Susan Dumais, an assistant professor of sociology, uses a projector and a computer purchased with funds from the student technology fee every day in her classes.
“At the very least, I would need a transparency projector,” Dumais said. “I think that to retain student’s attention, though, we need to be more high-tech.”
A student technology fee of $75 is assessed every semester and raises an estimated $4.5 million for technology around campus.
This week, Student Government has put a survey on PAWS asking students if they are in classes that use the technology the fee purchases.
Student Senate Speaker Michael Busada said the survey was put up by the student tech fee committee to gauge interest in expanding technology around campus.
“The proposal came up last week [in the student tech fee committee] to use a half-million dollars to equip 25 more classrooms with projectors and make them multimedia-capable,” Busada said. “We wanted to make sure students thought this was a worthwhile expenditure of their money.”
Ginny Couvillon, a public relations sophomore, said the majority of her instructors use multimedia daily.
“I think all the classrooms should be outfitted with the same technology,” Couvillon said. “By the time we enter the corporate world, technology will be one thing we will need knowledge and experience with, and having it in the classroom helps.”
Couvillon said she hadn’t seen the survey, and SG should have publicized the survey so more students could take part in it.
“It’s important, because if we’re not surrounded by technology every day, we’re not being helped,” she said.
Busada said there was some concern among the committee that some of the technology was not being used.
“If it’s not being used, it doesn’t justify equipping 25 more classrooms,” Busada said.
LSU Computing Services Director Ron Hay also sits on the committee with Busada and said the current technology fee can be estimated and broken down into thirds.
Hay said one-third of the $4.5 million goes to maintenance and expansion of public access labs, one-third to multimedia classroom enhancement and one-third to academic and faculty program enhancement.
“We’re trying to make sure we can look people in the face and show that we’re making these investments,” Hay said. “But the question isn’t if we want multimedia classrooms. Eventually, all the rooms will be multimedia driven.”
The survey will be up until Thursday, and Busada said the results will be brought before the student tech fee committee.
“We wanted to hold back spending the money while the survey is implemented,” Busada said. “We wanted to see what students feel about it. We’re going to make a decision that we think best represents what the students want.”