New Pay-for-Paper System Frustrates Students
by Aisha Al-Muslim
Issue date: 10/1/06 Section: News
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The LPS, a print and copy management system for instructional facilities at Lehman, is currently in operation at workstations on eight tables in the Academic Information Technology Open Center (IT Center) and the public workstations at the Leonard Lief Library. With this new system, printing or copying requires a funded account. Lehman students, faculty and staff automatically have an account created using their Lehman email address and their CUNY ID Cards.
"I think that everything is expensive enough, including our books and the cost of living," said Lehman sophomore Melissa Rodriguez. "So now that we have to pay for printouts, it's ridiculous."
Students will have a "free balance" allocated to their account each semester from the student Technology Fee. For the majority of students, the free balance will cover their printing needs for the term. Full-time students will receive an allocation of $17.50 per semester and part-time students will receive a total of $8.75. Faculty teaching in the Academic IT Center and in library classrooms will also receive an allocated balance. All other users will be expected to fund their own accounts using the kiosks located either at the IT Center or the Library.
Joseph Middleton, a member of the Lehman Information Technology Strategic Planning Committee said that the remaining tables in the IT Center and the library will be added to the system by next semester. He explained that the student Technology Fee funds LPS, costing $76,000 per year. The monitoring system and hardware for Phase I cost $88,000 and Phase II is expected to cost $30,000 for expansion of the system.
According to Middleton, printing systems from other colleges such as John Jay, Bronx Community, Hunter, Brooklyn and Baruch, were reviewed and compared by the committee.
"We wanted to make sure our rates were reasonable, given what the other people were charging, and that our allocation was reasonable, given what other people were doing, and it is," Middleton said.
Simone Taylor, a Lehman junior, feels that the allocated balance is not enough. She worries about her printing costs when her initial account is depleted.
"For the amount of people who [need to] print, it's pointless to have people pay for a piece of paper that should be free," said Taylor. "You come to school, you already pay for your tuition. Why pay for information that you need for class?"