By EDDIE MIKUS
STAFF WRITER
Fordham residence halls will soon have central printers, much like those that currently exist in the Walsh Library.
O’Hare and Tierney Halls will be used as pilots for the new printing program, which, according to a post on the Fordham Resident Technology Consultant blog, will permit students to print wirelessly from their rooms.
“For the first time, a residence hall will have a public printer within its walls, available to print via the pay-and-print setup we know and love, or wirelessly from your own machine,” the post said. “Soon, with just a little bit of setup, you can print wirelessly without thumb drives and copy-pasting files, or even leaving your hall.”
As of press time, Fordham IT personnel declined to be interviewed for this article because the printer program is still in development and not yet available for student use.
They did say, however, that they would be willing to discuss the program with The Fordham Ram once it was fully operational.
Students in O’Hare and Tierney greeted the idea of a central printer within the residence halls with near-universal approval.
“I would definitely use a printer in this building rather than walking all the way to the library, especially because it’s more convenient and also if I need something directly, I can have access to it right where my room is,” O’Hare resident Chelsea Aiss, FCRH ‘15, said of the new printers.
Blanche Hedrick, FCRH ‘15, an O’Hare resident who does not have a printer in her room, seconded the view that it would be more convenient to use a printer in a residence hall.
“I know where every printer on this campus is, and it’s not close to me,” Hedrick said. “And if I’m in a rush, I’d like to go downstairs and use that printer instead of having to go 10 minutes out of my way.”
Others viewed the idea of a printer as a fail-safe against a personal printer malfunctioning in any way.
“This past week, my printer has been broken, so I know that if there was another printer in the dorm that I could have used, then that would have been very helpful,” Brittany Vella, FCRH ’15, a resident of Tierney Hall, said. “For people who have their own printers, I feel like they would use theirs, but if your printer, if something happens to it, if it malfunctions, I think it would be useful.”
Some students said they would rather use a central printer because they did not want to use a large amount of ink printing readings for classes.
“When I’m reading for my law classes, sometimes it’s 50-plus pages of reading, and I don’t want to print on my own printer and waste all that ink,” Thomas DeGrace, FCRH ’14 O’Hare resident said.
DeGrace, however, also made a suggestion for the residence hall printer program.
“The only thing that I would suggest is putting a pay station with it,” DeGrace said. “This way, we could print and fill up on our cards here.”
He clarified his remarks by saying he was not sure if a pay station would eventually be installed with the O’Hare Hall printer.
Judy Rothschild, a manager in the IT Department, spoke about the pilot printing system at a United Student Governemt meeting several weeks ago.
Rothschild mentioned at the meeting that students would be able to swipe their ID card at the residence hall printer to pay for their copies, similar to the system in the library.
Rothschild said at the meeting that in the future, she hopes students would eventually be able to put money on their student ID cards through the My.Fordham portal, instead of using machines such as those located in the copy center of the library.
Either way, IT hopes that this will make things more convenient for students to access their technologies.
