The Saga of the Transcript Fee

When the SGA sat down at its retreat in August, it outlined five key projects to start the year off with. One of these projects was to investigate the new $8 transcript fee that had gone into effect over the summer. The committee over the past month and half has been very busy looking into it, and has had many interesting experiences and startling revelations.

To start, we did research. UMBC outsourced handling the distribution of our transcripts to Credentials Inc. We looked into the company a bit, but we also looked into transcript fees at other institutions. Our first revelation came in finding out that no other college in the state of Maryland has a transcript fee nearly as high as UMBC. This was disheartening, and we decided to meet with Dr. Nancy Young to find out more about how the decision to allow this fee to pass came to be. During our meeting, we were told that the Registrar’s office had been so busy printing transcripts, that they were unable to focus on services to students. Now that they didn’t have to handle that part of the job, they can focus on those services. We also found out that the fee had originally been proposed at $10, but was knocked down to $8. She informed us that to her knowledge, the fee was only to cover the costs of using Credentials’ services (no money would come back to UMBC to use). Dr. Young told us the Vice Presidents had been shown fees from other universities and all were in a range of $5-$15. They were also told that for someone requesting a transcript, namely alumni, it would not be a burden since they usually only request one. Dr. Young was surprised to find out about the other USM schools, and actually looked up College Park and Ohio State, two of her alma maters, and found they both had very low fees compared to us. She suggested to us to look up the fees at UMBC’s peer institutions (which are colleges across the country similar to UMBC in size and makeup) and to meet with the Registrar, Steve Robinson.

Taking her advice to heart, we did more research. And again we found that of our 10 peer institutions, 3 gave out transcripts for free, and 4 were at $5. Only 3 were as high as or higher than UMBC. Naturally this only fueled our worries about why our fee was so high.

Today we met with Mr. Robinson. He told us about how there was a bidding process for the outsourcing, with Credentials winning. He also told us that there was indeed money coming back to UMBC in a revenue sharing plan. Some of this money would go to offsetting the departments budget problems, some would go to hiring more staff eventually, and the rest would be going to research and development. When we asked the Registrar why UMBC was in such dire straits compared to our peer institutions that we needed such a high fee, he informed us that we shouldn’t compare ourselves to our peers.

We also asked him if there could be alternatives to the current model. When asked if we could have it to where students could use Credentials if they needed those particular services, but could still get transcripts for free at the Office of the Registrar, he told us that would be infeasible, giving a metaphor that if given a choice between free parking on campus and using the meters, people would use the free parking. We also asked him if perhaps we could do method where students could get 3 transcripts for free in a day, and anymore than that could be charged (a method used as other campuses), but he told us that it would be nearly impossible to track that kind of data. In the end, we asked how could he justify having students pay another fee outside of the many fees we already pay for, he told us that we pay for stuff at the Yum Shoppe in the Commons, and this is very similar.

The committee has yet to meet to decide our next course of action. Obviously input from the students that we represent (all of you) would be very helpful, so leave some comments. If you would like to let the Registrar know your feelings on the fee, e-mail him at robinsos@umbc.edu. We plan to continue working on this issue until the problem is resolved.

UMBC: Its Own Worst Enemy, Part 2

UMBC does a number of things to shoot itself in the foot with students, the individuals every university relies on the most - not only for financial support through tuition and alumni donations, but through the ever-popular buzzphrase of "viral marketing," in other words, speaking highly of UMBC to friends and family.

One of the most frustrating things for me has been UMBC's differential enforcement of school "policies." Many policies are only invoked when a problem is perceived, others seem designed to stifle student life. Compounding this predicament is the seeming inability of the university to communicate its intentions to the enforcement arm, as I experienced yesterday in the Hilltop parking lot.

The UMBC Posting Policy is the perfect example of differential enforcement. How many students have been involved with an organization or event and been told to take posters down for violating posting policy? Ever tried to be creative and post things in non-standard areas, like the College Republicans have been doing over the past few weeks?

How about those Work for Students folks, an organization that according to some is less than honest with its attempts to secure student workers? They seem to get a free pass to post their signs anywhere on campus they please, no matter how disruptive to normal activities (partially covering chalkboards, for example, with the paper signs).

What about chalking, another form of "posting"? Anonymous groups get free reign of the campus, posting their messages on buildings and walls everywhere. Yet when SEB wants to promote Quadmania with guerrilla chalk ads, they are chastised.

Something seems very wrong with these pictures. Is it that important that our campus be "sterile," no ad or message disturbing its pristine image? And if so, how come the rules only seem to apply to some? Is workforstudents.com more important than our own student organizations?

For heaven's sake, UMBC. It's situations like this that make students want to curse the place that will eventually be our alma mater. You're your own worst enemy.

UMBC: Its Own Worst Enemy, Part 1

UMBC does a number of things to shoot itself in the foot with students, the individuals every university relies on the most - not only for financial support through tuition and alumni donations, but through the ever-popular buzzphrase of "viral marketing," in other words, speaking highly of UMBC to friends and family.

One of the most frustrating things for me has been UMBC's differential enforcement of school "policies." Many policies are only invoked when a problem is perceived, others seem designed to stifle student life. Compounding this predicament is the seeming inability of the university to communicate its intentions to the enforcement arm.

A stark example of this happened to me today and provided the impetus for embarking on this series of posts.

I have long contended that the perceived "parking problem" at UMBC is not the lack of parking spaces, but the lack of parking spaces that are close to the places students want to go on campus. As a commuting student this semester, I have put this into practice by heading straight for the Hilltop lot (Lot 22, I believe) when I arrive for class each morning.

Today I was in the undesirable situation of being ten minutes late for class. Pulling onto Hilltop Road at 11:10 AM, I knew there was no chance of finding a space in any of the closer lots, so I dutifully headed directly for the Hilltop lot. I was immediately confronted by a staff member, who informed me that student parking was "to the right." About a third of the lot had been cordoned off (diagonally, I might add, so at least ten spaces were lost in the caution tape) for special event parking. Naturally, the remaining space was long filled, but since the staff member did not inform arriving students of this, many were parallel parking along the sides of the caution tape. Faced with the alternative of heading to the exact opposite side of campus to park in Lot 17, I parallel parked in that area.

Of course, when I returned to my car at 9:00 PM, I had received a parking ticket for parking in an improper area (placed in a Glad bag against the drizzle for my convenience). The time on the ticket was 3:10 PM. Rather than enforcing this policy when it mattered, when students were being told they should park "to the right," the UMBC Police seem to have waited until the barriers were taken down before cruising the lot for violations.

Would it have taken that much additional effort to inform the police of what was going on, enlisting their assistance to guide parking or to exercise lenience due to the lack of available spaces? Couldn't the staff member have looked behind her to see that the spaces were empty, and told students so, rather than telling them they should park there? Could the people have at least blocked off the lot with a straight line, maximizing the number of spaces available for use? Is this a case even worth appealing, or will I be slapped with the ticket price plus an additional "processing fee" when I am told that it was MY responsibility to know that the UMBC staff member was misinformed?

For heaven's sake, UMBC. It's situations like this that make students want to curse the place that will eventually be our alma mater. You're your own worst enemy.