To the Editor:
I hope the latest fee initiative by the university prompts students here at USM to become less passive and start giving a damn!
A small icon appears on the computer screens when the print command is activated, disclosing the impending purchase price of printing our schoolwork. At the computer lab desks, there are little pink slips of paper explaining the latest surcharge for attending this college. One of the reasons why: “to reduce waste.”
Now someone has determined that my countless hours obtaining research and drafting class papers is a “waste.” The pink notice addresses the question of the Technology Fee, in particular, and informs us this is for upgrading the equipment and not intended to “subsidize personal use.”
I do not consider the printing of material needed and required to achieve good grades to be of a personal and frivolous nature. I hope this latest backdoor move by the “powers that be” riles up students enough to start responding in greater numbers through this campus forum or through seeking out members of the Student Senate and voicing their opposition.
The little icon appearing this week is the first notice I am aware of regarding this fee to be imposed in August, 2002, and I wonder why it has been such a secret. I am a non-traditional student who has also been a voter in the State of Maine for thirty years and I have supported every referendum bond issue to support the institutions of higher learning in Maine.
This week the Portland Press Herald reported massive staff and program cutbacks at the Technical College in South Portland and USM has proposed mandatory per-credit hour charges to fund the parking garage and now is instituting a pay-per-page printing fee. Where is all the bond money?
I know, capital improvements are not intended for personal use. This is a public institution that is fast becoming privately funded by the student body. The university is well aware that pennies become large dollar expenditures and I just hope the students here will soon realize the same fact.
If people are using the computer lab printers for printing hundreds of personal internet items that end up in the recycle bin, then chastise them, not me for trying to fulfill my class requirements to attain good grades.
Ron Gervais
Commuter Student