Editorial, Argus Staff
State Farm Hall is Illinois Wesleyan University’s newest and arguably most technologically-advanced building on campus. With over 48,000 square feet of educational space, it’s hard to see why, out of everything offered to students at State Farm Hall, full-time access to a printer is not.
While room 122 on the first floor has several computers and printers that students are able to use, the space is often occupied with a class, rendering it unusable to every other student in the building during that time.
Students and professors should be able to print at any time in State Farm, as it is the largest and most-used educational building on campus and therefore is the space where a functioning printer is most useful.
During the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school years, printing was made available in the small computer lab on the third floor of State Farm Hall. Though the printer is still there, the capability to use it is not, as this year the lab is also being used as a classroom space and the printer has been disconnected.
It is inconvenient for professors and students to not be able to print in the largest classroom building on campus, and it takes a lot of extra time to either plan ahead and print at either the Ames Library (which is now the only guaranteed place to print) or try one’s luck in the classrooms at the Center for Natural Sciences and Buck Memorial Library for the possibility of an open computer.
Buck once offered a computer lab with two printers that were accessible to students, but it has been removed in the last year. Now the only available places to print in Buck are the two computer lab/classrooms on the second floor (which are commonly occupied with classes) and the Language Resource Center on the first floor (which is intended for students in foreign language courses).
CNS also provides printers in the computer lab/classroom on the second floor, but those too are commonly unavailable because of the room’s use as a classroom.
The only building on campus that makes printing available to students at all times is the Ames Library. This year’s decrease in printing services on campus is impractical.
The re-installation of a single printer – even one that only prints in black and white – on the third floor of State Farm would save a lot of time and energy for both students and professors who teach and learn in State Farm Hall (i.e. all of us). The printer is still sitting, unused, in the computer lab. Though the cost of ink can be expensive, the benefit of putting an otherwise wasted printer to use and the convenience of having a printer to use at any time would outweigh the cost of a cartridge of black ink.
With SmartBoards, high-tech projectors and even the fancy, swiveling desk chairs provided in State Farm Hall, sometimes all we want to use is a good old fashioned printer.