Two students met with Penn State faculty members yesterday to discuss limiting the university's use of Social Security numbers for identification purposes.

Kim Papandrea (junior-film and video) wants to create more awareness of identity theft, a possible threat to students whose Social Security numbers might appear on papers such as tests, attendance sheets and grant checks.

Papandrea said she has found about 40 separate cases of Social Security number use within the university in which the numbers could have been easily accessible by people other than university employees.

Joining Papandrea were Undergraduate Student Government Academic Assembly President Paul Ricciardi and university Registrar J. James Wager.

"In the world that we're living in today, identity theft has become a major issue," Wager said.

Papandrea and Ricciardi provided the faculty members with a list of guidelines they created to inform students about protecting their Social Security numbers.

Papandrea and Wager plan to meet with Fred Vondracek, associate dean of the College of Health and Human Development, to review the list for additional revision.

The students plan to post the list on Penn State's The Daily Jolt Web site (www.psu.dailyjolt.com) and to distribute it amongst different colleges throughout the Assembly, Ricciardi said.

Also discussed during the meeting was the possibility of changing university guidelines regarding Social Security number use.

"We should begin to learn and make new laws that are universal on campus," Papandrea said.

Many faculty members use Social Security numbers only out of ease and not necessity, Wager said.

"There are many cases in which we're collecting Social Security numbers for convenience," he said.

Vondracek said he would e-mail his faculty a message to discontinue the practice of using the numbers. He predicted his e-mail would cut faculty use of the numbers in half.

The possibility of creating new numbers to identify students was also discussed, although faculty members did not foresee any change in the near future.

Several complications could result from adopting an alternative means of identifying students, and a new numbersystem would not completely restrict university use of Social Security numbers at higher administrative levels, Wager said.

"It's probably impractical for us to believe that we will discount collecting Social Security numbers," Wager said.

Wager said Social Security numbers are useful as IDs because they serve functions outside of the Penn State campus and are therefore easy to remember.

"Once we institute a new number that is used only on campus, the probability of forgetting that number becomes greater," he said.

Papandrea and Ricciardi might meet with Penn State faculty in the future to discuss issues such as new university guidelines and ID numbers, but for now they are concentrating on their list of guidelines, Papandrea said.

Papandrea, who has been meeting with Ricciardi and Wager since October, said everyone left the meeting in a positive mood.

"It's nice to see there's light at the end of the tunnel," Papandrea said. "Our voices are being heard."

Ricciardi also was optimistic.

"They seem to support Kim's efforts," he said. "That's half the battle."