When Kimberley Higgs was in the library watching students who were printing pages throw away unused paper and run off long documents using only one side of the sheet, it inspired her to make a difference.
“It’s a huge waste of paper to just print single-sided,” Higgs said. “And people don’t know how to print PowerPoint (files), so they really waste a lot of resources.”

Higgs decided to help other students use paper more conservatively. She asked friend Justin Saydell to bring her idea to life.
Through the University of Idaho Sustainability Center, the two UI seniors were awarded $10,000 to implement a double-sided printing policy in all 19 ITS computer labs.

Locations include the Student Union Building, the Idaho Commons and the basements of McConnell Hall, Theophilus Tower and the Wallace Residence Center.
Saydell and Higgs are one of seven teams the UISC has awarded money to since its creation in fall, said director Rose Keller.

Alecia M. Hoene, project coordinator for the UISC, said the center is allowed to grant up to $20,000 per semester, but has given more in spring due to fund rollover.
Saydell said his familiarity with the UISC’s policies helped while drafting the proposal.

“Basically, we just followed procedure,” he said. “We knew the Sustainability Center was looking for projects that would make a difference on campus. And since we could visibly see people running low on their paper usage, we thought teaching people how to use (double-siding printing) would save them paper.”
Hoene thought it was a good idea as well.

“Creating less waste, whether it be in the form of paper, food, energy, etc., is beneficial to the university on so many levels. It is a win-win situation. In this case, students save money by printing fewer pages per semester. They also develop a broader awareness of the connection between their own activities and the amount of waste generated on campus,” she wrote in an e-mail.

Hoene also said she believes the project helps the school because it “will have to purchase less paper and do less waste paper processing, saving university operations money as well.”
Financial benefit is why Chuck Lanham, ITS associate director of administrative technologies, agreed to advise Higgs and Saydell’s project.

“We’ve been dealing with this for quite a long time,” he said. “When Justin and Kimberley approached me about the grant and the idea to educate students on proper printing methods, we were fully behind it to help students make better choices and to save students money.”
Over the years, Lanham and ITS have seen printing on campus evolve and adapt to students’ needs.

“At its peak, we were quickly approaching $100,000 a year out of the student tech fee going toward paper, toner and printers for the student labs,” Lanham said.
To curb costs, ITS implemented a 250-page quota after discovering 98 percent of students used “much fewer” than that. Though there were exceptions.

“The extreme example was one student at the time who printed over 7,000 pages in one semester,” Lanham said. “We were able to find out that student was running a small business using our computer labs.”
At first, the limit was on a use-it-or-lose-it basis. With quotas now rolling over between semesters, students could stock up 500 pages a year, which may be handy later.

“We found freshmen don’t necessarily do a lot of printing,” Lanham said. “But as a senior or grad student, you do use have a lot. ... By the time you’re a senior, maybe you have hundreds of pages built up for when you really need it.”
With the ball rolling on their project, Higgs and Saydell are trying to get word of it out to students.
“Originally, we came up with the idea of mouse pads,” Saydell said. “They would have instructions on how to print double-sided. ... We also have first drafts of posters ready.”
His friend sophomore Jessie Krumpe came up with the project’s educational slogan: “Twice is nice at half the price.”

They are also taking it straight to the source: the computer monitors.
“We have designed and worked with ITS to implement an icon on computer lab desktops,” he said. “Students can click to find out helpful printing tips like double-sided printing.”
Saydell said the icons will appear some time early this week.

	1. 20-03-2007 01:45
	I had to get my own laser printer... I wish that at least some of my printing could be done double-sided, but that is a feature I have to do without since getting my own HP LaserJet printer to handle the 1,000+ pages per semester I end up rolling through. Double sided printing is a feature that my printer lacks.    It actually is cheaper for me to print with this than to pay to increase my print quota (though most people can't beat $0.05 a page), but the main reason I went this route was convenience. Yes, it is nice having a high speed laser printer at home. :)    Instead of e-mailing myself a file or putting it on my thumb drive, then walking to the library and printing it and digging through the 50+ pages already sitting ontop of the printer...I can have my laptop with me anywhere and build a print que that will automatically process when I get home and plug in my USB hub. It's great when I have a 40 page que built up because everything coming out of that printer is mine, and I don't have to dig through my documents to find another person's english paper hiding in there. Convenient indeed. :) Registered

cliffm

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