Saint Mary's Student Government Association (SGA) members voted unanimously to pursue an initiative that would eventually put printers in each residence hall and voted to dismiss a proposal for additional bike racks on campus.
Both initiatives were ideas to spend the remaining $3,400 of the current SGA administration's capital fund.
Student body president Rachael Chesley brought technology into the dialogue. Updating technology has always been an interest of SGA, but all preceding administrations abandoned the idea after running into several obstacles, Chesley said. These obstacles include not having any one person responsible for the printer, which led to frequent state of disarray of the printers.
According to Residence Hall Association (RHA) President Marianne Jones, RHA also has an interest in installing printers in the dorms, but funding is a roadblock.
"Hall councils have been charged with coming up with a list of improvements to residence halls," Jones said, "and the number one thing that everyone wanted was printers in the dorms, but this is out of RHA's price limit."
SGA voted unanimously to officially pursue putting printers into the dorms. Chesley and student body vice president Laura Smith will meet with Coordinator of Student Computing Kathleen Hausmann next week to discuss a proposed plan of action, Chesley said.
"I kind of see it as a phase process," Chesley said. "It wouldn't be all the dorms at once. I think it would begin with one dorm, one printer to prove to the technology department that we can do this, and then we can expand it in the future."
SGA also discussed installing more bike racks on campus.
The bike rack proposal came from a series of comment cards SGA received from students through the comment card collection in the dining hall earlier in the year. Chesley pursued the suggestion with Building Services and brought price points and information to last week's SGA meeting, but the initiative was moved to this week's agenda.
SGA members voted to dismiss the initiative due to lack of evidence that a majority of the student body supported it and due to the high cost of installing the bike racks.
