The Student Senate is contemplating implementing USA Today’s Collegiate Readership program, which will make copies of local, regional, and national newspapers available in all University of Southern Maine residence halls without charge. The papers are not free however, as the program would cost about ten tuition dollars per student every semester. It is unclear where funding for this program would come from.
The program is already in place at The University of Maine at Orono, Farmington, and Presque Isle.
“The student government seemed quite receptive and quite interested in the program,” said UME Orono Student Body President Matthew Rodrigue, who discussed the program while visiting USM’s student government this past week.
The Student Senate discussion is still in its early stages. Chris O’Connor, assistant to the Dean of Student Life said that the program would require “a passionate core of senators” in order to pass. Jeremy Collette, the Student Senate chair is reviewing the information, but said the program would not officially be brought before the Senate for several more weeks.
USM considered the program in the past. It implemented USA Today’s month long trial program on the Gorham campus in the fall of 2000, but opted to discontinue the program due to its cost and issues with littering. The Student Senate debated the program again last year and decided that the price was prohibitively high. According to last Feb.’s cost estimates, USA Today could provide an assortment of 1200 papers daily for $30,000 a semester.
There is currently one copy of the Portland Press Herald provided for Portland Hall residents.
“Unfortunately, students are taking sections and not giving them back,” said Joy Britting, the residence coordinator of Portland Hall. “Recently there have been requests for a more nationally focused paper,” she said. Britting was hesitant to comment on the program due to her un familiarity with it, but said she would like to have five or six more papers every morning.
The stated goals of the program are to encourage interest in current events by habituating students to a daily paper and to enhance the educational environment
The program contends that students will read the papers as long as they are conveniently located.
Over 250 colleges nationwide currently participate in the USA Today Collegiate Readership program. The program delivers newspapers to residence halls and student centers every weekday morning. The participating colleges pick the papers they want from a list which includes USA Today, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and many others.
USA Today provides display racks, surplus paper removal, and recycling. They also have a flexible billing plan which allows colleges to adapt the program to meet their budget limitations.
Greg Guyette, Collegiate Readership Program manager for New England, said the previous experience on the Gorham campus does not mean the program is incompatible with USM. “At that point we had only been doing the program for a couple of years. Since then we have gotten much better at addressing the individual needs of the universities,” said Guyette. USA Today works with local distributors to help campuses arrange funding, distribution, and appropriately sized orders. “In my experience where there has been a will to do the program it has always succeeded,” said Guyette.
Sam Geer can be contacted at [email protected]