On Wednesday, Jan. 29, sociology professor Maristella Tapia addressed the DASB Senate regarding her concerns over the lack of a campus wide faculty printing budget.

At the meeting, she explained that De Anza College faculty are facing severe restrictions on printing for class handouts because of the current low budget.

She said that in three years, there will be no budget for faculty printing and administrators have been unresponsive to this issue.

Tapia asked DASB senators to help create a solution for the problem.

She said the policy has affected her instruction and the quality of her students’ education.

“My classes have become more boring,” she told DASB Senate.

She explained that she often assigns reading that she was previously able to print and hand out in class for discussion.

She now assigns online reading, which students are less likely to print and bring to class.

“Students prioritize printing things that they will be graded for rather than something that will not be graded,” she said.

In a phone interview with La Voz after the meeting, Tapia said the printing restrictions are a result of the elimination of material fees.

“The college was forced to stop collecting materials fees, part of which we used for copies, and the problem is that nothing was put in place to replace that budget,” she said.

The materials fees that used to be collected by De Anza served for making copies of instructional aids for students, syllabi, readings, etc.

“The funds currently being used come from the money that was left over from the collection of materials fees and, from what we have been told, this money will be gone in three years,” she said.

“No one is working on a budget or a sustainable solution,” she said.

At the meeting, Tapia announced a campuswide meeting that will be held sometime in February to “ask De Anza administration to commit to working together with students, faculty and division leaders to find a permanent, sustainable budget solution.”

“We (faculty) want the college to put in place a college-wide budget for printing.”