Printing on Campus
By Sabina Tomkins | December 3, 2009
Proposal to Deal with Printing Costs
Situation Brief:
Printing is provided to students at a rate of 20 pages per quarter. It is provided to faculty from their departments. At what rate per quarter is unknown.
Situation In Depth:
After reducing the amount allocated by paper cut from 200 pages to 20 IT has seen a reduction in paper wasted. Now that students are restricted they aren’t printing unnecessary pages. Students are not currently complaining about restrictions to IT but certain groups of students are still upset. Nursing students in particular are being asked to print more paper than is allocated through paper cut.
Ideal Situation:
Printing is provided to students at a rate necessary to accomplish their learning goals. Printing is provided to faculty at a rate which is sustainable. Printing is kept at a minimum. Students are required to print handouts and assignments only after other resources have been maximized. A system exists to reuse paper that is accidentally printed, or which goes unused. Printers can print double sided pages.
Summary:
Paper cut has been a very good thing. The amount of necessary pages printed has been drastically reduced with two obvious benefits: a positive environmental impact and lowered costs for the college. For students experiencing strain because they can’t afford printing a solution needs to be found but the issue is not that they can’t afford printing but that they are being asked to print so much in the first place. Many professors use online course books and in class exercises instead of asking students to print. Trish Root and Thomas Cook are examples of people who are utilizing online resources and therefore positively impacting the environment and cutting costs. Below are my suggestions of how NSCC can address this issue as an institution.
Phase One:
Discover which professors are asking their students to print the most. Work with them to develop other resources. Increase the limit currently placed on professors.
Phase Two:
Implement a system to reuse pages. One suggestion would be to put old pages back into printers for papers people aren’t turning in and have a selection to print from that tray. Make all printers on campus print double sided automatically.
Phase Three:
Develop funding for students who cannot afford any extra printing.
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