Wednesday, December 10,1986/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
visers: Good outweighs bad
for phone registration system
By Bob Grube
Staff Writer
f
e four weeks of endless busy signals and
phone receivers, the preregistration pe-
* Hriod > s almost over. 1 he seniors at e relieved after
■getting the courses they need. The freshman are
■upset because all of their c lasses were (losed. Hut
His the new phone registration system really all it's
up to be?
Claude Gibson, chairman of the under-
jduate advisers in the Department of English,
is the system has advantages for both students
and faculty advisers.
|The new system allows registration to extend
past the normal operating hours, and that is a
|defini(e advantage for the students,” Gibson says.
“The system also allows the students to take more
^ responsibility for what they are signing up for. It
es them read their degree plans a little more
carefully than when an adviser was doing it for
them.
“Advisers benefit from the system, too. We no
C jger have to spend time performing the me-
Jnical aspects of registration, like verifying
** t Schedules and class rosters on the computer.
I That took a lot of time to do. Now, we can spend
\ that time more efficiently, answering specific
fregistration-type questions.
—Vi think the new system is more efficient and
business-like.”
While Gibson thinks the system has many ad
vantages, he says it also has a few disadvantages
that students need to be aware of.
“When students came to see the adviser, many
mistakes were caught by the adviser,” Gibson
says. “Now it’s up to the student to catch those
mistakes. It’s more of a coincidence if the adviser
catches a mistake now.
“Another disadvantage of the new system is
the decrease of one-to-one communication be
tween the student and the adviser. Many depart
ments offer special topics courses — 489 courses
— that are many times announced by a flyer on
the departement bulletin board. Without the ad
viser-student contact, students are on their own
to find out about the course.”
Gibson says the advising load at the Depart
ment of English has lightened a little, but he
doesn’t know yet whether the system is a success.
“I think the system is saving everybody time,
but I’m reserving judgment on it until January
when it shuts down,” Gibson says. “I have this
great fear that 300 students are'going to be lined
up outside my door during the first week of
school because they tried to register on their own
and something went wrong.”
Willard P. Worley, associate professor and fac
ulty adviser in the Department of Electrical Engi
neering, isn’t waiting to pass judgment on the
new system. He’s been at Texas A&M since 1939,
either as a student or a professor, and has seen
many forms of undergraduate registration. He
thinks this form is by far the best.
“When I was a student, we had to go to each
department to register,” Worley says. “This new
system is just a dream. It’s great. After the first
couple of days when all the students tried to reg
ister and found out only graduate students and
seniors were allowed to, it has been great.”
Worley also thinks the system has its advan
tages and disadvantages, but he says there are
many more advantages for both faculty and stu
dents.
“Today, students can register at the speed of
light from almost anywhere they can get to a
phone,” Worley says. “I just talked to a student in
Dallas who asked me when he could come down
to register. I told him, ‘As soon as we hang up the
phone.’
“The main disadvantage I see is that once stu
dents register for the first time, they never have
to talk to another human being again regarding
registration. AH they have to do is talk to a me
chanical voice on the other end of the phone.”
Worley says the system has different advan
tages and disadvantages for each college and de
partment.
Brazos symphony to salute Beethoven
By Karl Pallmeyer
Staff Writer
The Brazos Valley Symphony
Orchestra will present “Bask in
Our Beethoven,” a concert fea
turing the music of Ludwig van
Beethoven, at 8 p.m. Thursday in
Rudder Auditorium.
Violinist Zina Schiff will be
performing with the BVSO un
der the direction of conductor
Franz Anton Krager.
Schiff has studied violin at the
Curtis Institute of Music under
Ivan Galamian and at Jascha Hei
fetz’s Masterclass. She has per
formed at Carnegie Hall and the
Metropolitan Museum in New
York. In addition, she has been
named “Outstanding Young Art
ist” by Musical America and has
received several other awards.
Krager said Tuesday that
Schiff will be playing a violin
commissioned and assembled by
Dr. Joseph Nagy vary, a professor
of biophysics and biochemistry at
Texas A&M. Krager said that Na-
gyvary has come close to produc
ing a violin that matches the
sound quality of the violins pro
duced in the 18th century by An-
agyv
lins have been used by several
great violinists including Itzhak
Perlman.
Schiff will be using one of Na-
gyvary’s violins for Beethoven’s
only concerto for violin, the Vio
lin Concerto in D Major. Krager
said Beethoven’s 45-minute long
concerto was one of the most in
fluential.. pieces of its type.
The Seventh Symphony, which
Krager describes as Beethoven’s
second most popular symphony,
will make up the second half of
the program. Krager said that the
second movement of the sym
phony was so popular that con
ductors would substitute it for the
second movements of other sym
phonies their orchestras were
performing.
Tickets for “Bask in Our Bee
thoven” are $12 for adults, $10
for students and senior citizens,
and $8 for children under 13.
The tickets are available at the
Rudder box office and at any
Ticketron outlet.
For more information call the
Rudder box office at 845-1234 or
the BVSO office at 846-7659.
% Officials: Houston not out
of battle for '1988 GOP site
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HOUSTON (AP) — Officials
with the GOP site-selection com-
liittee say Houston is not out of
the running to host the 1988 Re
publican National Convention
;ven though the city is a leading
ndidate to host the Democratic
ionvention.
But Republican officials say
they won’t go to the same city as
the Democrats.
GOP officials said last week
that several of the 10 bidding cit
ies would be allowed to update
their bids for the convention in
oral presentations before the
nine-member committee meeting
in Washington Thursday.
Stores hiring holiday help despite economy
DALLAS (AP) — Despite the
downturn in the Texas economy and
generally sluggish sales this year,
many of the state’s retailers are using
traditionally large holiday work
forces designed to handle an over
flow of Christmas shoppers.
Many stores around the state ap
pear to have added nearly the same
number of temporary workers as in
better economic times, even though
industry executives are uncertain
whether they’ll ring up as many
sales.
“In a good month like December,
extra help will usually make you
money,” said Tom Hoskins, vice
president of the Fort Worth-based
Dunlap Co., which again this year
boosted the payroll at each of its 34
stores by an average of 25 percent.
Maury Aresty, president of the
Retail Merchants Association in
Houston, said a big holiday sales
payoff would help many stores re
cover from a slow year.
“If you’re going to take a real
gamble, you’re going to take it in De
cember,” Aresty said.
“Retailers are making sure they
have enough help on hand to realize
any improvement there might be (in
sales),” he said.
A recent survey conducted for the
Texas Retailers Association esti
mated sales in the first 10 months of
this year were 3.76 percent below
the same period of 1985.
Spokesman Dan Hagan said
Houston-based Foley’s added about
1,000 temporary workers for the
holiday season, a figure that is com
parable to pa;st Christmases.
Hagan doesn’t believe the heavy
hiring in an economic downturn is a
gamble for Foley’s.
Stores have to be ready when cus
tomers are in a buying mood, Hagan
said.
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