Victory: Library hours extended May 4th – May 19th

So the administration definitely listens. A week ago, Dr. Elliot Hirschman chose to present to the president and other members of the President Council, a pilot program (that extends the library hours by 2 hours one the week before final exam) to keep the library open for longer hours at least a week before the exams. He gave SGA senators who have been working towards this goal a chance to speak to the council and present our case. We did so and they were impressed. The President’s council decided to fund the extra $1500 cost of opening the library for later hours from May 4^th – May 19^th. They want to look at this two week test period and other statistics on library usage to decide whether or not to extend the library hours in the future.

So this two week period will be a test run. We as students need to show them that

1. We’re thankful that they paid attention to our needs.

2. We actually do need these longer hours, not only during the exam week but otherwise as well.

So, we need to make sure that every UMBC student is aware that the library will be open for longer hours during those two weeks. We need to use the space and show that we need the space.

Here are the exact dates and hours of services:

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
	May 4th 8am – 2am	May 5th 8am – 2am	May 6th 8am – 2am	May 7th 8am – 2am	May 8th 8am – 10pm	May 9th 10am –10pm
May 10th Noon – 2am	May 11th 8am – 2am	May 12th 8am – 2am	May 13th 8am – 2am	May 14th EXAM DAY 8am – 2am	May 15th EXAM DAY 8am – 10pm	May 16th 10am– 10pm
May 17th Noon – 2am	May 18th EXAM DAY 8am – 2am	May 19th EXAM DAY 8am – 2am	May 20th EXAM DAY 8am – 9pm	May 21st 8am – 5pm

The atrium is still open 24/7

Hours of service desks

Library Media

Monday-Thursday 8:30am – 11pm

Friday 8:30am – 6pm

Saturday 11am – 6pm

Sunday Noon – 11pm

Reference/Information

Monday – Thursday 9am – 9pm

Friday - 9am – 6pm

Saturday Noon – 6pm

Sunday Noon – 8pm

Gallery

M,Tu,W,F Noon – 4pm

Th Noon – 8pm

Serials

Monday – Thursday 8am – 10:30pm

Friday 8am – 6pm

Saturday 10am – 6pm

Sunday Noon–10:30pm

Slide Library – in room 216 in Fine Arts Building

Monday – Friday 9pm – 4pm

Special Collections

Monday – Friday 1pm – 4pm

Thursday, May 14^th 1pm – 8pm

Transcript Fee: The Saga Continues

Quite a number of things have taken place since the Senate meeting last month where the transcript fee was discussed with Mrs. Yvette Mozie-Ross and Dr. Steve Robinson. A large number of students were in attendance, but for those who were not (or those interested in reviewing the discussion), the official minutes have been posted here.

The plan post-meeting has been for the SGA President to send a letter to President Hrabowski, a move that has been delayed by the recent shifts in SGA's leadership.

Last week, SGA President Gabe Rettaliata sent an official letter to President Hrabowski concerning this fee. At this point, it's been about 2 business days since the letter has been received and we are currently awaiting a response.

Relevant contact information is as follows:

Yvette Mozie-Ross: mozie@umbc.edu
Dr. Steve Robinson: robinsos@umbc.edu
SGA President Gabe Rettaliata: gabriel2@umbc.edu
SGA Speaker of the Senate Rahilla Tarfa: rat1@umbc.edu
Myself: michael.c@umbc.edu

Click here to see all Zwybak posts on this issue.

Public Transcript Fee Discussion

Tonight, the SGA Senate hosted an open discussion with Yvette Mozie-Ross (Vice Provost for Enrollment Management) and Dr. Steve Robinson (Registrar) about the $8 per transcript fee that students are being charged. This is a discussion that has been going on with administrators and SGA members for some time, but tonight involved both SGA members and about forty other concerned students.

I was very excited to see so many students take the time out of their evening to attend this meeting. Their commentary was both insightful and respectful, and those present demonstrated a willingness to work towards some kind of a compromise that would help alleviate the current burden on the student body. At this time, the sentiment of compromise was not reflected in the responses by Mozie-Ross and Robinson.

Because Credentials, Inc. charges only $2 for their transcript processing, many questions were raised by students about where the additional $6 was going. While no budgetary figures were presented by Mozie-Ross and Robinson, one area where money was described as going toward was the development of digital transcripts in a secure .pdf format, that would expire after a certain amount of time.

The minutes from this meeting will be posted as usual on SGA's announcements blog. I'm interested in hearing any further reactions to the meeting from students who had to leave early or were unable to attend.

Finally, it was stated by Mozie-Ross that when the transcript fee was still in the planning stages, she and Robinson consulted with then-SGA president, Jay Lagorio, along with the president of the Graduate Student Association. She said that a $10 fee was proposed to Jay, and after objections were voiced a "compromise" of $8 per transcript was reached.

I took the liberty of contacting Jay myself, and he said he was initially approached about a low per transcript fee that would be under $5. He raised objections to something that high, but agreed that $1-2 would be reasonable to pay for better transcript services (incidentially, $2/transcript is what Credentials charges). Jay also supported the development of a secure .pdf transcript format because that way, graduating students could get a single transcript and use it again and again, since there is no envelope to unseal and a digital signature would verify that the document had not been altered. Clearly, a .pdf with an "expiration date" runs contrary to this idea.

Hopefully this information will resolve any confusion in the minds of students about the role of last year's SGA administration in this process. Contact information for people involved is as follows:

Jay Lagorio: lagorio1@umbc.edu
Yvette Mozie-Ross: mozie@umbc.edu
Dr. Steve Robinson: robinsos@umbc.edu
Gabe Rettaliata (current Speaker of the SGA Senate): gabriel2@umbc.edu
Myself: michael.c@umbc.edu

Nobody Knows What's Going On?

Advertising is a critical factor of getting students to come to events and generally just participate in campus life activities. UMBC already provides a number of systems for advertisement, including myUMBC spotlights, the Commons iNet, various bulletin boards around campus. Some things cost money, while others are provided free as services.

In practice, the various aspects of UMBC's advertising system are controlled by numerous departments and even third party companies. The televisions in the Commons are part of the iNet system and controlled by Commonvision. Also under their jurisdiction is the LED sign on the side of the UC. Both of these services can be utilized free of charge by submitting ads via their website, umbc.edu/uc/commonvision. They can also put up banners in various locations around the Commons, like Main Street, and posters on their bulletin boards.

The digital sign in the Engineering building is part of the spotlight system. A spotlight ad can be placed free of charge through myUMBC, and will appear both on this sign and on the home page of UMBC. Remember that it's a good idea to have some kind of image prepared to submit along with your advertisement.

Some free ad space is available in the Retriever Weekly, courtesy of SGA. This space can be used by working with SGA's Department of Communications (contact person: Nikki Ward). Other ad space can be purchased by contacting TRW's advertising manager, Zak Bratcher (phone: 410-455-1261, email: TRW's contact form). Large-scale ads can be placed on the Starlight Media pavillions (outside the UC and between the library and the commons) for a fee.

With so many different places to go, is it at all surprising that things aren't advertised to a greater extent? Would it not be better to have a syngle system where students could submit an ad, select where they want it to be displayed, and pay any applicable fees? At the very least, the inclusion of third party space like Starlight Media creates barriars to effective communication with the student body. While those pavillions are very visible, purchasing the space is prohibatively expensive for most groups. Using them also requires the action of a party that clearly has no vested interested in our campus, as evidenced by their dismal updating and maintainence schedule.

The institution of UMBC should take back spaces like that from third parties and consolidate more confusing places like iNet with something simple, like myUMBC. By making advertising space more accessable and ensuring that the people managing it actually care about helping students get their messages out, UMBC can start a positive cycle where potential activities are both easier to advertise and easier to discover.

UMBC: Its Own Worst Enemy, Part 3

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 Wednesday in the Hilltop parking lot, and many students have experienced with the posting "policy."

Show me a student who has had an issue with Student Billing, and I will show you a student who feels like leaving UMBC for good. While the billing process is understandably complex, it seems that a number of problems could be avoided if the people behind the computers in the Bursar's Office would do a cursory check of the items before hitting "send bill." Like many other situations at UMBC, communication between offices (in this case, financial aid, food services, etc.) and the enforcement arm (student billing) is abominable.

As somebody who is here on a scholarship, I have run into numerous problems as soon as I started making "nonstandard" choices, like living at Walker Avenue or off-campus, as I do currently. One of these problems are the so-called "refund" checks that get sent out when not all of the scholarship money is used. If you aren't taking advantage of student housing or meal plans, the value of your scholarship is reduced (another issue for another time). Unfortunately for students, this reduction occurs after "refunds" have already been sent out. The same situation occurs if you sign up for a meal plan.

What compounds this problem is that later, when the billing folks realize what's been doing on, you'll get slapped with a huge bill "DUE NOW," essentially demanding all the money you were "refunded" back. If you're not careful, they'll have forgotten to undo some of their previous steps, like increasing your scholarship once you sign up for a meal plan, and you'll end up paying the university extra!

How does this work in practice? Here's an example from my experience this fall.

• I sign up for classes, do not sign up for student housing, and have not yet selected a meal plan. "Refund" check is issued before the semester has even started.
• First day of classes, I sign up for a 10 meal plan.
  
• I am told that because I'm not signed up for housing or a meal plan, my scholarship has been reduced. Huge bill appears on my university account.
• Meal plan is billed, in addition to the previous bill.
• I end up with large bill, "DUE NOW," with numbers that are inaccurate. Of course, because it is due now, I am expected to pay this amount without question if I don't want late charges to be assessed.

Would it really be that hard for the various branches of the university to just talk to each other? Or perhaps to send out these ridiculous refund checks, say, in the second week of the semester, when most of these confounding decisions have already been made? If these things are assessed at certain times, could those dates be made public so students can ensure that they have selected everything they need before scholarships are reduced, refund checks are sent out, and large bills are demanded?

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.

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.

A Day in Annapolis...

I just got back from Annapolis a few minutes ago. I attended for three main reasons today:
1. attend the Budget hearing for UMBC in the House of Delegates
2. attend a hearing on SB 15 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0015f.pdf), SB 40 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0040f.pdf), and SB 591 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0591f.pdf)-- all bills addressing in-state tuition for non-legal residents
3. attend a hearing on SB 81 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0081f.pdf) and SB 657 (http://mlis.state.md.us/2008RS/bills/sb/sb0657f.pdf)- bills addressing the selection and sale of textbooks

Budget Hearing
At the Budget hearing in the House, President Hrabowski did a masterful job representing our institution. Highlighting the research strengths, diversity, rising retention rates, and others, Dr. Hrabowski impressed legislators. He highlighted some of our challenges, including a limited number of bachelor's degrees, our age, and cost-cutting measures over the past decade, he stressed the importance of full-funding. The Department of Legislative services suggested cutting 6.8 million from our budget--Dr. H stressed why it was so important for the legislature to maintain funding. Further questions were raised about our distribution of financial aid, comparing the rates of financial aid for athletes at UMBC to College Park. Our rates for need are reserved about 19% for athletes, while at College Park, the rate is 7%. Dr. Hrabowski responded that much of our "financial need" aid is hidden in the name of merit scholarship via the scholarship programs and university scholarships. He highlighted that this money is more likely to attract students when it is "prestigious." Yet, I think this is something we might want to look more into. Finally, questions were raised regarding the capacity and efficiency of our teacher education program. We have consistently decreased over the past few years and graduate somewhere around 40 teachers a year. Dr. Hrabowski distracted these comments by highlighting the Sherman Scholars program and our work in STEM (Science, techonology, engineering, and math) fields, as well as in high-needs schools. In fact, the highlight students for the presentation were two Sherman Scholars. Yet, what was not highlighted was our extremely low number of teachers and our inability to cosnsitently attract teacher candidates to pursue STEM fields outside of the Sherman program. In all, Dr. Hrabowski was masterful as usual--expect UMBC to fare well in the budget process.

In-state tuition for Illegal Aliens
I was out of the room for most of this hearing, but did have the opportunity to testify on Senate Bill 15. If you recall, SB 15 does not allow legal in-state residents, who currently receive in-state tuition discounts, to actually receive this commodity. Wherein students at UMBC would be significantly impacted, I spoke on behalf of the SGA against the use of the language "citizen" as opposed to "legal resident." I was specific in delineating that the UMBC SGA was not taking a position on the bill otherwise. An amendment ended up being proposed by the sponsor to change the language to allow legal residents to receive in-state tuition.

Many individuals came to speak for this bill. My analysis is that this bill will pass. It passed in 2003, but was vetoed by Governor Ehrlich. With a new Governor, I see this bill passing and being signed.


Textbook Legislation
Okay--so there are two major bills here that were up for consideration. The first, SB 81, requires universities to publish textbook lists once submitted by the professor. It also requires the publication of ISBN numbers to help students identify their textbook at other sources. I testified in support of this bill with slight amendments. First, I testified explaining that textbook selections should not be submitted until the process of ensuring textbook availability is finalized. Sometimes, if a professor selects a book that is unavailable, they are forced to select a different book. This would ensure that students do not purchase the wrong textbook in this case. We also proposed a deadline for submission of textbook selections six weeks before classes begin. Our comments were in agreement with those of the University System of Maryland.

SB 657- This bill is very complex (see links attached). Here are the points we talked on:

• Support requiring textbook publishers to provide information regarding the costs and changes to textbooks (B & C)
• Oppose quantifying textbook material with a percentage and requiring professors to follow rigid guidelines for selecting textbooks (D)
• Support restrictions on bundling (E)
• Support early publication of textbook selections (G)
• Support publishing details pertaining to textbook selections (G)
• Oppose limiting the use of revenues specifically to the use of lowering textbook costs; many of these revenues are used to offset costs across campus and contribute to financial aid for students (H)

I summarized stressing the importance of passing some sort of bill--taking baby steps. Textbooks are very expensive, and while legislators and administrators like to consider textbooks to be a mandatory cost of education, students often do not purchase textbooks. And if students do not have textbooks, they will likely struggle in their courses. The more expensive textbooks become, the more unlikely students will be to buy them.


Feel free to comment on these bills and others.

Until next time,
Josh