In the coming months, students may find themselves living in residence halls equipped with ice machines and free printing services.
Since the beginning of the school year, Resi¬dence Hall Association (RHA) and Campus Ad¬vancement Senate Committee have been work¬ing together to implement these new measures.
“RHA’s mission statement is ‘Making Halls into Homes,’” RHA president Ben Whitmer (B2) said. “The idea behind that is you will be living in the residence halls for two years while you are here at Drake, so we want to make this the best possible place for you.”
The initiative would install ice machines into each residence hall, giving students ice avail¬ability without having to go to Spikes or Sodexo. All first-year halls, as well as Morehouse, have refrigerators that produce ice.
“It sounds simple but, of course, it is not as simple as it seems,” Campus Advancement Sen¬ator Greg Larson (B,J2) said. “Over the years, people have wished to get ice machines in the halls and they have hit road blocks.”
RHA met with Interim Director of Residence Life Lorissa Lieurance to discuss the installation; however, the initiative was not approved.
“The Business and Finance Office, Facility Services and the Office of Residence Life have discussed RHA’s idea of purchasing additional ice machines for the residence halls,” Lieurance said. “It has been determined that the purchase and addition of ice maker machines in the residence halls will not be implemented at this time.”
Lieurance said the initiative was not ap¬proved for many reasons including high instal¬lation costs, sanitary issues, safety hazards and the belief that it would be contradictory to the “Blue is Green” initiative.
“I feel that the measures that the university has been taking, in terms of the ‘Blue is Green’ initiative, are more of a cost-effective instead of an environmentally effective approach,” Whit¬mer said. “It has been a little frustrating from that aspect.”
Larson said he agrees with Whitmer and feels that the students’ best interests should be taken into account as well.
“Maybe it is not completely green, but it is what students want,” Larson said.
This week the Campus Advancement Com¬mittee will send out an online survey to ask stu¬dents’ opinions on this matter to see whether or not there is enough support.
“We feel if we get enough student input and say on this, then we can get a pilot program,” Larson said.
Many students have voiced their approval of the supposed initiative.
“It would make it a lot easier for lazy people who do not want to walk all the way to Spikes,” Loren Pavel (B2) said. “Also, for people who need ice for hurt body parts, they would not have to walk all the way across campus with their injury.”
Along with the ice initiative, the RHA the and Campus Advancement committee would like to see campuswide free printing services available to all students in the residence halls, library and possibly Olmsted.
“For example, each student at the beginning of the year would be allotted 500 free copies of paper that would already be included in their tuition,” Larson said. “In theory, you would type in your ID and be able to print off papers, which would deduct from your balance remaining.”
The schools of Pharmacy and Health Sci¬ences already provide their students 500 sheets of paper each semester. These schools would have to adopt the new initiative in order for it to be approved.
“We feel that students need this,” Whitmer said. “The Student Life Center and the library close at 1 a.m. With the college lifestyle, where are students supposed to get their printing done if they do not have their own printer?”
This printing initiative is still being discussed after originally being halted for consideration.
“We have been put on the back burners, but we are not going to take no for an answer,” Whitmer said. “I think this is something that we can get done this year if we push the right buttons, ask the right questions and do the right things.”
Larson said he remains positive that, with time, students will be able to see their sugges¬tions put into action.
“There are a lot of things that we want to do and a lot of things that students want done, but you have to realize that it takes time with every¬thing. It is just the nature of the system,” Larson said. “Patience is key.”
