SO YOU come back to the University expecting everything to be normal (besides the construction, of course), but you know you are wrong once you step into the library. Appropriately so -- once more, the state's budget cuts have been passed down to the University to take care of. That's yesterday's news. Needless to say, this time the University has found a really slick way to make up for a part of these budget cuts by taking away your privileges of unlimited printing at the libraries. Not only that, but ITC will impose a limit on the number of pages we can print in labs. Like many of you, I only recently found out, as I was making my way back into town, that the University and ITC have decided -- without prior notice -- to start making up for their budget cuts by charging students for printing from libraries and creating ITC lab printing limits.
In any case, along with many other services (like library hours) that have been cut, ITC has decided that we only should be allowed 500 page sides per semester, and that we should pay for anything thereafter. Hence, under the mask of environmental conservation, the University has found yet another way to start charging us for services that should have come with the education for which we all pay. But it's not just that. I was shocked to see just how quickly ITC was able to round up almost all the printers in the libraries and leave us at their mercy with perhaps one printer at "major library" locations, claiming that they will put them back in sometime in the middle of this month (all equipped with the latest pocket-emptying technology). This is outrageous.
Most students are all about saving paper and recycling and such, but the new printing policy is not about saving paper. Most of us don't waste paper. Yet, the University's first priority isn't the environment; what they wanted was another way to make money. Students should have the right to access printing material that is conducive to our educational process, academic or extracurricular. The fact that ITC has limited it in an effort to eventually eliminate it is just plain wrong. The way the University and ITC decided behind students' backs -- while they were on summer break -- to change the policy seems like a good way to avoid the reactions of the student body. And then they try to convince students that 500 sides are enough and they'll only get charged a "nominal fee" for printing more -- that is as much as 10 cents a side, which is not nominal when you're printing out long papers or articles. All that aside, ITC has yet to install these pay-for-print stations.
Even worse is their plan (which you will find at http://www.itc.virginia.edu/printless) to turn all printing into a pay-for-print service administered through University Printing Services, starting next summer. One has to wonder if anyone ever stopped along the way of planning this to consider what negative effects this may have on students. Just think how it will affect you and your grades the next time you go to the library to print out some slides to study for a test when you only have 500 sides of pages to print on for the whole semester. Now the next question is: Where will this spirit of "conservation" (in other words: making students pay for the state's budget deficit) stop? Should the University start charging students for water at the water fountains around Grounds? Should they make students pay for the use of public restrooms? What about the UTS bus service? Or a fee for e-mails if you get more than 500 a semester?
The University definitely can do these things. Unless students stand up and say no, we can never guess what ways can be found to milk us for more money. This is not to say these services do not generate costs for the University, and although most students sympathize with the problems posed by budget cuts that have been thrown at us, our tuition and fees should take care of such services -- and that includes printing costs.
(Rebeen Pasha is a third-year College student and a Student Council representative. The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Student Council.)
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