To the editor:

I am writing to correct some misconceptions that may exist as a result of Aaron Woell’s column about the Brown Route and ethernet access in the residence halls. His column includes several statements that are not accurate.

“However, due to the whims of somebody in the housing office, some students end up where they might not prefer to be, and are inconvenienced by not being able to walk to class in a reasonable amount of time.”

“Whim” has nothing to do with it. Room assignments are made according to the date the application was received.

Residents of the Towers tend to be either returning residents who chose Towers over other options or new students whose first choice was no longer available.

“On top of that, the university (or Government of the Student Body or whoever) wants to charge them for the privilege of riding a bus when such an option is the only logical solution to their problem.”

The organization that is charging for riding the bus is not the university or GSB, it’s the bus company.

No university group makes money from the bus service.

The initial proposal that was placed before Inter-Residence Hall Association by their leadership would give all residence hall students the opportunity to get a 33 percent discount on a bus pass that would allow them to use any route.

This discount was subsidized by the $55,000 in the Department of Residence budget for the Brown Route that only Towers residents can currently use.

This proposal would have given all students who contribute to the $55,000 pool an equal opportunity to benefit from it.

That proposal was dropped because the Towers Residence Association voted to support an alternate plan.

The TRA proposal charges each Towers resident $35 to ride the Brown Route for the entire academic year.

They felt that most of their residents were only interested in the Brown Route and would rather pay $35 for that option than $66 for a pass to ride any route. IRHA voted to accept the Towers recommendation.

This is the reason why only Towers residents will pay for the Brown Route bus pass next year. Apparently both of these student-elected student government groups believe this is a logical solution.

“But computers are relatively new inventions and most people do not have one … it is illogical for the Department of Residence to assume everyone has one and soak the non-users with additional costs.”

As of this month, there were 4,029 active ethernet connections in the residence halls: 64 percent of student rooms, 51 percent of all residence hall students, 44 percent of freshmen and 60 percent of upperclassmen in residence halls are already paying to have ethernet in their rooms.

By comparison, in October of 1996, only 1,335 students had ethernet in their rooms. This is more than 200 percent growth in ethernet usage in three years.

In a DOR Quality of Life Survey administered this past November, 60.6 percent of undergraduate residence hall students indicated they had a computer in their room compared to 45.6 percent only two years ago.

The ethernet proposal was placed before IRHA because it is apparent that computer and ethernet usage is growing dramatically and this proposal provides economic and service benefits for those students who use ethernet.

It also seems logical to assume that if the cost of this service were included in the room rate, even more students would use it. In any event, the DOR makes no income on ethernet.

The entire charge is passed to Telecommunications for their cost of providing the service.

Finally, this proposal was offered only as an option, not a mandatory addition to the room rate.

We simply wanted student leaders to be aware of the option. IRHA student leaders have the power to approve it or disapprove it.

“Besides, the Department of Residence already charges you for the privilege of using the computer labs.”

The DOR does not operate the computer labs Woell refer to. We provide space for labs used to teach English courses.

The labs are available for other student use when classes are not scheduled.

The DOR receives no revenues from these labs.

In one breath Woell argues it is appropriate to charge all residents for a bus service less than 25 percent of them are eligible to use. In the next, he maintains it is not appropriate to charge all residents for a service a rapidly growing majority already utilize.

Woell said he believes in fairness.

In the interest of fairness and accuracy, I encourage him to check the facts more carefully before his column is published.

This information is readily available.

All he has to do is ask.

Randy Alexander

Director

Department of Residence