Anyone who has ever argued with a roommate via Post-It notes on the fridge could have laughed at the passive-aggressive argument between the administrators in Garrett Hall and the 21 Society that took place over the last week. When a sign announcing that the office had no Course Action Forms and that students should print their own appeared in front of Garrett Hall, the 21 Society responded by placing a box of forms in front of the building, next to a sign questioning the wisdom of the College’s decision to print a sign rather than supplying students with forms.
The problem with that accusation is that the College did not decide to stop providing Course Action Forms. According to Assoc. College Dean Richard Handler, that was a University-wide decision with which the College had to comply. “It is frustrating to the staff to be attacked when they have no control over it, but students don’t think about that,” Handler said.
If it is going to take issue with policies publicly, the 21 Society should make sure it is criticizing the right people. It is clear the 21 Society did not contact anyone in the administration before placing its sign — if it did, it should have gotten its facts straight. Had the society bothered to do some research, it may very well have found the policy of posting forms online for students to be an improvement over the old system. As Handler put it, “Ask before you denounce.”
The decision to have students print their own forms does impose a small cost on students. The convenience of printing the forms in one’s home instead of trekking to Garrett Hall to pick them up, however, probably compensates for the cost of a piece of paper and a little ink. The same number of forms have to be printed either way, so the environmental impact of the two policies is essentially the same.
The new policy probably does save some money for the University, but that is not something to which students should object. With state budget cuts coming down the line, all University departments are looking for small ways to save money without seriously cutting back the services they provide to students. When the University can reduce costs, it should pass those savings on to students — or at least slow the rate at which student fees increase.
The 21 Society also took issue with the money spent on the large sign announcing the change, but the sign was a cost-cutting move as well. The staff at Garrett Hall are annually assailed by thousands of students asking for Course Action Forms, Handler said. Without a sign, the staff would have lost a significant amount of time simply telling students where to print forms. The cost of the sign would be made up for in regained productivity.
Perhaps Garrett Hall should provide a few Course Action Forms, for emergency situations in which students need forms right away. If the 21 Society had wanted to make that point, however, it should have found a better way to do so than an inaccurate, inflammatory diatribe.
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