SANTA MONICA : Registering for College Is Just a Phone Call Away

More than 800 students registered last week for fall classes at Santa Monica College using a new service that allows continuing students to sign up for courses from any telephone in the world.

Using the new phone registration system, students can add or drop courses, check to see how many seats remain open in a class, and pay their bill by credit card, check or in person.

The new system cut lines to register in person at the admissions office by two-thirds, said Gordon Newman, dean of admissions.

The phone-in registration service is one of several ways in which Santa Monica College has been chipping away at its longtime goal--shelved because of budget cuts--of updating the school’s computer technology.

This spring, the college spent $1.7 million to replace the mainframe computer used to keep student records and other administrative information. The 10-year-old system was in danger of crashing, and its software was obsolete, said Greg Brown, director of telecommunications.

Part of that money was used to link computers throughout the campus to the Internet, giving students the opportunity to research from sources worldwide.

Using the new network, the college will provide its faculty with access to electronic mail by fall. The lack of e-mail for teachers shocked the college’s new president, Piedad F. Robertson, when she arrived this month.

“I simply cannot believe this institution has not been using e-mail,” she told the Board of Trustees last week.

Although they will soon have e-mail, most teachers still do not have computers in their offices, Brown said. The college plans to spend $110,000 next year to equip each department with at least one computer.

By fall, students will have access to e-mail and the Internet from home, thanks to a $52,000 gift from the Associated Students, the college’s student governing body. The students put up the money after realizing it was the only way they could gain the service many of their counterparts at other community colleges already enjoy, student President Troy Ellington Isaac said.