Registrar Reforms

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Recently I received a letter from the Office of the Registrar informing me that "an error in your entry of the catalogue number for Slavic 101" had occurred and that "we still must charge the $15 fee for processing this correction."

What is the rationale for charging me this fee? The letter suggests that costs of processing and correcting these errors are significant. Reports from the undergraduate section of the office indicate otherwise. I spoke with a worker at the office over the phone and she indicated to me that such errors were corrected in the course of data entry; evidently, the workers are familiar enough with the course catalogue numbers to notice mistakes or the computer simply won't accept the incorrect course numbers. In such cases, there is no additional cost incurred by the Register'. Office due to student error.

Clearly some other reason compels the Office to charge undergraduates this fee. I won't suggest that profit is a reason, although I would respectfully suggest that the Registrar's Office will suffer a severe image problem when it becomes known that it makes $2000 to $3000 each semester from the mistakes of an unfortunate 100 to 200 students. I would guess then that the rationale behind charging students this fee is that you hope to discourage students from making errors which would complicate the process of registration.

I respectfully question the justices of arbitrarily deciding to penalize students in this manner. Students will make mistakes. Admittedly, if this $15 fee for mistakes in the course number entry was more widely publicized then perhaps the number of mistakes could be reduced.

However, it is not the University's role to shape behavior through use of financial disincentives. To a certain extent, we students are a captive population. The University can fine use for a variety of things which make running the college more difficult. However, the fact remains that we pay for our education. The students pay the Registrar's salary and the ultimate purpose of the Office of the Registrar is to serve the students' educational needs. If a students makes a trivial mistake which costs nothing to correct, they have a right to expect service. I knew, these are strong words, but to students who so often must simply accept without question university requirements, and who work to pay for their tuition, this is significant financial and ethical issues. Jon Berner'96