ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 21, 1996 TAG: 9608210080
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
When Chris Rosen enrolled at Radford University in the fall of 1993, registration for classes was, in his words, "regular."
You know. Small slips of paper. Long lines. Once, the line to sign up for the semester's courses "went out the back of Heth," the university's student center, Rosen said. "And it almost went to the fountain a couple of times."
But last year, something new and wonderful happened to the old and frustrating system. Technology allowed administrators to link those classes to touch-tone telephones. There's no more standing in line.
"I've done it from home. I've done it from school," Rosen said.
Aren't computers wonderful?
Touch-tone registration arrived at Radford the same year Virginia Tech sent its first admission application into cyberspace - and received 60 applications within two days.
"It turned out to be a good thing to put it up initially during a slow period, so we could test it," said Kelly Queijo, who spearheads technology programs for the admissions office.
Just as office workers call in their annual benefits orders, or library patrons use a computerized "card" catalog, students will find campus life changing with the technological times.
When the school year starts later this month, students who applied on line will arrive on campus. Some will conduct the dreaded drop-add procedure by signing onto class rolls via computer - if the computer says they have taken the prerequisites.
Dorm life has been perked up by technology for years with forwarding voice-mail messages winging their way from room to room.
The dining halls, too. Remember when the campus salad bar was a stunning innovation? Now, students don't even have to wait to find out what mystery meat is on the menu. At Tech, they just call up the "dineline."
When Radford students look for journals in the library, they descend to the ground floor. There, with the press of a button, hundreds of stacks shift like Batman's cave door. Pressure pads line the floor inside the shelves, signaling a computer to halt further movement if somebody's inside.
But it's the mind-boggling growth of the Internet that likely will have the biggest affect on campuses. Most students have e-mail addresses and Ethernet connections in the dorm rooms.
At Hollins College, dorm rooms have two connections - so roommates won't have to compete. Everywhere, on-line courses are taking hold.
Virginia Tech students taking a civil-rights class this summer chatted on line with a former freedom rider who helped integrate the Deep South. - and learned more than they ever would have from a book.
Back in high school, students cruising the World Wide Web are learning about colleges they might otherwise never have encountered. What that will mean to enrollments, or even to the makeup of the student body, remains to be seen.
"The biggest growth is yet to come," said David Bousquet, Virginia Tech's outgoing admissions director. "The growth we've seen is tied to families who have PCs and are tied to the Internet. The vast majority of students depend on access from their schools; schools are not yet using the Internet extensively."
Bye-bye to long lines
Radford's rising seniors still get first dibs on the good classes via phone registration, assured by a sophisticated system that doesn't let interlopers in before their assigned moment.
"Basically, you go to your adviser, get a phone registration card and PIN number. They advise you on your classes, just like they ordinarily would, and give you a time you need to call," Rosen said. "It won't let you register if it's not your time. Even if it's five minutes before.
"About the toughest thing you might have to do, if it's busy, you might have to hit redial once or twice," Rosen said.
At Virginia Tech, students have been registering via the in-house computer system for several years. That's old-hat. It's the drop-add system that is bringing joy to student life.
"You don't have to get permission anymore," said Carolyn Meador, a senior from Annapolis, Md. "I drop-add straight from my house."
Patrick Knightly, a business major from Richmond, tried to get into a course for business-majors only back when he was still in the process of switching out of his political science major. As luck would have it, he was able to log on to the computer, see that the class wasn't filled, and enroll himself.
Students who had trouble keeping track of the list of available class times - "which was a pain in the neck," says Tech senior Katy Sinclair - now find salvation because it's on the Internet.
Because"Now they have it on the Internet," she says
Life on campus
Debit cards, the opposite of credit cards, have become popular on campus. At Tech, they are called Hokie Passports.
"You go around to all the Coke machines, the food machines. There's money in the account, and you get food straight from the machine without actually having to fish around for change," said Tech senior Meador.
Radford calls them RU Express Cards, and students can shop with them in local stores. Both systems have come about in the past couple of years.
"I can use it in the bookstore, and in Burger King, and the little drink machines," Tech senior Sarah Joyce said.
"I think this year ... you can use it in some of the restaurants in town. I think it'd be a lot easier for freshmen, too. Your parents can actually monitor your money, and you always have a source," said Joyce, a chemical engineering major from Richmond.
But if they're headed to the dining hall instead of the campus Burger King, students can take advantage of another innovation: the "dineline." Samplings from a recent recording ran the gustatory gamut, served at places with names adopted right out of the local mall's food court: French onion soup at "The Depot," risotto primavera at "The Right Track," or Philly cheese steaks from "The Fast Track."
Any student calling the dineline from a dorm room can quickly arrange to meet the gang for dinner. All you do is use the group message function on your dorm room's voice mail.
So much for the message board affixed to the dorm room door.
Tales about the phone message system, up and running for years now at Tech, have become legion. Weird phone messages make the rounds of campus the same way e-mail users forward funny messages around the world.
"That was a big thing freshman year," Sinclair said. "When we were just discovering the phones."
Life on line
To get on line, most people at home dial through modems. That's a lot slower than the nifty technology students use in their dorm rooms. Many of the region's college students can expect Ethernet connections in their rooms, which means they plug in the computer, and they're already on the Internet.
That has all kinds of implications. Researching papers has become a project easily performed straight from the comfort of home. The problem: Information always needs to be confirmed because the Net means posted information can come from anywhere. However, many organizations closely monitor their home pages and the information contained therein.
Increasingly, students searching for a college discover the school on line. Almost all universities' home pages are filled with eye-catching information. In a culture that demands round-the-clock access to almost everything, a school is only hurting itself if it's not on line, Bousquet said.
Students can apply using an application form found on the web. Radford's on-line application has been up for about a year. Admissions director David Kraus said 100 applications considered for admission this fall came from the Web.
Virginia Tech posted its on-line application in February, deadline time for incoming freshmen. The system uses "cybercash," a setup that allows prospective students to pay their application fee on line via a secured system, says Queijo, the admissions officer. Also, prospective students can create a file with a password, and open it wherever they need to update their application: At the high school guidance counselor's office or at home.
Students still send transcripts by "snail mail," and letters of recommendation come in by U.S. mail, too. But Bousquet predicts that one-third of all applications will come in by the Internet within two years.
One rising Tech freshman applied both on-line and via a regular paper application. Brian Newman of Wytheville discovered the on-line application process while he cruised a CD-ROM program called College View, which is a sort of Barron's Guide to Colleges on CD-ROM.
The benefits to on-line applications: "It was a little easier," said Newman, who expects to major in computer engineering.
The drawbacks: "You still had to send in written transcripts and all."
For now, most of those applications are coming from students who have personal computers. The explosion will come when those computers are in all high schools, too.
"If you think about it, it's a very attractive demographic group for colleges and universities," Bousquet said. "When you think about who owns PCs, it's upper middle-class and beyond. When it comes time to being able to afford college, or being aware of the importance of college, they're more able to pay and more aware of the benefits of being able to pay," he said.
Then there are those nearing the end of their undergraduate careers, and thinking about next year. On-line job postings help some get started; others research graduate schools.
Meador wants to get a doctorate in microbiology. She consulted U.S. News & World Report's top schools.
"Or was it Money Magazine's best colleges?" she said. "They list schools I can't get into. The top 10. I'm looking for something I can actually get into."
Ergo, her on-line search started with the Society for Microbiology's home page. She punched in the degree requirements she sought. She discovered the University of Arizona and the University of Colorado.
"I was able to focus in and not just be shooting blind."
Want to check in with the region's campuses in cyberspace? The State Council of Higher Education in Virginia posts a page that links to all of the state's colleges and universities, both public and private.
To get there:
http://www.schev.edu/vacolleges.html
To reach other area colleges and universities directly:
Virginia Tech: http://www.vt.edu
Radford University: http://www.runet.edu
New River Community College:
http://164.106.121.248
Virginia Western Community College: http://www.vw.cc.va.us/
Hollins College: http://www.hollins.edu/
Roanoke College: http://www.roanoke.edu
University of Virginia: http://www.virginia.edu
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