called this approach unfair because a person could have an unlucky time two semesters in a row. Yet" the number of complaints dropped dramatically and the system generated no ""system overload"" alerts.
The next semester" we divided students into alphabetical groups of four before randomly assigning registration times. Each term the alpha groups are shuffled and a student can never be in the latest assigned group twice in four semesters. This step was soundly criticized but it made the system fairer.
The move to weekdays was in response to complaints about Saturday activities such as employment family responsibilities travel or athletic events.
In addition students often failed in their attempts to register on Saturday because of administrative problems that could only be resolved during business hours. The Daily Tar Heel editorial suggests that all students who had problems registering on Saturday had procrastinated or lacked initiative. This is not the case.
As University Registrar I would never recommend that students miss class or interrupt their instructors during class to register. Students should register after class if they have a conflict. Only 90 to 120 students are added each 15 minute interval and this small number is selecting from nearly 10000 sections. This presents a less serious problem for a student than waiting until Monday.
Based on the large steady drop in the number of complaints about registration I am convinced the changes were needed and are working. I am very grateful to the students and staff who have participated in planning meetings. We have attempted to consider the needs of all students and while the registration system is far from perfect — it is much improved.
Alice Poehls
University Registrar
Editor's note: The word limit was waived to allow full explanation of viewpoints.