Bethlehem, PA -- According to a recent news story in the Lehigh University student newspaper, the Brown and White, the university’s Residential Services has decided to eliminate university printers currently housed in dorms. The director of residence life, Ozzie Breiner has stated that “ ‘We have found that a majority of our students already have their own printers, which are equipped to meet their needs.’” Breiner also noted that the uncontrolled environmental conditions found in the dorms, like high humidity, creates more paper jams and break downs.
There are other places on campus such as the libraries and computer labs where more “reliable level of printer productivity”. Breiner cited waste as a large factor in making this choice to go away from dorm printers. Under the current setup, Lehigh suffered the theft of computer paper as well as students printing multiple copies of items and nonacademic materials.
This bold move will commence in August 2010, with all printers removed from all freshman dorms by the end of 2010, with the remaining dorms, apartments, and fraternity and sorority houses having printers removed by the end of 2011. This decision has the support of the Lehigh Environmental Advisory Group, the LTS Printing Committee and the Green Action Committee.
As one might expect, the reaction across the student body has been mixed. Many cite the convenience of a printer in a dorm to be worth a lot. Freshmen, for instance, are not allowed to have cars on campus and the printing locales are not close by. Upper classmen have expressed similar, if not vehement objections to this change. One fraternity member quoted in the article called it “ ‘unacceptable’”. There has been some support from students, but it is not been a frequent occurrence.
With more and more colleges deciding to “green” their operations, this may start to be a more frequent occurrence. As always, we recommend Amazon.com for purchasing a printer and Castle Ink for restocking your ink.
