Online registration spells doom for Nroll

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UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA – After nearly seven years of service, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln mainstay has become obsolete.

No, Li’l’ Red won’t be deflated, and Herbie Husker isn’t being replaced.

In a couple of years, students will no longer be able to dial 472-7272 and hear the familiar monotone voice of Nroll asking them to please enter their transaction codes.

This summer, the university began integrating an online version of Nroll, aptly called eNroll, into the registration system.

The new system has been used all summer to enroll incoming freshmen during New Student Enrollment. And Earl Hawkey, UNL’s director of registration and records, said he expected eNroll to become the only way to enroll within the next two year.

That means the businesslike baritone voice of Rick Alloway, the voice of Nroll, will soon become simply a memory.

“My 15 minutes of enrollment fame are up,” said Alloway, a UNL broadcasting lecturer.

Alloway, who has been the voice of Nroll since its inception in early 1994, said he was initially surprised that the university was replacing the telephone registration system with an Internet system.

“I had a momentary response of ‘Well, I guess I’m not needed anymore,’” he said. “But I think the move is for the best.”

Alloway, who is also a New Student Enrollment adviser for the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, said the new system worked well throughout the summer.

“It was clear that the students we dealt with had navigated the Web version more easily,” Alloway said. “It just seems like a quicker, more efficient way of enrolling.”

Hawkey said students had expressed interest in enrolling online for a few years. The university began making preparations for eNroll in November.

“The student demand was definitely there, so we decided why not pursue it,” he said. “If it makes things easier and more convenient for our students, then it’s something we had to look at doing.”

Since its implementation on the What About Me? site, wam.unl.edu, nearly 1,000 UNL students besides the incoming freshmen have used eNroll, Hawkey said.

Once students log in to the WAM Web site and select the eNroll icon, they can do all the same things as they can do on the telephone, such as add and drop classes and change classes to pass/no pass.

“There haven’t been any real problems,” Hawkey said. “It’s been a good addition.”

As for Alloway, he said he’s going to miss his notoriety. People have identified him as the voice of Nroll at places such as restaurants and super markets, he said. He’s even been asked to do requests.

“‘I’m sorry, that class is closed’ is probably the most-requested,” Alloway said.

People have even gotten angry at Alloway because they didn’t get into a chemistry class.

“People sometimes forget that I’m not the system,” he said. “I’m just the one contracted to do the voice.”

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