Issue date: 9/22/08 Section: Opinions

Our View
Situation:	The journalism department and communication disorders and sciences departments are requiring freshmen to buy laptops.
Stance:	Students should not have to buy high tech computers because the university cannot sustain its own computer labs.

Yet another cost-cutting process has begun with the laptop initiative starting in two departments. The university is getting pretty close to a fine line that should never be crossed at Eastern.

The journalism department and communication disorders and sciences departments are requiring students to buy laptops with specific parameters for classroom purposes. The journalism department requires the purchase of a Macbook Pro with the Adobe Suites package, and the communication disorders department requires the purchase of a Hewlett-Packard.

The full effects of the journalism initiative will not be seen until 2013 because freshmen entering the university in the fall of 2009 will be the first class required to buy the computers.

The communication disorders and sciences initiative began this semester.

While there is a need to connect students to their technology necessities, requiring a computer purchase to save computer maintenance costs on campus is beyond reason.

"It's pretty clear that the university cannot upgrade and support all of the labs on campus unless the fee is hiked, which is unlikely," said James Tidwell, chair of the journalism department.

He said several studies have shown that students already buy computers upon entering college and simply providing specific components to have added onto that new computer won't burden students too much.

Continued...

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