Students can no longer hide in the back of the classroom or skip class to keep faculty from recognizing them thanks to new photo rosters.

The new rosters sent to Eastern’s faculty will not only have students’ names as before, but also their school identification pictures.

Eastern decided to try the new kind of roster during the summer because of the reduced amount of faculty, said Allen Bryant, scientific computer programmer II for Information Technology Services.

The smaller numbers enabled ITS to address any problems.

“There were a couple of bugs, but they got worked out along the way,” Bryant said.

Jeff Cross, associate vice president for Academic Affairs, was the first person to mention to ITS the faculty’s interest in this kind of roster, Bryant said.

The University of Illinois has something similar because when faculty members are given only a list of names they have no way of knowing if a student is really who they say they are, he said.

“The responses I’ve received from many faculty members has been positive,” Bryant said.

David Raybin, a professor in the English department, said he thinks the new rosters are one of the better ideas the university has had in many years because some people are good at remembering names while others are good at remembering faces.

Being in the latter group, Raybin said the photographs improved his ability to remember his students’ names.

Nancy Marlow, a professor in the business department, said she also gets use out of the photos because they make learning students’ names easier.

“This is always a challenge, especially in larger classes,” Marlow said. “I have over 40 students this session, and I usually teach a lecture section during the fall and spring semesters.”

Joseph Williams, a professor in the psychology department, said it is important for students to feel the instructor knows who they are and what they are capable of in class.

“It just doesn’t help when four to six weeks into a class the instructor is still asking ‘Who are you again?'” Williams said.

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“Having the students’ picture means the person will come back to me,” Raybin said.

The photos for the rosters are transferred from the Panther Card system machine to the machine with the roster data, Bryant said. Eastern’s only cost is the time Bryant and his two colleagues put into the project.

A down side of the pictures is they are taken from the student ID’s which “may not always be flattering to the students,” Williams said.

Only faculty members can access the photos, which are secured so the public has no way of looking at them. To see the pictures requires authentication and instructors can only see students who are in a class they currently teach.

“Our faculty work in an environment of trust and professionalism,” Williams said. “I believe the photos will be used by faculty guardedly, just as other personal information is for our students.”