Registration will take place at the houses and the Freshman Union this spring because of construction at Memorial Hall, the usual site for the semesterly ritual.

Each of the 13 houses and the Union will sponsor registration between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on February 1.

In another change, students who have outstanding payments on their term bill will have to go to the Term Bill Office at Holyoke Center to clear their account before returning to register, according to Associate Registrar Thurston Smith.

In the past, students with unpaid expenses waited in the "red dot line" until their fines were cleared. There will be no red dot lines this year.

The Term Bill Office will be sending reminders to students who still owe money this month.

Because there is no centralized location, the student activity fair traditionally held in a tent behind Memorial Hall will not take place, said Michelle Hewitt, assistant to the Dean of Students.

"It's only going to be for the freshmen," she said. Student groups can table at the Union.

Organizing registration is some what more complicated with the decentralization, according to Assistant Registrar for the Scheduling Office Joseph D. Maruca.

Packets, now organized by house rather than in alphabetical order, will have to be distributed to each of the houses and collected from them afterward.

There may also be other difficul- ties. "We're trying to work closely with the housing office to make sure that on the day before registration we've got a list of everybody who transferred" houses, Maruca said.

But Maruca said it might be faster for students since the lines will be shorter.

There are also advantages for the Registrar's Office. "It'll take less staff than in the past. That'll help my budget a little bit," Maruca said.

In the fall, for the first time, study cards were turned in at the houses rather than at Memorial Hall, which simplified the process, he said. Similarly he hopes that registration will be smoother, too.

Also in the fall, registration was at Sever Hall. But with classes in session during spring registration, this is no longer possible.

"There's no longer a space big enough" for centralized registration, Maruca said.

In two or three years registration may actually be on-line, he said. "Obviously pushing around thousands of pieces of paper is not the wave of the future."