On Printing Less: Building Sustainable
Relationships
In demonstrating our commitment to sustainability, LTS is
working closely with multiple campus partners to reduce
printing at Lehigh. This initiative is being facilitated by
PaperCut, a software solution that allows us to better track
and manage campus printing.
This fall with the support of the Student Senate, the Lehigh
Environmental Advisory Group, the Green Action Student Group,
and Lehigh’s Sustainability Coordinator, LTS rolled out a
new print management solution, PaperCut.
As part of
this initiative, each student is given $75.00 worth of free
public site printing or about 1500 free pages per academic
year (graduate students are granted an additional $25 or 500
prints, if needed). After this annual printing allowance is
exhausted, students will need to pay five cents per page.
According
to a Brown and White editorial, the new printing allowance
“forces students, faculty and staff to be much more aware of
their environmental footprint.”
There are several trends in higher education that contribute
to a decreased reliance on printing. Among these are:
-
Faculty-driven initiatives in running paperless classes
(see LTS Connection article on
e-textbooks and iPads)
-
Increasingly green-aware students comfortable with
social media and digital content
-
High
adoption rates of mobile devices like laptops, smart
phones, and tablet devices
-
New
software tools that enable e-reading
-
New
publishing and content dissemination models that
emphasize e-books
Faculty
are encouraged to contact their college’s instructional
technologist if they are interested in strategies to help
reduce student printing. This is an important project to
further our collective commitment to sustainable practices.
LTS shares
Lehigh’s commitment to increased awareness of printing and
decreased campus paper consumption. More information about
printing at Lehigh can be found at
http://www.lehigh.edu/print/.
--James Young
Article posted October,
2011
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