Brown and White Vol. 110 No. 21

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 110 no 21 tuesday november 19 2002 all the lehigh news first registration woes upset students by tucker hottes news writer many students were unable to login to the lewis system and register for classes during the first two nights of registra tion for the spring semester three minutes after registra tion began last monday the system stopped properly routing students to the web and data base servers matt romero 03 was among the students who had problems my roommates and i tried to sign on and register only to find that lehigh's online registration was the worst it has ever been in four years regardless of whatever so-called upgrades were made to the system he said seniors weren't the only stu dents with problems as an athlete jess terlecki 05 regis tered several days earlier than her classmates but she still had a tough time the school should not have waited three hours to close down the registration links when they realized it wasn't going to get fixed because it left so many people at a disadvantage she said the second night it still took 45 minutes to get online and i didn't get all of the classes i wanted because of the delays and confusion many classes became closed and some seniors lost the benefits of priority registration it is still not known what will be done for those students who had serious problems getting into classes required for gradua tion registrar bruce correll said the system problems had nothing to do with the recent cosmetic improvements to the lewis web site we've used the exact same routing software every other semester successfully he said the problem correll said was in the software that sends stu dents web browser signals to the servers allowing users to select courses and eventually register instead of distributing all the signals between three ports the software sent the information to only one which eventually over loaded and failed after maintenance was per formed on the system it appeared to be working properly tuesday night however the problems arose again to finally resolve the troubles a second connection port was added to the server students with last names a-l were asked to use the first connection and all other students were to use the second one firefest to launch lehigh-lafayette by kirk sobell news writer as the moon hangs high over goodman campus a live band will play fireworks will light the sky coaches will psyche the crowd and students will gather around a giant bonfire in anticipation of the 138 th lehigh-lafayette football game the annual firefest extrava ganza will be held thursday at 7:30 p.m it's going to be a great event and i hope everybody shows up said sanket kapadia 04 chairman of the student senate lehigh lafayette committee buses will transport students beginning at 7:30 p.m from taylor college maginnes hall drown hall and the newman center kapadia said three tractor trailer loads of pallets will be used to ignite the bonfire pete lembo head football coach was originally scheduled to speak at the event instead he will participate in another event sponsored by the alumni association which is being simulcast on the lehigh web site b&w photo courtesy of the epitome lembo said firefest is a great opportunity for students to get fireworks light up the night at last year's firefest held on goodman campus this year's event will include a bonfire fireworks live band and speeches from football coaches and captains students question tracs policy by julia schulman news writer the site of a tracs van often causes relief among tired students coming home from parties recently however some stu dents have begun to question why the escort service does not pick up students from off-campus bars in a recent letter to the brown and white tracs driver steve pruiksma described how he and other drivers are sometimes forced to go off of their regular routes to pick up students out of fear for their safety he informed his supervisor about the dilemma several months ago marc horn 02 who fre quents several south bethlehem bars said he has seen this problem first hand sometimes i see the van coming down the street when i'm off-campus horn said i've tried to hail it down and the driver completely ignored me according to the university campus safety policy available on the lehigh web site tracs is supposed to provide trans portation to and from university buildings and neighborhoods adjacent to campus the tracs service operates from 10 p.m to 2 a.m sunday through wednesday and from 10 p.m to 3 a.m thursday friday and saturday the vans follow a scheduled route around campus and provide service to streets immediately adjacent to the campus the vans make routine stops at prominent campus locations including linderman library rathbone hall and brodhead house they follow a route stretching from the top of upper sayre park road to fourth street off-campus the vans pick students up on a first-come first-serve basis and drop them off at their specified location chris christian director of transportation services denies that there have been any recent changes regarding the services provided by tracs he said that the policy has not been changed in more than 15 years the purpose of tracs is to help people who would other wise have to walk alone between on-campus buildings and resi dences christian said the vans are not intended to move see register page 3 see firefest page 4 see tracs page 3 football defeats bucknell in shutout see story on page 20 sports 15-20 sports feature 15 swimming 17 cross country 20 2002-03 mcgowan scholars named see story on page 6 news 1-6 college news briefs 2 women of islam 5 mcdonald's struggles in worldwide markets fol lowing slump in sales see story on page 9 business 9-11 student investors 9 business briefs 9 look who's investing 11 quick the shortest war ever was between zanzibar and england in 1896 zanzibar surrendered in 38 minutes source www.amusingfacts.com