Pitt schools consider joining Collegiate Readership Program

If other Pitt schools agree, undergraduate non-College of General Studies students might see a… If other Pitt schools agree, undergraduate non-College of General Studies students might see a cheaper price tag for the Collegiate Readership Program.

The $33,600 program, which provides paper and online access to The New York Times and USA Today, will return to campus on March 13.

But Student Government Board President James Landreneau said that he wants to find alternative funding for the program and has sent a proposal to the student governments of the College of General Studies and Pitt’s graduate and professional schools.

The proposal would have the CGS Student Government and the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly pay $1,200 and $8,000 a year, respectively, for the Collegiate Readership Program. Currently, the program is paid for entirely by the Student Activities Fund, which is amassed from the $80 Student Activities Fee that non-CGS undergraduate students pay each semester.

“We might need to go back and forth before we settle on a number,” Landreneau said, referring to the portion of the total cost each school would pay. “The initial push is out there.”

Both CGS Student Government President Pat Szczepanski and GPSA President Nyasha Hungwe responded positively to the prospects of joining in on the Collegiate Readership Program but upheld cost as the main remaining issue.

“Anything that gives something more to our students is a positive thing,” Szczepanski said. “It is probably going to be a numbers issue.”

Landreneau said he based the values for the proposal on a formula he and SGB Allocations Chair Michael Nites devised. The formula takes into account the number of students at each school — 1,151 in CGS, 10,339 governed by the GPSA and 18,427 undergraduate non-CGS — and the number of drop boxes located near each school. A total of seven drop boxes will be positioned throughout campus.

“We used the formula as a base, but we adjusted the numbers to be realistic,” Nites said.

He said that the initial formula calculated GPSA’s charge to be around $12,000, but that number was lowered to increase the probability that the school would sign on to the program.

Prior to the Collegiate Readership Program’s public reinstatement at an SGB meeting on Jan. 31, the Board decided over winter break to halt the program because some of the papers were being picked up by students, faculty and staff who weren’t footing the bill. The Board voted to bring the newspapers back in locked drop boxes, which will require students to swipe their Pitt ID cards to gain access to the papers.

Szczepanski said that the CGS Government — composed of a president, three members and a divisional director — will meet on Friday to discuss the proposal.

CGS’s money for the program would come from its Student Activities Fee, which the students pay each semester — $80 for full-time students and $24 for part-time students.

She said that CGS students would benefit more from the online access to the publications provided by the program because many CGS students are only around at night. Currently, CGS students do not have access to the online edition of the program.

But Szczepanski said she and Landreneau have discussed potentially moving some of the drop boxes so that more students from CGS and graduate and professional schools would have access to the papers.

Landreneau announced tentative locations for the boxes at an SGB meeting earlier this month. He said the current plan is to have two drop boxes located in Benedum Hall, two in the William Pitt Union and one each in Sutherland Hall, Posvar Hall and Litchfield Towers lobby.

Szczepanski does not know where or how many drop boxes would be moved to accommodate CGS students.

GPSA President Nyasha Hungwe said that he discussed the program with his Board, comprised of five members, and they voted last week to unanimously support the Collegiate Readership Program.

But he said that GPSA does not have the depth of funding that SGB has — with about $100,000 to allocate — and Hungwe wants to seek out alternative funding and plans to further discuss the specific Collegiate Readership Program costs for GPSA with Landreneau.

GPSA administers half of the graduate student activity fee, which comes from the $20 fee that full-time graduate and professional students pay each semester.

“It is a great system and grad students use these papers,” Hungwe said. “It’s simply a matter of cost … How can we pay for it in a way that is sustainable for GPSA and SGB?”