“Yes, we might need more horsepower to run the mercury.”
This comment is not from a garage mechanic, but an observation from one of the members of the Office of New Student Programs (ONSP), whose responsibility it is to see that the data needed to keep track of thousands of incoming and returning students always is available for those who need it.
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In this case, Senior Network Administrator Stefan Beres was speaking on the phone to a person at the Registrar’s Office, helping them sort through minor difficulties with the transition from one e-mail system to another.
In addition to lending a hand to the Registrar and Admissions offices when needed, Beres runs the computer network and manages servers for programs put on by ONSP—primarily New Student Orientation.
As wide-eyed incoming freshmen and transfer students get to experience what will become home for the next several years during orientation, Beres is hard at work making sure the process runs smoothly.
The activity on campus is non-stop during the summer, as incoming first-year students briefly live in the residence halls, learn about the University’s resources, take placement exams and register for their first semester of college.
While more than 5,000 incoming freshmen and transfer students busy themselves for college life during the summer—attending rotating shifts of orientation each lasting three days—Beres is out of sight in East Quad, keeping the network operational. In fact, he plays a vital role in orientation long before students arrive on campus.
A typical week during the summer begins with Beres creating production items—forms and papers that are necessary for ONSP to maintain organization and keep track of which students are registered for each orientation session.
Beres starts off by printing confirmation letters, which he then mails to students in order to verify that they are signed up for their given registration date. Depending on the number of students enrolled for that group’s orientation, this process may take an entire day and a half. Toward the end of the week, Beres provides orientation leaders with check-in sheets to be used at the residence halls when students arrive, rosters for group leaders, and schedules for students arriving at the residence halls the following week.
He does all of this while making sure the network is in peak condition.
It’s not always smooth sailing, though. Beres must cope with the times when something goes wrong.
“We don’t often have breakdowns but there was one time when the server went belly up and it was in the middle of [orientation] week,” Beres says. “The server wasn’t accessible and most of our files that we use are on the server. So it affected us and Admissions as well.”
Beres says the office borrowed disk space on the Registrar’s servers and was able to restore the file system within hours of identifying the problem.
“The most important part of my job is helping the rest of the staff do their job,” he says.
In addition to orientation, Beres also runs the computer network and manages the servers for other programs put on by ONSP, which include University Mentorship, Welcome to Michigan, Parent & Guest Orientation and Parents Weekend.
“The pace of our office changes constantly. In summer we’re in high gear; then in the fall it slows down a little bit and then we have Parents Weekend coming up late in the fall. Then Winter Orientation comes and then we get a little bit of a breather, and then start over with Spring and Summer Orientation. It’s a nice change of pace.”
During his own days as a student, Beres took several computer classes and enjoyed them so much he changed his career path from mechanical engineering. He began working in ONSP as a student programmer in 1990, then became a network administrator when the office installed the network several years later.
Even with the chaos of orientation and the late nights that are required, Beres loves his part in welcoming new students to the University.
“I’m pretty happy with my job,” he says. “I’m probably one of the few people that likes what I’m doing.”
