The Penn State Student Facilities Fee
Friday, May 30th, 2008In case you missed it, Penn State’s board of Trustees approved a new Student Facilities Fee two weeks ago. This fee will be in addition to other fees, including the Information Technology Fee and Student Activity Fee. The fee is designed to be used to fund student-centered facilities since Penn State needs more student facilities across all of its locations. However, I believe this fee and how it was brought about are a perfect example of how University Administrators have once again failed to address student concerns and have been unwilling to negotiate with students in order to reach an appropriate solution.
Lacking Receptiveness to Student Input
Despite claiming to be student-centered, administrators really failed to listen to student leaders and work with them to address concerns. While Student Affairs was very willing to market the fee and woo students with beautiful facilities that other Universities have, they apparently had no genuine concern for student opinion. When the University Park Undergraduate Association chose not to support the implementation of this fee both Student Affairs and the President moved forward with it anyway.
Misleading Information
One of the key problems with the way University Administrators handled this fee is how compared the fees we pay with that of other Universities. Administrators argued that non-tuition fees are much lower than other Universities. However, they “forgot” to mention that many of these state Universities have much lower tuition rates. In addition to bias in facts and statistics, Administrators were very vague about how the fee would be controlled and how building projects would be determined. If students are paying a fee that directly impacts them, they ought to be included in the decision-making process.
Uncertain Future
Now that certain University Administrators have pushed their agenda forward, it is unclear how this fee will be implemented, governed, and used. My advice is that students continue to fight for a voice on this fee. My biggest fear is that this will become an under-examined fee much like the Information Technology Fee. Administrators should be held accountable for how money is spent to ensure it gets used in the best ways possible while meeting the needs of those it is intended for. After all, it is obvious that the rates of both tuition and student fees will only continue to balloon in the future.
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ResCom Increases Bandwidth Limit to 4GB
Monday, March 17th, 2008For some time now, I have been a supporter of improving the ResCom service for students living in the residence halls. This is partly because I was formerly the ResCom student supervisor at Penn State Mont Alto and saw firsthand the shortcomings of internet service in University residence halls. With help and support on behalf of students from CCSG, I have advocated for both an increase in bandwidth restrictions as well as improvements to the registration process.
On Friday, an announcement was made that beginning this week, bandwidth limits will increase from 2GB/week to 4GB/week. Additionally, network throughput during the day would increase 120%. This is a major improvement for the residence halls. However, it should not make us forget about improving the service in the long-term. Here are my suggestions for ResCom, which I presented to University administrators 2 weeks ago in a formal letter: (more…)
What it means to be student-centered
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008This is a bit of a change in pace compared to what I normally write about. The other day I began to wonder what exactly it means to be student-centered. Warning: I go off on a tangent here.
In 2001, University President Graham Spanier spoke at the Advising Odyssey conference about issues that academic advisers will be faced with in the future. During his speech, Spanier explained that an important factor of successfully educating students in the future will be creating an engaged or student-centered University. While this term is somewhat self-explanatory, it could easily be misinterpreted as creating a university that pampers students. Sorry if you were expecting full time massage therapists or day spas in our residence halls.
Spanier defined a student-centered University with three relatively broad statements:
- “An engaged institution must be responsive to the needs of today’s students and tomorrow’s– not yesterday’s. “
- “It will enrich student experiences by bringing research and engagement into the curriculum and offering practical opportunities for students to prepare for the world they will enter.”
- “…it will put knowledge and expertise to work on problems its communities face.”
Are we a student-centered University?
In many ways, Penn State is a student-centered University. Faculty, staff, and administrators have made many attempts to tailor courses and majors to meet the needs of students. Many professors engage students by giving them the opportunity to participate in research projects. These are only a few examples.
However, Penn State isn’t always perfect at meeting the educational needs of its students. Sometimes students get shafted when it comes to resources that are important to their education and career. Sometimes, students don’t have a role in decisions that are made in the University. For being so student-centered, I find it frustrating when University Administrators turn a deaf ear when students speak out about issues.
The Bad Days
On some days, many of my student colleagues deal with people that have subconsciously generalized students as immature, irresponsible, and more of a cash cow than a valuable resource of advice for the betterment of the University, and their attitude reflects that. While their perception may be true of some students, it is wrong to place all students in this category. Every day I work with student leaders that are passionate about making the University a better place for everyone. They are selfless workaholics who do not want or need recognition, even though they deserve it. For students with this kind of dedication, it is incredibly disheartening to come into contact with people that has a negative impression of the students that they are supposed to support.
The Good Days
On a good day, the people that student leaders interact with are receptive to the needs of students. They want to make life better for students throughout the University. For a genuine student leader, nothing feels better than having staff or administration reach out to you looking for ways to improve that they can University, in either a small way or a large one. To me, that is student-centered culture at its finest.
The Days Ahead
Hopefully, our University will continue to be student-centered. It is vital to the success of both students and the University as a whole. There will always be skeptics that believe they know what is best for the student body despite lacking student input. However, the value of being student-centered will hopefully be proven by those that listen to the needs of students and continue to help reshape the University to meet their academic needs. Hopefully, there will be more good days than bad ones for student leaders.
My Rant of the Day
Monday, December 17th, 2007Well, it’s 8pm and ANGEL (Penn State’s Course Management System) has been sluggish or unusable for most of the day. This is frustrating since it’s finals week and there are things that I would like to access on ANGEL for studying. Thankfully, I was able to submit a paper on ANGEL earlier today before it really started having problems. However, it’s very frustrating to see a critical service become practically unusable for any amount of time, especially during finals week.
I’m not pushing blame on anyone in the University, but there should be some level of accountability when production services fail. Ever hear of an SLA?
On top of that, the ITS Alert for this issue is about as descriptive as.. well.. okay it’s not very descriptive at all.
Yes, I’m cranky.
University Cleans Up Bots on Campus
Monday, June 11th, 2007I wrote this essay for SRA 111. The solution this university uses is, in my opinion, not so great.
Ditch Webmail2
Monday, June 11th, 2007Originally Published 2/10/2006
If you’re using Gmail you already know the benefits and if you’re like me you look at your PSU webmail account with disgust. Why can’t the Webmail2 system be more like gmail? Well actually, it CAN be gmail…
“Converting” your PSU e-mail to Gmail, as I will call it, isn’t really difficult at all. You just have to know where to look for a few settings, and I’ll show you exactly where in this guide. If you’re wondering whether or not your outgoing messages (messages you send) will still show @psu.edu in Gmail, yes they will.