Students scramble to locate their chapel seats in this time-lapse photo.
Behind the chapel seat change
It’s the routine right before every chapel rotation. You open your e-mail inbox one day and a subject title catches your eye: “Chapel Seat Assignment.” Quickly, you open the e-mail, cross your fingers and hope for a seat that isn’t more than 20 feet from the nearest exit.
On Monday new chapel seat assignments will take effect. For students, a new chapel seat means weaving through dozens of people to locate their new seat in time for the opening hymn. In the flurry of thousands of junior high, high school and college students rushing to find their seats, some students wonder: What exactly goes into assigning thousands of chapel seats?
Enter Miss Christina Shelp, a graduate assistant who works in the Records Office as the chapel seat clerk. She is responsible for assigning student seating for every chapel rotation. Assigning seats for 3,899 students sounds like a daunting task, but her job is expedited with the help of a computer program.
The art of arranging chapel seats
While a computer program completes most of the hard work, the student body must still be divided into sections of the Founder’s Memorial Amphitorium.
One week prior to sending out thousands of student e-mails, Miss Shelp gathers lists of students who work right after chapel in various campus departments, such as the dining common, Snack Shop, Campus Store and Public Safety. Miss Shelp inputs those students into the program database, which randomly arranges the work department students within sections toward the back of the FMA.
Then, the program shuffles the seats for the rest of the student body. Day students are interspersed among the main floor with residence hall students; junior high students are scattered throughout the right side of the FMA; and Academy students sit on the left side of the amphitorium.
Miss Shelp said the majority of students sitting in the front have randomly been assigned to those seats. “People often think that everyone’s seat is set by hand, but it really is random,” Miss Shelp said.
Changes may be made for students who work immediately after chapel but were left out of the work department sections or for students with health difficulties. “If they have a legitimate reason, then we can move them to a different spot,” Miss Shelp said.
Some students’ chapel seats stay the same
The computer program may assign seats randomly, but it’s not always perfect. Sophomore graphic design major Katrina Greenwald, who sits in the Snack Shop worker section, was randomly assigned the same seat for both chapel seat rotations this year. “It actually happened to me last year too,” Katrina said. “I wasn’t [working] in the Snack Shop last year, but they kept me in the same seat because they accidentally skipped my row.” Katrina said although she doesn’t mind the chapel rotations, she enjoyed not having a newly assigned chapel seat this semester. “It was awesome because my chapel buddies and I got to know each other really well, and we were really happy that we didn’t have to change seats,” she said.
Faculty members and graduate assistants
Faculty members and graduate assistants do not have assigned seating, but many often sit in a particular area or even the same seat every day.
Dr. Bruce Byers, of the modern language department, said he often sits in the same spot in the balcony because his wife saves him a seat. “There’s usually a particular place where everyone sits, so it’s kind of like your territory,” Dr. Byers said. “It’s out of human nature. We tend to gravitate toward a particular place.”
