A Western student looks at a clock and realizes she has 10 minutes to get across campus, print off a homework assignment and make it to class.
She finds a computer in Haggard Hall between a group of loud students going over a PowerPoint presentation and someone browsing Facebook. After what seems like an eternity staring at the start-up background of Western, she realizes she is late for class and has not even opened her assignment yet.
Slow computers can be a problem. But thanks to a few dollars of each student's tuition, several technology upgrades will be coming to campus by next school year.
Western students who take 12 credits or more pay $17 per quarter to the Student Technology Fee (STF). From the $17, $15 goes to what are called the STF Awards.
STF Awards are used to upgrade computer labs and buy departmental technology and software, but may not continue after the 2009-10 school year when the current fee expires, said Western junior Chelsea Fletcher, member of the STF Award committee.
The committee approved 14 of the 25 proposals this year and may be able to fund two more if it is are able to save enough while purchasing equipment.
“[This year] we got a lot of great proposals, and we picked the ones that we felt were the most far reaching and exemplified the mission of the STF,” Fletcher said.
The committee passed a proposal to replace all the computers in the Haggard Hall computer labs. Updating Haggard this year is important because the labs in the Communications Facility will need to be updated next year, said Rob Galbraith, Academic Technology and User Services (ATUS) assistant director.
The computers currently in Haggard will be dispersed across campus to update print stations and older computers in Old Main and Miller Hall.
The Student Technology Center will replace nine computers used for color printing and one-on-one software tutoring.
Upgrades are necessary, so computers are able to run versions of Adobe Creative Suite 3 and other media software that students commonly use, said John Farquhar, ATUS instructional development and multimedia manager.
The STF Awards will also bring several other important changes around campus, Fletcher said. Western Libraries will get media enhanced group study spaces that feature plasma screens that can be used as whiteboards or computer screens, or to practice presentations.
The Writing Center will be getting five laptops and a double-sided printer.
More laptops will be added to the checkout system at Wilson Library.
Many of the proposed changes will take place over the summer.
The lab upgrades will occur in stages, so some labs will be open for the summer session and summer start.
Upgrades are becoming more necessary as the current technology on campus ages, said Lisa Spicer, administrative assistant and committee member.
Western is falling behind other state institutions because of its low technology fee, Lawson said.
University of Washington charges $41 per full-time student, per quarter; Central Washington University charges $25 and Eastern Washington University charges $35. Washington State University has no student technology fee.
“Students will face an important choice,” Lawson said. “If they choose to continue the STF at its current rate, we won’t be able to maintain our labs.”
The student senate is suggesting the STF be raised to $17 for part-time students and $25 for full-time students, Fletcher said. But the decision will ultimately be up to the 2009-10 Senate and AS elections.
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