More than 100 students face sanctions ranging from loss of class credit to four-year expulsions for fraudulently registering in closed classes.

University Judicial Office Director Larry Bolles said the office of registration and records has referred the cases to his office where sanctions will be levied on “an individual basis.”

“I don’t want to put the fear of God into the campus. I don’t want this to turn into a witch hunt,” Bolles said. “But those people who have done this are gambling. The chances of registration and records not catching them are slim because they had to forge a document to get in (to the classes).”

Bolles said registration and records still is focusing its investigation on “high demand” classes but eventually will look at all classes. “There’s a feeling there will be a maximum of 300 students (involved), but that number could run higher,” he said.

Bruce Oates, assistant director of registration and records, said the current investigations are being done in groups and by department. He said, “Right now, we’re looking at 120 to 170 people (who falsified registration).”

Bolles said most of the confirmed cases have come from the College of Business and the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, with the highest concentration in economics and sociology classes.

Registration and records has looked for patterns while investigating the illegal registration. There is some indication, based upon the addresses of the students involved, a portion is concentrated in Greek Row, Bolles said.

“To date, two greek-letter organizations have been indicated as areas where you could get this service,” he said. “This is not an all-greek situation, but there is one particular greek letter organization that has a high concentration of people involved. One fraternity had 36 people identified.” Bolles would not name the organization.

Oates said his office has initiated investigations of three fraternities and two sororities. He said one of the sororities was found not to be involved in the fraud at a group-level.

Bolles said the University Plaza also has been implicated as an area of concentrated fraud, but he said that could not yet be confirmed.

Assistant University Judicial Officer Marti Ruel, who is handling the cases for Bolles, said involved students who have not been identified yet can talk to her about their involvement.

“Obviously those students would know who they are,” she said. “They can come to me and talk about it to find out what they can expect (as consequences).”

Bolles said it is in the best interest of students who have not been contacted but who are involved to come forward as soon as possible.

“For graduating seniors who know there might be something wrong with their registration, they need to get over and talk to Marti Ruel,” he said. “This is a Level II violation which makes this a very serious matter.”

Bolles said illegal registration violates section 3-3.5 of the Student Judicial Code, which is defined as “falsifying, tampering, altering, forging or misusing any university record or document or knowingly supplying false or misleading information to university officials.”

He said students who falsified registration face any of a number of possible sanctions depending on their level of involvement. Violators could face any one or a combination of the following sanctions:

Suspension or expulsion, up to four years.

Deferred suspension or expulsion, which would be served upon further judicial code violations.

Loss of all credit for classes presently illegally enrolled in.

Fines up to $50.

Stiff work assignments up to 15 hours.

Bolles said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Some will be expelled, some suspended and a good deal are forfeiting their right to credit.”

The infractions, which involve the illegal use of a rubber registration stamp, were first discovered earlier this month by Arthur Doederlein, assistant professor of communication studies.

Doederlein found a student who had a class “Add” form which had been stamped with the black “REG” stamp used for add/drop schedule completion and late registration. When Doederlein checked his class roll list, however, he found the student’s name had not been added.