Cash-strapped college students won’t pay money for
something they can get for free, but Barnard administrators, by
encouraging students to use ROLM phones instead of cell phones, are
trying to convince them to do just that.
Dissapointingly, the Barnard College Student Government
Association, which last week began a publicity campaign in support
of ROLM phones, has recently decided to join the adminstration in
opposing students’ interests. Taken as a whole, this has been
a good semester for student government at Columbia, highlighted by
a burst of creative new ideas and a renewed focus on building
campus community. However, SGA’s attempts to boost ROLM phone
use on campus are an example of the worst form of student
government, actively opposing the best interests of its
constituents.
We are sorry that Barnard is wasting $600,000 a month because
its ROLM phones are idle. No matter how often it happens, it is
never pleasant to see the hard-earned money that students pay to
the College be wasted. But the fact of the matter is that the
advent of cell phones has provided a significantly cheaper and more
convenient way for students to make the same phone calls. Using a
ROLM phone to make a long distance call with the AT&T College
and University Systems phone plan costs eight cents a minute; with
most cell phone plans, students can make the same call for
free.
Even Columbia’s administration has recently moved away
from ROLM phone use, emphasizing e-mail as its primary mode of
communication with students. Instead of trying to convince the
student body to save the College money by wasting their own,
Barnard’s administration should face reality and accomodate
the students’s choice to use cell phone and e-mail over ROLM,
as Columbia has done.
We’re not surprised that Barnard’s administration is
eager to go the extra mile to save money. What is shocking,
however, is SGA’s complicity in supporting a policy that
clearly goes against the best interest of the student body.
SGA president Carolyn Cavaness has taken a position which
effectively proclaims that it is better for her constituents to pay
more for less service. She has ceased to serve those who elected
her. It is not her job to keep Barnard’s books balanced; she
was elected by the student body to represent the interest of the
student body, challenging those of the administration if need be.
Instead, SGA is calling for students to invest extra money to bail
out the administration.
The day of the ROLM phone has come and gone, and the sooner
Barnard College realizes that, the better. In the meantime, we hope
that SGA spends more time representing the students of the College
and less time misguidedly representing the interests of the
College’s administration.��
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