Telephones never stop ringing at Registrar Gene Priday's office.
By the time Brigham Young University is finished with late registration, Priday and his four full-time and 10 part-time employees will process close to 170,000 registrations and more than 80,000 changes in class schedules.On the second day of class alone Priday's office processed more than 9,000 add/drop cards.
"The second day of class is our largest volume day, because it is the last day to drop classes without paying a fee," Priday said. In addition to all the class add/drop cards processed by hand, Priday's office processes an uncounted number of registration changes by computer.
"We are right now just hooking up something to count how many calls come in through our touch-tone registration system. We have 48 phone lines going into the computer system, and they seem to be busy all the time," Priday said.
BYU installed the nation's first telephone registration system in 1983. Touch-tone registration is currently used by most of Utah's colleges and universities, making long registration lines a thing of the past.
"Students are able to call at their convenience and find out what is available, 24 hours a day. If the particular section a student wants is full, our system even gives alternate times and sections for the same class. Right now we can list up to five available sections," Priday said.
After the first three days of the semester, most students have the classes they need, and Priday's office settles down to an almost normal routine, but the calm doesn't last too long.
"We don't have a lot of lulls," Priday said. After late registration is over, the registrar's office has two weeks before the telephone lines open again and Priday's staff starts working on the next semester's rush.