Boston University will lower the charge for printing extra pages from 12 cents to eight cents, while keeping the print quota at 100 pages per semester, officials said Thursday.
The new policy will take effect in January, and was announced Thursday morning by Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore after meeting with Student Union representatives Wednesday, he said.
Although Student Union President James Sappenfield said Student Union was lobbying for an increase in the print quota to 250 pages, Elmore’s decision reflects a compromise that keeps BU’s goal of going green in sight, Elmore said.
‘Clearly, we don’t want to go back to a situation where we’re giving free printing, but we’ve kept an eye on suggestions,’ Elmore said. ‘What we looked at was cost and sustainability.’
Sappenfield, a College of Arts and Sciences and School of Management senior, said he is pleased with the compromise.
‘I think this is a very positive result because we’re looking at a situation where students’ voices were considered,’ Sappenfield said. ‘We got to express our concerns, and changes were made accordingly.’
In another aspect of the new policy, the Office of the Provost has pledged to work with professors to encourage students to submit assignments online, Sappenfield said.
Still, Sappenfield said he is skeptical about whether Provost David Campbell will come through with his pledge to foster online turn-ins.
‘If the policy isn’t enacted, the printing scheme isn’t going to work,’ he said. ‘I would say that there’s a large concern there.’
Campbell notified faculty of the new policy with an email Thursday, encouraging professors to keep the policy in mind when creating course syllabi.
‘I encourage you to make maximal use of electronic distribution and/or course packets that can be separately purchased and further to reduce printing needs by promoting electronic submission of papers,’ Campbell said in the email.
Faculty members said they have mixed feelings about the new policy.
International Relations professor Charles Dunbar said he believes keeping the quota at 100 pages even while reducing the cost of extra pages is not enough.
‘That seems pretty unreasonable to me,’ he said. ‘It sounds like eight cents is a lot for a page.’
But some faculty, such as journalism professor Susan Walker, said the most important thing is to move in the direction of environmental sustainability.
‘I don’t really see this as a really big outrageous consumer issue,’ Walker said. ‘I see this more as a collective issue of what we need to do to become a greener university.’
Student reactions were also mixed.
Some students, such as CAS freshman Durrah Almansour, were thrilled.
‘I think it’s awesome,’ she said.
Others said the change does not go far enough.
‘I feel like they’re giving a concession just to keep people quiet,’ College of General Studies sophomore Mary Catherine Chase said. ‘While the university claims to keep the print quota low to be green, why are there cover sheets on every single thing that you print? It seems very hypocritical.’
CAS sophomore Amanda Price said she has been out of pages for most of the semester.
‘I think it’s pretty useless because I used up all my print quota in the first two weeks because of all the articles I had to print for class,’ Price said. ‘I don’t think it makes a difference. I spent $3 today, just for one class. And it’s still going to be a few dollars, so if it’s just lessening the price, what’s the difference?’
Sappenfield said even if the new policy is not exactly what students had in mind, they should be happy with the new relationship between student representatives and the administration.
‘I would say that this is a great resolution because our voices have been considered,’ he said. ‘It’s also great for the university because it fosters a sense of ownership and pride in students.’
The change comes after months of conversation between administration and the Union Printing Taskforce, headed by CAS senior Anant Shukla and CAS junior John Bavlsik.
Shukla said the Taskforce found an average 300-page quota per semester at universities across the country, with eight and a half to nine cents charged on pages printed after, resulting in their 250-page recommendation.
But Elmore did not support the recommendation, Shukla said
‘That was our lowest point,’ he said.
However, when Elmore met with the Taskforce after fall break, he announced plans to lower the cost of printing extra pages, Shukla said.
Shukla and Bavlsik said they feel they have reached their goals, and that the persistent negativity from students after the new change is unwarranted.
‘The university really has met us halfway,’ Bavlsik said. ‘When you consider the millions of pages the university prints, a four-cent reduction really adds up.’
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
