UNC's printing has gotten more sustainable, though class policies vary

In fall 2015, as many as 88,000 pieces of paper were printed per day from the 60 printers across campus. The average student printed 132 pages during the semester. 

When students need to print readings or assignments, the Carolina Computing Initiative’s printing program offers sustainable printing options. 

Before student government helped Information Technology Services create CCI printing in 2006, the University printed nearly 30 million pages per year, said Jeremiah Joyner, teaching and learning systems manager for ITS. Now, UNC prints only about 8 million pages per year. 

“The unfortunate thing with (the old system) was that people would go in — there was no system behind it — you would just submit your print job, and it would go to a printer, and you’d walk up there and stand with everybody else and try to find your print job,” Joyner said.

Along with purchasing newer, cheaper printers when some of the older models began to break, CCI has measures in place to decrease costs and increase sustainability.

“We always use (30 percent) recycled paper, but we also found a vendor close to here who can sell us remanufactured toner,” Joyner said. “Even though we have expanded the service across campus, our prices really haven’t grown that much. 

“The way that CCI (Printing) is set up is that we know some people are not going to use it, and some people are going to use it a lot, and what we do is that we try to maintain our budget, and we try to stay within the kind of constraints of what it has cost before.”

Environment and ecology professor Gregory Gangi does not require his students to print their required readings every night in an attempt to save paper. 

“It just makes a lot of sense with electronic storage. You can put something on the cloud, and students can access it,” Gangi said. “It doesn’t make any sense to waste reams of paper anymore.”

Gangi said he still uses paper exams because grading is easier and he said online tests can tempt students to cheat.

“I guess my apprehension about ever going to an e-exam would be would it be under control? If it’s still paper and pencil it’s harder to cheat, and if someone does it’s pretty obvious because their eyes aren’t where they’re supposed to be,” he said.

Gangi said he believes laptops and other technology create a distraction in class. He said he was nearly able to ban them because he does not require his students to bring in an electronic or tangible copy of their last night’s reading.

“Everything that has to do with paper is basically something you’d have to do outside of class,” Gangi said. “I guess my students do use paper for taking notes because I really discourage laptops.”

History professor Matthew Andrews said he also banned technology from his classes after his students were more engrossed in the 2015 NCAA basketball tournament than in his lectures.

Unlike Gangi, Andrews does require his students to have a copy of their readings during class.

“It’s changed dramatically. They used to not have to print anything because I let them bring their laptops in, and everyone looked at the documents on laptops,” Andrews said. “But last semester, for the first time, I banned laptops from my classes.”

Andrews said he estimates that each of his 385 students prints approximately 100 pages of reading per semester.

“There’s no perfect system here,” he said. “One system is students are not following the rules and doing things with their computers that I’ve asked them not to do, and I hate playing police officer and getting in a cat and mouse game with them, but I also love trees.”

Andrews said he thought computers could be used in his classes if there was a way to block students from accessing the internet, but overall he said he is happy about the way his classroom is run.

“No one has complained. A few people have told me they liked it — they didn’t think they were going to like it, but they did,” Andrews said. “But I’m pleased with it because it has stopped a lot of distractions in our class.”

Joyner said he believes one day, with the help of technology, UNC can become nearly paperless. Suzanne Cadwell, interim director of teaching and learning for ITS, said she disagrees and believes creating a paperless learning environment would not benefit some students. 

“We have students coming from various economic backgrounds and experiences and access to technology. You might have a student that is very well provisioned throughout his or her high school experience, and everything becomes second nature electronically,” Cadwell said.

“That’s not necessarily going to be the case with students from more disadvantaged economic backgrounds or school systems.”

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