I walked by a PIRG table on the Mall yesterday and they asked me to sign a petition so they could hire a full-time PIRG employee. I asked about their overall mission and why they needed such a person. The gentleman told me the employee would be used to lobby here and in Washington which would then take more funds.

I asked what their issues were and he pointed to a Global Warming poster. I said that seemed to be a Leftist issue and he said that “PIRG IS PROGRESSIVE” which is code for ONE-SIDED!

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I got news for you Sonny Jim, rightists warm up just as good as leftists.

Students are nickel and dimed to death already and now we have to pay more for paper and ink? The Profs require to print out many pages per topic almost every week.

If you want us to limit our printing, tell the Professors to stop requiring homework that requires printing!

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Maria C.,
You comments are quite removed from reality. As a UNM staff member I can assume you that both staff and faculty are more than advised, but actually berated to cut back on printing as the legislature cuts UNM funding and President Schmidley takes money destined for instruction to pay off his numerous vice presidents and incompetent budgeting. In fact, one reason students are asked to print for themselves is because departments are not given enough money to actually instruct students or operate offices.

It sounds like you just don’t like homework.

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I think that students need to realize that ITS as well as many, many other campus departments are experiencing drastic budget cuts. ITS has struggled for the past few years to keep up the free printing for students and the fact that they are only now limiting the amount that students are allowed to print is something that I find surprising. Do you realize how lucky we have been to only now start to be limited on the amount we print? Other schools charge your student account every time you print.
I think that more students should invest in small netbooks that they can read these articles on while in class instead of printing this stuff out. It is the student’s responsibility to track what they are printing and how much. We need to ask ourselves if we really need to print out that article or will taking notes on it be fine?
And as far as the tracking goes, I don’t believe ITS is keeping a detailed list of information for each student and how much they print. Instead they are using it for general statistics and to cut down on unnecessary printing (like people sending the same thing to the printer 20 times).
I am just tired of people complaining about something that ITS has tried very hard to give to the University and blaming them for not having the funds to keep it up. If you really want to get pissy with someone, talk to Schmidly and ask him if he can spare a couple thousand from his paycheck to pay for printing.

Fine, make undergrads pay to print. Most of them won’t write more than 10-40 pages of homework a semester anyway. The mediocre education offered to undergrads at UNM can go entirely paperless for all I care—it probably wouldn’t make much difference.

But facilities and help for Grad students on this campus are sparse as it is. As someone who writes several drafts of several hundred pages each semester—all of which need to be reviewed in real time by professors, committees, and journal editors, I can tell you I definitely use more than 250 pages, and not because I am wasteful. That is what’s necessary. Grad students keep this school going. The research which helps UNM’s national and international ranking as a respectable institution depends on grad students. The research labs which attract and keep top faculty at UNM requires grad students. The classes most under-worked, under-educated undergrads take are taught by, guess who? And trust me, UNM’s resource allocation puts grad students near the bottom. Last year when budget cuts were made, departments had to cut and limit GA/TA positions and faculty were pressed to find outside funding for the grad students who make their labs and classrooms run. Take our time, take our labor, take our office space and salaries and research and services—take our pride, but please, for gods sake, do you have to take our paper too?

@overworked Grady
If it makes you feel any better, I doubt they’d be able to take your smug sense of self importance. Just curious, did you write that on a mac?