The Student Senate met Wednesday evening to discuss concerns about the new printing quota system and the communication of safety alerts to students.
Representatives from the Office of Information Technologies (OIT) presented at the meeting to explain the reasons behind the quota changes.
Bob Guthrie, an employee in the OIT department, said the printing department has run a deficit of over $80,000 above their $300,000 budget over the past four years. Although the amount of printing done by undergraduate students has increased over the past four years, budget allocated for printing has stayed the same.
“We want you to see from our standpoint what our challenge was, and jointly, we would love to come up with a model that stays within the budget set by the University," Guthrie said.
OIT’s goal is to hit a point where 90 percents of students don’t have a problem with printing quota, he said. OIT will work with the remaining 10 percent who do have an issue and their department to find a solution.
“We want to leverage you guys [the Student Senate] to help us come up with a plan that shows due diligence and fiscal responsibility,” Elena Silla, another representative from OIT, said.
The Senate also discussed the issue of student safety in light of the shooting over the weekend that injured a Holy Cross student. Students have expressed concern that off-campus violence in the vicinity of Notre Dame is not reported consistently to students via e-mail.
“Students feel that these instances of violence affect them greatly and that they deserve to be informed about things that are happening in South Bend," Michelle McGrath, Farley Hall's senator, said.
In response, student body president Lauren Vidal said the University believes it is the students’ responsibility to be informed citizens.
“There are crime statistics and news articles readily available to students online; however, this does not mean that the University needs to send out everything in an e-mail,” Vidal said.
Jake Wittenburg, St. Edwards Hall's senator, countered that students are not likely to check crime statistics websites regularly.
The conversation about student safety has been opened and will continue after fall break.
