The fall semester will be marked by a number of crucial changes to computer lab printing at the University of Tampa.
Not only will color printers be installed in each of the major computer facilities in Vaughn, Sykes and Jaeb, but a page limit will be imposed on students making use of campus printers.
Although a concrete figure for this limit has yet to be determined, a reasonable cap will be established from data collected at the end of this semester.
The purpose of this new policy is not to punish students, explained computer lab coordinator Jennifer Jamison, but to encourage responsibility and maintain healthy school expenditures.
“The creation of a limit is meant to encourage sustainability on campus, as well as to prevent abuse.” said Jamison.
Under this new policy, the printing quota will be handled in a similar manner to that of UT Spartan dollars for meal plans.
At the beginning of each semester students will be afforded a set amount of money to spend on printing over the course of their studies.
Each page printed will be deducted from that sum, with black and white pages costing $0.10 and color pages $0.50.
Additional pages will be purchased through an online transaction with a debit or credit card.
Leftover lab dollars will not be transferable from semester to semester.
“The objective is that students who do not print excessively will have enough free pages to meet their needs each semester,” Jamison said.
To date, a staggering total of 1,600,407 pages have been printed since the beginning of the semester.
Students who contributed a thousand pages or more to this figure were contacted via email just before spring break.
One of these students, sophomore Thomas Lizza, expressed his concern over the new policy.
“I understand some people abuse the free printing in the labs and bump up the cost of cartridges and paper, but a university should have to deal with those kind of expenses,” he said.
“It’s not like any of us are coming to school and using the facilities for free anyway.”
Jeffrey can be reached at jpalmer@ut.edu.
I really hope that this policy has been rethought and will not be instated at the beginning of the semester. I’m sure some people do abuse our free printing, and I am totally against that. However, the University needs to suck it up. I’m being abused by being charged ridiculously high “rent” for on-campus housing and being charged $7 for a shitty cheeseburger in Spartan Club when I run out of meal exchanges.
And what happens when somebody forgets to log-out on a computer lab computer (which happens all the time)? I guess I might accidentally print my 40 page lab report at their expense…
Many schools actually do this. As long as there is a resonable amount of money allocated to each student this should be fine. Costs for printing can be expensive, wouldn’t you want the extra money we will be saving to go somewhere where it can have more of an influence for us?
as if we don’t pay enough already… at least we’re getting a chapel right?
I think this is a great idea. I am a student, and I know that the extra cost sucks, but so many people print things unnecessarily for the convenience of having a hard copy, when the work can be just as easily on a computer. Now that people are aware of the cost they will stop being so wasteful. People always talk about making the university more sustainable, but when it come to taking action they balk at the inconvenience of it all. If people didn’t print so excessively this policy never would have been instated in the first place.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Charging students for the paper we already pay for? Some students abuse the opportunity of free printing I am sure, but this is not reason to punish everyone. UT has been going downhill recently, raising tuition but now expecting us to pay a fee for paper. What is next, charging for the ink we use, perhaps charge for every piece of silverware you use in the cafeteria?
I understand the limit, but really? Charging them? Come on!!! Reconfigure where our tuition money goes and increase the bank account for computer paper and ink. I know it’s expensive, but students WILL find other ways to print multiple copies elsewhere, which will decrease the use of campus resources. UT has awesome resources and this will negate the fact.