Editor,

Whitman’s new printing management program is either misguided or deceptive. The WCTS email that introduces the program describes it as being part of a “multifaceted campus conservation effort.” If this is the case, then the program is foolish on several counts. First, it seems clear to many students that they may be compelled by their courses to print over the allowed quota; indeed, one friend told me of a course for which she is required to print long articles and bring them to class. Financially penalizing students for printing above the quota when they do not have a choice will not save trees: students are not going to take B’s for the environment. Rather, it will simply cost these students money.

Second, if Whitman feels compelled to further reduce its environmental impact, it should take responsibility for such action itself. Whitman College has far more money than any individual student; if the school is genuinely interested in conservation, it should do so with its own wallet, not with the change purses of its students.

Third, a printing management program needn’t involve a financial stick. I am confident that the students of this campus are environmentally sensitive to the extent that if they were simply routinely reminded of the impact of their printing on the environment: perhaps by a printing prompt displaying the number of trees Whitman has used in the month: they would minimize wasteful printing on their own. Moreover, there is software (such as GreenPrint) that helps reduce print waste without charging money: by eliminating title pages, banners and table of contents from the print queue.

Moreover, even if Whitman insists that students must pay for its beneficence, it could at the very least ensure that the money does go to conservation.

Money paid for printing over the quota should go to an environmental charity. At present, it goes to the school.

This is why I believe the policy is deceptive. Is the school trying to conserve ordinary paper, or green papers decorated with the images of various U.S. presidents? Perhaps both. And that would have been okay if the school had been open about it. Trying to pass off a paper/money saving operation as a pure-hearted conservation initiative, however, is rather sleazy. Whitman should find a new way to conserve paper. If not, it should at least use any money that comes from the printing management program toward the purpose it advertised: conservation.

– Jeremy Guggenheim ’11