“If you can do better, go to it”
Women students confer with an orientation adviser before registration. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)
Once upon a time, in the 1800s, Michigan students in a certain school or college all took the same courses. So registration was easy. The faculty handled it. For a time, President James Burrill Angell registered all the students in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) himself.
But as Angell’s elective system took hold and the number of students grew — 4,500 in 1910, 8,500 in 1920, 9,500 by 1930 — the job of collecting their vital statistics and sorting them into courses became laborious. Students would slog from one office and department to another to register for courses, record their addresses, fill out forms, and pay fees, often after standing in multiple outdoor lines in September rain or January snow.
Then Daniel L. Rich, professor of physics and associate registrar, had the idea of weaving all the lines together in a single location.
He took the idea to John Effinger, dean of LSA, who told Rich: “If you can do better, go to it. I’ll make you czar of the whole thing.” It worked well enough for LSA that other units soon followed suit.
A chicken-wire maze
Waterman Gym, completed in 1894, met student demands for recreation space. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)
Rich chose Waterman Gymnasium, at the corner of North University and East University, for its massive, barn-like interior. Built in 1894 to meet rising student demands for recreation space (and added onto in the 1910s and ‘20s), it was funded in part by a matching gift of $20,000 from Joshua W. Waterman, a well-to-do Detroiter and patron of athletics. With the additions, it was 248 feet long and 90 feet wide. By the 1930s, the new Intramural Building on Hoover Street had stolen much of Waterman’s popularity. The interior, though lit by skylights, was devoid of grace. But it was big enough to suit Rich’s needs.
On the eve of every semester, Rich and his helpers concocted a maze of chicken-wire channels to guide crowds of students into single-file lines to registration stations. Workers hauled in hundreds of tables, chairs, and telephones. On big bulletin boards strung from the elevated running track overhead, courses and sections were listed, with helpers ready to show how many spaces remained in a given section. As ever, 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. sections were spurned until they were the only ones left.
Bewildered freshmen could follow their orientation leaders into the fray and rely on them for guidance. After that, you were on your own. Only law students and medical students could escape the melee, since their academic calendars were different from the main body of students.
For a while in the 1930s, the schedule started first thing Thursday and lasted until noon on Saturday. Then another day was added. In the beginning, the rule was first-come, first-served. You could show up at any time and register. Then, in 1935, students were given time slots designated by last name — 1 p.m.-1:30 p.m., He to Hof; 1:30 p.m.-1:45 p.m., Hog to Hz, etc. The order of letter groups rotated semester by semester.
Tickets to ride
Registration days weren’t always sunny, like this one in 1951. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)
To record all the necessary facts and figures from every student, the University contracted with printers to create a standard registration form of magnificent dimensions and complexity, soon dubbed “railroad tickets.” Each consisted of 10 cardboard coupons (later the number grew to 14) connected by perforations. Students had to engrave their names in at least nine places and fill out other lines with more information. Writer’s cramp spread like a virus.
The lines at Waterman registration became legendary. One alumnus reported there was enough time one year for him to get to know the woman he would later marry. Throngs of slow-moving students made easy targets for promoters and recruiters from student organizations, and in election years, the Waterman line was a good place to poll students on their presidential preferences.
Not that people didn’t try, but there was no escaping the lines. Rules abounded. You couldn’t beg (or pay) a roommate or friend to register on your behalf. You couldn’t jump to a different letter of the alphabet; if your name was Terwilliger, you couldn’t present yourself in the time slot allotted to names from Ba through Br, and “gatekeepers are not authorized to make exceptions.” If you goofed off and just didn’t show up, there were late fees — $1 a day, $6 maximum.
“Difficult and discouraged”
The front of a Waterman line in 1964. (Image courtesy of U-M Alumni Association and Karen W. Morse.)
The system groaned on through World War II. Then came hordes of veterans on the G.I. Bill. Men bunked in barracks in the basements of East and West Quads. The manager of the Union said: “About the best way to be sure of a place to eat regularly is to get a job there.” At Waterman, registration became a test of sheer endurance, with 1,000 students processed every hour, and there was less flexibility in the system than ever. A new sign hung from the gym’s overhead running track: “Changes in election will be difficult and discouraged.”
By the 1950s, students were filling out computer cards instead of the old “railroad tickets,” and IBM computers were assisting the registrars. But the lines still formed in and out of Waterman every semester, and 125 students would be hired and trained each time to help. For hours on end, the wishful would stare up at the board where a desirable course was listed, waiting for a digit to change and a space to open up.
The early 1960s brought a small improvement — a slim new form called the “registrationnaire.” It was part of a pre-registration process that allowed students to hold places in courses they wanted. But they still had to register to ensure their spots. In 1967, Waterman lines were longer than ever — up to five hours, students reported, often after lengthy waits to speak with academic advisers. A Michigan Daily reporter tracked one line that stretched the length of the Diag to South University and beyond. On some days, 1,500 students might be waiting. But as one of them said, “It’s either stand in a line now or go to a bunch of 8 o’clocks.”
“…in spite of problems”
The end of Waterman in 1977 after 80 years. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)
Meanwhile, the leaky old gym was well into its dotage. One student wrote to the Daily: “The sight of Waterman Gym brings thoughts of the next Daily headline reading ‘4,000 KILLED AS GYM COLLAPSES DURING REGISTRATION.’”
Finally, in 1975, the Waterman regime ended with the dawn of a computerized system called CRISP. It was developed in a course taught by the computer science professor Bernard Galler, who said the acronym meant “Computer Registration in Spite of Problems.” The official title was “…Involving Student Participation” — as if students hadn’t been participating to the point of exhaustion for decades. And you still had to stand in line to register.
Waterman Gym was torn down in 1977, making way for the Willard Henry Dow addition to the Chemistry Building.
Sources included the Michigan Daily; The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey; “Registration Incarnations,” LSA Magazine, spring 2013; “History Lessons: Registration Flashback,” Michigan Alumnus, August 2021; and “History Lessons: In Spite of Problems,” Michigan Alumnus, August 2018. Lead image is of Waterman Gym interior during a registration session, courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.
