Since there aren’t landlines in the dorms anymore, the university has requested local contact information from residents to put in the campus directory.

But senior Sarah Thate didn’t want her phone number made public.

“I purposely didn’t give them my number for the directory, because in the past, when my number has been listed, I’ve gotten unwanted phone calls,” she said. “I didn’t want to pay for it. I didn’t want to use up my minutes with a call I didn’t want.”

If students feel this way or have other concerns, they can fill out a form to restrict access to certain information, said assistant to the registrar Michelle Menting.

The Restriction on Release of Student Information form, located in Schofield 128, is available to all students.

“We encourage students that, if they don’t want their information in the directory, they need to fill those out,” Menting said.

According to UW-Eau Claire’s policy regarding requests for student directory information, the following is considered directory information: name, home, local and/or e-mail addresses, UW-Eau Claire e-mail address, telephone numbers, dates of attendance, full or part-time status, birthday, classification, major and minor programs, college, degrees conferred and dates, most recent institution attended, awards and/or academic honors, participation in officially recognized sports and activities as well as weight and height of members of athletic teams.

Besides requests coming from on campus, people outside the university can access this information as well by writing a request and paying $75, according to the policy.

That is, unless students fill out the form.

Student Senate Secretary Benjamin Rud said he doesn’t think the registrar’s office is giving adequate information to students about what information is given out and what students can do to prevent it if they want.

“My concern is that I don’t believe many students know,” Rud said.

The registrar’s office isn’t doing anything against policy, Rud said, but he thinks there should be more student awareness, adding that he hopes to write a piece of legislation to help.

Menting said about 15 to 20 students fill out a form each year on average, and the option is advertised at the beginning of every fall semester. She said students must fill the forms out within the first two weeks of the fall semester to be excluded from the printed directory.

Menting said the information is restricted until the student notifies the university otherwise, so even after graduation, depending on what is restricted, the information is unavailable to potential employers.

Students shouldn’t check every box on the form without thinking about it carefully, she said.

“Even though they think they might want all this information restricted there will be information that they might want available to somebody, like an instructor or potential employer.”