PARIS takes off; students ticked off

We'll always have PARIS. . . well, almost always. The Penn Automated Registration Information System went on a holiday hiatus over winter break, surprising students and rendering grades inaccessible to them until after January 4. According to University Registrar Ronald Sanders, the deadline for faculty members to hand in grades is traditionally 72 hours after the last final exam. But since exams were held later in the calendar year than usual, Sanders said, the due date for grades was extended to January 4 by the Council of Undergraduate Deans during the semester. Sanders said that no publicity was given to the deadline change because it was "a non-issue. There's nothing wrong." "The University has always been closed between Christmas and New Year's, so there is no staff," he said. "There never has been. Buildings are closed, and people can't drop grades off, so it's not an issue." Sanders said that rather than grades being available on a rolling basis, "it's always been the policy that we don't begin to announce the grades for a term before the grading deadline." Assistant University Registrar Janet Ansert said the grading deadline for instructors was January 4 at noon and that all grades should have been accessible to students at that point. While a few students back on campus yesterday said that they had "no problems" gaining access to their grades, several complained of multiple calls to PARIS -- and exponentially-increasing telephone bills. "I'm from Puerto Rico, and I would call [PARIS] twice a day for my grades, which got pretty expensive," Wharton sophomore Francisco Ramirez said. "It was annoying -- I kept calling from Florida, and it just kept saying that grades are not available," College sophomore Aimee Taxin said. "I kept hearing that same line: 'We're sorry . . . .' " Some students said they had not received all of their grades yet. "I called a few times, and I think that one of my grades was never even recorded," Nursing freshman Kelli Huzzard said. "This past Saturday, I finally got my grades, but I know some people who don't even have their grades yet," Engineering senior Sukanya Srinivasan said. "I was annoyed, because I had no idea what had happened to my grades." Sanders said that this situation would probably come up again next year due to the calendar, adding that the University may install a recorded explanation of the situation on PARIS in the future.