Colleges and universities across the country had until Feb. 15 to implement the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System or risk being prohibited from enrolling foreign students until they sign up.

At UTM, there is no last minute panic. The Office of International Programs, according to Director Sandra Baker, has been SEVIS approved since Oct. 14 and has until Aug. 1 to enter all of the students into the database.

“It is a lot more work, but we’ve been able to go at it slowly, knowing that we got approval,” Baker said.

While some institutions have had to purchase expensive software, because of UTM’s relatively small number of international students, no additional funding was necessary, and officials are able to enter information into the database via the Web. Though the program has existed in an infantile state since 1996, it was not until after the terror attacks on America that funding was provided to make SEVIS a major priority.

Regulations require constant documentation regarding foreign students.

INS is requiring that schools update the database whenever a foreign student drops or adds a class, changes residences or gets a new job, and registration must be updated each semester. Students from countries deemed by the State Department to be “terrorist-sponsoring” are also required to go the INS office in Memphis to be interviewed and fingerprinted.

While the new procedure seems quite rigorous, Baker stated that the change is not all that dramatic. It is more the refining of a system than the conception of a new one.

The International Studies Department has embraced SEVIS with open arms. No one was satisfied with the seemingly endless stacks of paper representative of the previous system.

They also believe that it has the potential to allow students to be more aware of their status. This is of especially high importance because if a student becomes out of status, reinstatement is far from easy, and deportation is likely. In-class sessions were conducted by the department to help students fully comprehend the regulations, and according to Baker, the students were fully cooperative and have participated tremendously.