Freshman Jenny Robles, an electronic media major, is fed up with registration and scheduling difficulties at UW-Eau Claire; consequently, she plans to transfer to the University of Minnesota next fall to continue her studies.

“It’s even harder to get into the classes that I need now that (the university) has dropped my emphasis,” she said.

Robles is not the only one who is feeling the scheduling crunch.

Last week, English department chair Marty Wood e-mailed English majors and minors with the ominous news that, “for Spring 2004, UWEC doesn’t have enough open sections to provide full schedules for all of its students.”

A few days later, Wood said that while the university never has been able to provide full schedules for all students, the class-scheduling situation this semester is still dire.

“There’s always a crunch by freshman registration,” he said. “But there are even fewer sections this year than last.”

As of Tuesday, when Wood sent the e-mail to his department, the required courses for an English major or minor already were full.

He said it would be difficult for students to get signed into classes.

Wood attributed the crunch in class availability to the budget and specifically to not being able to fill vacant staff positions.

However, associate registrar Connie Russell said that in many cases, even with available funds, empty staff positions at a university are difficult to fill.

She said that in areas, such as the sciences, finding a qualified candidate could take months. It is nearly impossible to just pull a community member in to teach courses at the university level, she said.

Russell, who oversees the registration process, said that while some students might be having trouble getting into some of their classes, many might be having trouble getting into the section they desire.

“The eight o’ clock sessions are usually the last ones to fill,” she said.

Russell added that she was surprised to hear about scheduling difficulties because this year’s scheduling seemed to be a success.

A number of classes closed early in the registration process. For example, between Nov. 4 and 11, 265 course sections closed, according to closed classes records kept by the registrar’s office.

Robles tried to sidestep the system a bit this year to ensure entry into a required class. When the class she wanted began to fill up, she had a friend register for the class to hold a spot for her. When Robles was able to register, her friend dropped the class so Robles could get the empty seat.

Wood said the university made a good move this year by admitting fewer students.

“There’s nobody around here that I can blame for (class availability problems),” he said.

Wood said he encourages students to write to legislators to air their grievances about class availability.

“The legendary excellence of the UW System and UWEC in particular are both threatened by a legislature that seems to think that college students and their parents are the only group that is willing to pay more and get less,” he said in the e-mail.

Freshman nursing major Shannon O’Leary is optimistic about registration for future semesters, she said.

“I’m hoping it’ll be easier as an upperclassman.”