Phone Registration Coming to Colleges

Students at Ventura County’s community colleges will be able to register for classes by telephone beginning next summer under a program approved by trustees of the three-campus district.

District administrators hope the convenient sign-ups will eliminate the long lines and delays that have marred registration at Oxnard, Ventura and Moorpark colleges over the last several years.

But students complained to trustees late Tuesday that the schools should not charge as much as $3 for the phone-in service.

“It seems like every single time we turn around, there seems to be a higher cost (to students),” said student trustee Chi Young Choe.

Choe was not alone. Other student leaders complained that the district should pay for improving its slow and unpopular registration system.

“We want the system. We need the system. We’ve been promised the system for 10 years,” said Kenn Woodward, Ventura College’s student representative to the Board of Trustees. “But the problem we’re having is being required to pay for this service.”

Both Chancellor Thomas G. Lakin and David Fuhrmann, the district’s director of information services, said the fee is necessary to offset the costs of informing students about the program and following up the telephone sign-ups by mail.

“We don’t want to mislead the board or the students,” Lakin said. “It may end up being $2 (per call). It’s a user fee. Students do have the option of registering in person.”