News

Nickels & Dimes

It's no surprise. The University is taking more of your money. Don't expect it to change.

BY JULIO GOMEZ

If you go to the Knight Library to do some computing, you will notice that at the entrance the Information and Technology Center there is a sign that reads: "There is currently a 10 cent charge on printing per page," and directly below this sign there is another sign which reads: "Print out your class schedule using DuckWeb!" Your initial reaction might be something to the effect of "why do I have to slap a dime down every time I print, if I'm already paying a fifty dollar per term technology fee?" Then, feeling ultimate betrayal you mutter, "Those dirty, bureaucratic, thieving bastards!"

However, if you go to the little information desk, you'll find that the Knight Library lays out its reasons for this printing charge in a leaflet that you can grab and take home. This letter cites the strain that printing puts on the budget and growing waste problem stating, "in addition to the sharp rise in use of paper and printing supplies, there has been an increase in waste." Many printouts, some of them inches thick, have gone 'unclaimed' and end up in the recycling bin. In checking with other libraries, we discovered that most experienced a 50% drop in printing when a nominal fee was charged! We concluded from this fact that half of all free printing has little value to the user."

So basically the library and the Computing Center administration have a very valid and pressing point about wasted print jobs, and instilled an asinine plan which contradicts the point of having computer labs to deal with this waste, but that is not the sole reason. John Moseley, Provost of the Technology Fee, says, "the Tech Fee hasn't gone up and the legislature has not appropriated any money [to technology resources], so we had to either reduce services or eliminate wastewe figured we could kill two birds with one stone, eliminate waste and cover a small part of the inflationary costs."

The strategy for raising funds is concerning because although it is money well spent, the decision process has completely sidestepped those that it affects. It seems as thought the administration has decided to just stop telling students about any upcoming changes such as ceasing to mail schedules, changing the login procedure for UO net and raising money by charging for printing.

When considering the impact of the printing charge, it should be realized that the fact that you can stand in a university computer lab full of working and well-maintained equipment is somewhat of a miracle of budgeting. One should also remember that the people running all of these programs are computer geeks with no sense of practicality, just efficiency, which is sort of a mixed blessing when they're charging you money.

If the Technology Fee is going to be raised, it should be done through the proper channels. The Technology Fee is a fifty-dollar per term fee that is included under "tuition/fees" portion of every University bill. Students can now see it listed only if you view your balance via DuckWeb. The fee goes towards technological projects for the University. "A big chunk of the money goes into developing and supporting this infrastructure that supports the whole range of computer/electronic activity such as the World Wide Web and all of those things," says Dyke. This includes a great deal of services including the entire UO network, all of the student computer labs, the computer labs in the libraries in conjunction with the libraries, not to mention a slew of projects supported by the Tech Fee and general university funds such as the computer writing classroom and the mathematics computer classroom. To organize these projects, the fee not only pays for the initial equipment, but for the training and continual support that such projects require.

The Internet oriented magazine Yahoo! Rated U of O the sixth most wired University in the country last year. As university students, we have access to many benefits of computers.

When all the services are considered, the tech fee is pretty good deal for just fifty bucks per term. Luckily it can be covered by financial aid, so everyone can pay it and students who are financially strapped can still afford to eat. Charging for printing, however, takes money from the pockets of students who are increasingly dependent on University computer resources.

The administration is constantly trying to incorporate computers into student life in order to enhance teaching, give students vital computer skills and to stay competitive with other universities. The whole reason for having computer labs is to give access to computers to students who cannot afford to invest in such equipment. Many of these students rely on the labs to do research or type papers or even just print them because they can't afford a printer for their own personal computer. A computer is becoming as essential to academia as a pen at UO. A ten-cent fee may not sound like much at first, but some students will visualize each page of their report as a packet of Top Ramon noodles they can no longer afford. The smart student would take their graded works home and eat them in order to get the most from their budget dollar.

Fortunately the charge has been removed in the student computer labs (for now), but not in the library labs. Although this is beneficial, the campus labs tend to have older and slower equipment, whereas the libraries have somewhat newer and faster equipment.

Keeping the charge in the libraries has been attributed to the fact that the general public also has access to the library's labs, increasing the strain of wasted print jobs. These labs are co-managed by the libraries so the waste is a burden not just to university technology resources, but to the library itself.

"What happened is that we've been really successful, as far as I can tell, because students are excited about being able to use these tools and use them productively and unfortunately that success is beginning to outrun the resources that we have available," says Tom Dyke, chairman of the Technology Fee Committee.

The effort has been made within the labs to educate people about the change in procedure. Leaflets available in the labs explain how printing costs have quickly risen in recent years due to more printing being done and higher costs. References are made to other libraries which have instilled a printing fee and found that pages printed dropped by about 505. Other leaflets explain alternatives to printing which include e-mailing the information to your own account and downloading to a diskette. These alternatives, however, seem mundane when you don't have a computer at home to read the diskette or connect to your e-mail account.

When considering all of the facts it's hard figure out what to think. Yes, much of the printing done in computer labs is wasted paper and printing does take its toll on the financial resources quickly, especially when someone decides to print a manual for advanced underwater basket weaving and loses interest before it's even done printing. The computer labs, however, do loose some of their advantages when you must forfeit dinner in order to print your Writing 122 essay. The truth is that a system that would effectively cut out waste and be fair to students is very difficult to come across. ASUO has proposed that University students be allotted a set amount of free printings per year, but how many to allot would quickly create a controversy as big as this one. The current system of adding the printing charge only at the libraries is not definite, and could be changed back to the initial charging plan.

Perhaps an ambitious entrepreneur with a computer and printer will watch of spark of capitalist ingenuity and charge a mere five cents per sheet. The fact that the administration has stopped sending class schedules and grade reports out is another factor to worry about. Students who cannot afford a computer are further strained by having to call long distance just to use DuckCall in order to find out their grades. It's almost as if the University is involved in a conspiracy to eliminate paper from our society altogether and create a brave new world on-line. First they automate our scheduling, then they take away the most important piece of paper we get all year, our grade reports, and make it such a pain in the ass to get a hard copy that we just give up, go into debt and buy a computer. Pretty soon, the University will be able to eliminate mailing any information to students (except for applications to prospective students) and will save even more money so that they can build even greater network infrastructure and create even more on-line classes and pay even less in property taxes and be rated an even better educational bargain.

Julio Gomez, a Sophomore majoring in Business, is a staff writer for the Oregon Commentator