NIU has dug itself into a deep trench that probably will take years to crawl out of when it comes to the use of Social Security numbers on campus.

The Office of Registration and Records is taking one of the first small steps to do that.

The office is modifying grade-change request forms to ask for z-ID numbers instead of Social Security numbers. This means that teachers no longer will be given Social Security numbers in order to fill out grade-change forms.

“We have changed reports that go out to the faculty,” said Donald Larson, the executive director and registrar of Enrollment Services.

This includes changes to class lists, as well as the grade rosters that teachers receive at the end of the year.

Russian history professor and undergraduate adviser for the history department Christine Worobec, said the change will not present any new difficulties for teachers or department secretaries.

“It’s really, I don’t think, a problem,” she said. “It’s just that one number replaces another.”

Senior nursing major Mercedes Jenkins and junior finance major Terri Lattimore said the change does make them feel better. They were both uncomfortable with the use of Social Security numbers in the classroom.

“It’s horrible!” Lattimore said. “Your teachers have access to everything.”

Jenkins agreed.

“I hate it,” she said.

The change came out of a request from the Student Association to limit use of Social Security numbers on campus. It’s only the beginning of the many changes needed in order to eliminate the use of Social Security numbers.

“Personally, I don’t think the z-ID is going to be a permanent solution,” Larson said.

The z-ID is a number that students have been assigned, which makes it easier to respond to the requests of the Student Association. However, Larson said that to eliminate the use of Social Security numbers would be a daunting task, and it could take a decade.

The admissions and records system alone is composed of around 3,000 programs, which coordinate by using Social Security numbers, Larson said. There are many other systems around campus that also have that interface.

“To replace all those is a massive undertaking,” Larson said. “At this point, I think it’s just at the idea stage. It would be kind of a multi-year effort to do something like that.”

Ultimately, Larson foresees a two-tiered system. The system would use Social Security numbers on transcripts and for communication with organizations, such as the IRS or the ACT and SAT programs. A separate ID would be used in all other processing.

However, there are some complications to coming up with a new type of ID.

“This would be one more number that people would have to remember,” Larson said, “and I would imagine that in order for it to last for a large number of students, it would have to be a relatively long number.”

One advantage to using Social Security numbers is that students already have it memorized. According to Larson, a common problem that the Office of Registration and Records deals with is from students who forget their four-digit TRACS PIN. Larson imagines that even more students would have difficulty remembering another student ID number.