Papers program goes to vote

An online survey to determine the future of the USA Today Readership Program opened… An online survey to determine the future of the USA Today Readership Program opened yesterday for students, and the feedback is already coming in.

In the first seven hours of the vote, 452 students had voiced their opinions, with 82 percent of the students voting “yes” to permanently bring The New York Times and USA Today to campus, daily, for the price of $2.50 per undergraduate student, per semester.

“I actually thought it was kind of surprising that there aren’t even more yeses,” Perry Servedio, public relations chair for the Student Government Board said.

While Servedio is “kind of happy” with the 82 percent “yes” vote, he would like to hear from the minority, as well.

“What kind of concerns me is I don’t know what kind of students are voting ‘no,’ students are welcome to e-mail anyone on the board with their comments, especially the people who are voting ‘no,'” Servedio said.

“For five bucks a year, that’s a great deal, that’s about a week’s worth of papers if you buy it somewhere else,” student Andy Becker said. “What’s five more dollars in our tuition on top of the 15,000 we pay now?”

While the vote will be “pretty integral” toward deciding whether or not the program will be instated, SGB is also listening to feedback from student e-mails, verbal feedback from students and surveys being conducted by representatives from the readership program.

“While I would have liked to see the money for this taken from somewhere else, I still think that this is a great thing for the school,” student Matt Miller said. “To bring two big-name papers onto campus makes me feel a lot more informed about national news.”

Other nearby schools, including Carnegie Mellon University, Penn State University, Duquesne University and West Virginia University, are all subscribers to the USA Today Readership Program.