Last night Student Council formally announced the Free Newspaper Project, a joint initiative with the Arts & Sciences Council, which will provide University students with 1,500 free USA Today and New York Times newspapers daily.
Student Council Architecture Rep. Steven Reilly, who is the project’s lead organizer, said the idea came to him after learning that other colleges and universities across the nation offer similar programs.
“I thought it was something great because it takes people out of the U.Va. bubble and it helps students understand what’s going on in the world,” Reilly said.
Student Council originally approached the Arts & Sciences Council because it desired additional funding for the project, ASC Vice President Madhumathi Reddy said.
“They needed someone to co-sponsor the program with them, and we have funding and we thought it would be a great way to get our name out there while providing a great service for students,” Reddy said.
Student Council President Matt Schrimper said half of the $14,000 funding for the project comes from Council and the other half comes from Arts & Sciences Council.
“I’m really pleased to be able to work with another organization,” Schrimper said, adding that “Arts & Sciences has been tremendous to work with.”
Student Council and ASC started working together on this issue during the summer, Reddy noted. By launching the program this fall, the organizers hope students will become more informed about the upcoming election.
“When we were trying to figure out when to start the program, we thought the election would be a great time to start because people are very involved in the news and in politics,” Reilly said.
Although Council members have expressed excitement about the project, they also recognized that some students are concerned about the possible environmental impacts it might have, including people worried the large number of newspapers on Grounds could be detrimental to the environment by creating excess waste, Reilly said.
Student Council Environmental Sustainability Committee member Connie Migliazzo stated that while she is glad Student Council wants to educate students about national and global news, she feels the councils should perhaps look into providing memberships to online publications for students to avoid creating waste.
“I just don’t think [providing actual papers] is necessary,” Migliazzo said.
Both councils, however, have come to an agreement that they feel will help reduce the harmful risk to the University’s environment.
“We are going to be placing recycling bins next to every newspaper stand to encourage people to recycle their newspapers,” Reddy said.
Reilly added that Council will try to attempt to encourage students to recycle as much as possible.
“We want to take as much action as we can to reduce the waste that is being created,” Reilly said.
Migliazzo, however, noted that even when recycling options are available, students often don’t think to use them.
The project, which launches Monday, will have a trial run from Oct. 6 through Nov. 7, after which both councils will try to gather student feedback about the project.
“After the trial period, funding from Student Council and Arts & Sciences Council will take the program into the spring, at which point we want to reassess the program and decide if we’re going to continue it and if so, what form we intend to continue it in,” Reilly said.
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