Students call for website renovations after registration crash

Joss Hoffman ‘28
hoffmanjj@lakeforest.edu
Staff Writer

Sitting in the lobby of the Student Recreation Center, Katie Sutton, an 18-year-old first-year, takes a deep breath and opens her laptop. It’s 6:59 a.m., and she logs into her my.lakeforest account for class registration.

Minutes later, her screen freezes, and she’s registered for only three out of the eight classes she needs. The registration portal has shut down, and hours later, the College’s registrar’s office sends a mass email to students informing them that the registration period for students with fewer than 10 credits is temporarily closed. 

“It was awful,” Sutton said. 

Sutton is not alone. Many students at the College are running into technical problems, whether it’s with registration, accessing the parking management system, or simply finding the resources that they need. With student housing selection occurring in mid-April, students said the College needs to ensure the website can endure high traffic.

“I’m still only registered for one class for the fall semester,” Sutton said.

The registration system found an issue that failed to track enrollment for cross-listed courses, which allowed over-enrollment for 17 courses, according to Registrar Mai Aly. The College collaborated with Jenzabar to correct the over-enrollment. Jenzabar is the system the College uses to process student information systems (SIS), such as financial aid, viewing grades and class registration.

Registration isn’t the only technical hurdle for students who said they find it difficult to navigate aspects of the College website. Some called the website unorganized, finicky and low-quality.

“If you click a link twice, it will break the website,” said Noah Garza, a 21-year-old senior. 

Garza said the webpage navigation is too “squished together,” which makes it hard for students to find the information they need. 

“As a digital media design minor, it matters how a webpage looks to make sure it can be navigated,” he said.

Garza added that with the information he’s learned in his College classes, he thinks he could improve the navigation of the page himself in terms of its accessibility.

Other institutions have had better luck. 

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) received a Webby Award in 2024 for its user-focused design and visual engagement. The Webby Awards have been honoring website excellence since 1996 and are recognized as one of the highest internet honors. According to the web design company Kanopi Studios, another highly appreciated nearby university website is Northwestern University’s admissions page. 

This page has concise and straightforward resources for prospective students. From major opportunities to booking a campus tour to student praises, it’s all in the user’s line of sight. Neither SAIC nor Northwestern uses Jenzabar for their SIS.

Another issue at the College includes a shutdown in the parking management system. Students could not purchase campus parking passes or pay parking tickets April 1. The system wasn’t restored until April 2.

To resolve the registration issue, Jenzabar provided the College with a more accurate way to measure enrollment numbers for students during registration, according to Aly. The system is properly running again, but it may be difficult to measure the resistance of the program to a large amount of internet traffic until the next registration period.

“We don’t guarantee that it won’t happen again,” Aly said.